Adventures in foundation piecing

An addition to my quilting library last year was this book by Juliet van der Heijden (tartankiwi patterns).  The animal patterns were all very enticing, but I finally settled on "Howl" -- the wolf pattern, as it would be ideal for a quilt for an upcoming baby.

The patterns are quite large -- the wolf is one of the smaller ones with a 20" block.  The patterns are easily printed on 8 1/2" x 11" paper using the CD that is included in the back of the book.

I decided I wanted my wolf reversed from the way the pattern is designed, so I printed off my pattern using the mirror image command.

Then I made a cup of coffee, put on some music (Jonathan Antoine), and settled down to prepare my foundations.

First I cut out the sections and assembled them in roughly the correct configuration, using the "maps" in the book.  Fabric choices are not indicated on the foundations.  I studied the colour diagram and used coloured pencils to block in the fabrics where I wanted them.  For fairly large pieces like these I prefer to use freezer paper for my foundations, so once everything was labelled, I set up my light table and traced each piece and all my notes onto freezer paper.  This wasn't a quick process -- I think I listened all the way through my music several times.

Printed foundations with notes about fabric placement. 

Each foundation was traced onto freezer paper. 

The sewing step was fun.  There is that eagerness to finish just one more section so you can watch the picture come to life.

All the sections are completed and it is time to sew the block together!

I framed the block and extended the "night sky" fabric to the edge of the quilt.  I chose the column of Plus Sign blocks to balance the quilt and give it a bit of a modern look. 

The new parents were very pleased with the quilt, although they have decided that it depicts a coyote, not a wolf!

Success! I really did USE UP a scrap!

I quilted a little table mat this week.  Trimmed up the edges and started looking for binding.  My calculations determined I needed to bind an edge 60 inches long.

I came up with this piece of fabric -- exactly the right colour.  It was less than 7.5 by 10.5 inches, though.  

I cut the piece into six strips just over an inch wide.  (This is a table mat, so a single layer binding will be fine.)

I joined the strips with tiny seams, abandoning my usual diagonal joins to conserve fabric.  Then I pressed under 1/4 inch along one edge.  Measured it -- this looks like it will work.

Then I sewed the binding into place.  It reached all the way around with enough for a seam.  There was even a tiny bit left over!  

 I'm very pleased to have this tiny UFO done, and I'm ridiculously happy about using up that bit of fabric!

Some finished quilts

As a new season of quilting starts up it is time to clear the decks a bit.  Several small projects that were made as class samples have been quilted and bound over the summer and are on their way to the regional hospital for use in the preemie ward.

Starting with a square and adding frames is a process with lots of possibilities.  This little quilt used strips made of random sized scraps for the frames.  Using one fabric for all the light areas adds a bit of unity.

Making framed squares and then cutting them into quarter blocks leads to the popular Bento Box pattern.  Perhaps the pattern gets lost a bit with all those fabrics, but it is definitely cheery.

After all the scrappy fabrics in the previous two quilts it was time to make a top using only three fabrics.  The blue was the middle band in each block and that gave the opportunity to create a path through the yellow and butterscotch squares.

The bin of flannel scraps never seems to end.  It took only a few strips to piece a backing.

Sampler quilt

This year our annual Friends' Challenge required us to use our initials to choose colours, blocks, and quilting designs.  My challenge piece was this Sampler Quilt which was made as a Block of the Month project in the sewing group.  Actually it was more of a Section of the Month -- each month participants were given the dimensions of the next section which they could then proceed to complete using whatever blocks and patterns they wished.  The results were all fantastic, and they were all completely different from one another. 

My version of the sampler uses a number of blocks beginning with D (my middle initial).  You can see Dresden Plates, Diamond Stars, and Delectable Mountains.  

My colours began with L.  I used Lemon, Licorice, and Lead.  And I called the white areas Linen (though that really isn't a colour name, but I liked it!).  

To complete the initials, I quilted with R patterns -- Right Angles, some Round bubbles, and a lot of Random lines.  

I like the way the quilting enhanced these basic little Rail Fence blocks.  

I seldom do a sampler project.  This one was an adventure all the way through and I am pleased that it manages to look reasonably coordinated in the end. 

More baby quilts

The sewing group has an on-going project of making quilts for the regional hospital.  I find it simple to make class samples in the size needed for preemies. I love how this lets me have projects to show the group, uses some stash, adds to the stack for the babies.  Winning all around!

Lots of 8-pointed stars have been made lately.  Extra donated blocks make a cheerful quilt.

Can't play with diamond stars without making one of these!  Might have used the last bit of that blue Hawaiian fabric, too.

Hunter's Star is another beloved variation of stars made with diamonds.  

Little Memory Quilts -- blankets given to mothers who have lost an infant.  Donated fabrics. 

Piecing Adventures

I’ve been enjoying a new book.  Modern Quilt Magic: 5 Parlor Tricks to Expand Your Piecing Skills by Victoria Findlay Wolfe.  

Her first “parlor trick” is the partial seam.  And her designs are of the type I’ve looked at and and thought -- can’t make that -- so many partial seams.  Her take is,  “Yes, that involves a bunch of partial seams -- so?  Let's do it!”  

After studying her diagrams I set about making a little piece of interlocking rectangles, just to see how bad all those partial seams might be.  

The rectangles finish to 3" by 1.5".  That size was not difficult to piece, so I might try something a bit smaller.  The only "difficult" part of the construction process was not being able to use chain piecing easily.  

Well, that was easy!  Now what will I try?

I’ve always loved designs that look like strips are woven over and under each other. I've avoided these because construction usually involves “cheating” by seaming some of the strips.  With partial seams, though, this should work! 

I pieced rectangles from strips of various widths (used a very eclectic variety of fabrics spanning quite a few years) and cut background squares from white.  Then I laid out the whole thing on the living room floor and set to work piecing it together.  I made many trips back and forth to the living room as I found I needed to keep returning units to the layout to see where I was going.  But that was the only complicating part of the project, and I told myself that I was at least getting some steps in on my fitness tracker! 

The quilting doesn't show on the scrappy fabrics, but I had a wonderful time adding a variety of free hand feathered designs on the warm coloured strips and lines and leaves on the cool ones.  

I’m delighted with Happy Trails! Let's see what other ideas are in this book -- perhaps some curved seams next?

Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks

The new issue, Volume 16, is on the newsstands NOW!    I'm sure you want to rush out and look for it right away!

And when you find it, you know the drill -- turn to the appropriate page -- this time it's page 51.  Find my block.  Gasp, utter exclamations of awe!  Explain to passersby that you know the quilter who designed this particular fabulous block!  (It really is fabulous -- says so right on the cover!)

My block in this issue is called Step Right Up.  It is based on a design I found in my file, a sketch on graph paper that my son Sandy did when he was in school. 

Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks Volume 16.
 The magazine is resting on a quilt that I made using my Step Right Up block.  

There's so much more to a quilt than the fabric!

I was reminded again recently how much more there is to a quilt than just what we see!  The quilt I was working on was a simple one, made from ordinary fabrics and using a basic pattern -- just squares with denim sashing between them. 

But to the friend who received it there is more to this quilt.  The fabrics are from shirts that her husband used to wear, shirts she herself probably purchased for him, and that she can remember him wearing as he worked around the house or sat watching tv in the evenings.  She can see a pocket in which he kept his pen, and buttons he opened and closed many times.

She will keep the quilt beside her chair and cover herself with its warmth, and with the memories, each time she uses it.  And I will remember that a quilt does not need intricate piecing or exotic fabrics to make it valuable. 

Memory quilt made from shirts.

Clothesline art?

I hang laundry outside to dry whenever possible.  It seems wrong somehow to use electrical energy to do what the sun and wind will do cheaper and better! (And we certainly have both sun and wind a-plenty here!)  So from April to September when the sun falls on the side yard beside the house, I put the wash out on my umbrella dryer.

 My mother taught me to hang tops by the bottoms and bottoms by the top, to place pegs at seam lines, to hang "unmentionables" in behind the bigger stuff -- because what might people think!  (I wondered at that -- if people really looked critically at one another's laundry, would they start thinking that no one ever washed underwear?).

The other day my neighbour told me that her young son was watching me hang out clothes while he ate his breakfast.  His comment was that the end result was "beautiful"!

Now that I am aware of an art critic across the street,  I find myself paying attention to the composition of the finished product.  Have I balanced the colours?  Should the red shirts be together?   Will the long lines of the legs of the jeans look good beside the rectangles of the towels?  Should I put all the dish towels together so that they will dance when the breeze comes up?

Quilting in July

It is only mid-July, but it has already turned into a long, hot summer here.

This is today's view across the valley -- we actually can see across the valley today, as the smoke is a bit lighter that it has been.  No wildfires threatening the immediate area, but there are bad fires throughout the region, and a record number of people have been evacuated.

So what's a girl to do when the air is full of smoke?  First, make sure necessary items are easy to grab in case fires do happen close to home.  And then -- quilting!

I've been busy, but with projects that I can't show for one reason or another.

Yesterday I reached the borders on a project.  This one clearly needed mitred borders.  So I measured and pressed and measured  and stitched  -- and my mitre looks fine.

But I remembered why I usually avoid mitres at any cost.  Sure, I can do it, and it looks great, but now I need to do it again.  And again.  And again!!  And I did, and it turned out fine, but this is really not my favourite task.   

You may notice that the inner dark border has NOT been mitred.  I chose not to mitre that one due to the methods used for construction and quilting -- borders were added stitch-and-flip method after the main quilting was done -- and that dark border is only one quarter inch wide.  

A small finish

It is little, but it's done!

Three pinwheel blocks make a little wall-hanging.

I made the blocks one day to try out an idea and then I tucked them away and forgot about them.  When they showed up again I realized they were exactly what I needed.  The finished piece is only seven inches wide and less than twenty inches long.  It fits perfectly into an awkward spot above a set of shelves and it makes me smile every time I see it!

Something else that makes me happy is the new cover for my stash cupboard!  The bi-fold doors have been awkward -- hard to maneuver around when putting tubs of fabric on and off the shelves, not wanting to slide closed smoothly, not opening completely where the shelf beside them is too close.

These closet doors got in the way when I wanted to access fabrics in the corners of the shelves.

I finally realized the doors could be changed!  Off came the doors; up went a rod.  And now the stash is concealed behind a curtain.  The curtain is made from fabric that was brought home from travels by my son -- I think I raised that boy right!!

The curtain pulls open and closed easily. 

Does the curtain keep out all the dust and light?  No, it doesn't.  But a curtain that keeps out MOST of the dust and light is better than doors that kept it all out -- but only if they were closed.  The curtain is nearly always closed (so I can admire the elephants!), and the doors were usually open (because closing them was a nuisance).  So my stash has better protection than it did, and I'm happier!

On my wall

Last week I came across a bag of fabric samples, donated to the church prayer quilts ministry some years ago, never used.  Nice fabrics, but just pieces, rather than yardage, and in colours and patterns that were very definite -- not easy to combine with other fabrics (and believe me, we've tried!).

So I played a bit and designed a block that could make use of various sizes and wouldn't require any print to touch any other print.  As I cut the pieces I found I needed to piece some of the patches.

Here are a few blocks on the wall.  My first idea is that the white strips will be repeated between the blocks, so the white flannel wall lets me see how this might look.

That's not too bad.  This might work.

 I tried a few blocks against a green fabric.  That green is okay -- so this is a possibility, too.  

Only a few more blocks to put together, then the serious design play can begin!  Perhaps I might frame each block with a white strip, then sash with green?  Or frame half the blocks with white and half with green?  Or revert to original plan -- white strips between blocks and call it done?

I think this is why we keep quilting -- there are so many ways to do something, and really there are no wrong answers!  (And that collection of fabric is almost gone -- just a few small pieces left to go into the strip drawer!)

Fancy four-patches

A stack of 4-inch squares came to hand and the thought crossed my mind that I should USE them instead of simply shuffling them to another place.  Since the group is working on 4-patch projects right now, that seemed an obvious place to start.  What if I made big blocks out of them and set them all together with some kind of sashing?

Cursory play in Electric Quilt gave me a general layout 

and number of blocks to achieve a useful size.  

Looked simple enough!

Things got a bit complicated, however, when I began putting my fabrics up on the wall.  I chose to add a 4th value.  And this meant I had two different kinds of blocks, plus the natural issues that come with using scraps and not wanting adjacent pieces matching, etc.

I had trouble keeping my diagonal set lined up nicely on the wall!

 I found a vintage piece of orange-y rust that makes a nice complement to the blues.  I like the way those narrow rust lines tie the design together.  But this was what I would call a "nasty" fabric -- not 100% cotton and rather hard to handle.  It required me to approach cautiously with the iron and in spite of being a bit stiff it wasn't very stable on either the horizontal or the vertical grain.  (Once the top was completed I was pleased to drop the last few scraps of this one into the trash!)

Diagonally set quilts always have a tendency to skew out of shape.  I spent the best part of an afternoon measuring, cutting, and pinning to get those borders on the way I wanted them.  And even so I can see a couple of spots that will require some attention during the quilting to ensure a nice flat end product.

I am very pleased with the completed top.

And did this project use up that original pile of squares?  Of course not!  Some of those pieces were the wrong colour or wrong value.  Actually that pile is now larger than when I began --  with the addition of pieces from other fabrics that were auditioned and didn't make the cut!

A couple of scrappy finishes

While it is exciting to start something new I do find that seeing something finished has its own kind of satisfaction!  Over the last little while two scrappy projects have been completed, all the way to the binding.

The Plaid ZigZag quilt has borders, quilting, binding.  I'm glad I decided to use multiple fabrics for the light triangles, and the green inner border that I waffled about seems to be just fine.

Inspired by Bonnie Hunter's design that she calls Narragansett Blues.  Started, as usual, thinking it would "use up" some scraps.  None of the fabric piles seem any lower, but I had lots of fun!  This lap-sized quilt is also completely complete and has found its way to its new home.

Getting ready for Christmas

Not long ago I came across my brother's teddy bear that my mother had carefully tucked away in a box many years ago.   Pal has been well-loved -- most early pictures of my brother show the bear tagging along whatever the activity.  I believe Pal was once golden and fluffy (there are traces of curly mohair in some of his seams).  But now he is worn smooth and his brown skin shows many broken areas where excelsior stuffing peeks through.

Poor Pal --  he was definitely in need of some loving attention!  My friend Ellen took him home and brought him back with a fresh new outfit -- overalls and jaunty cap!

Bear is pleased to be out of storage and taking his part in the family again.

As the weather grew colder, though, Pal didn't really seem to be dressed for season.  I made him a sweater.

And last time I looked I noticed that Pal was getting into the spirit of Christmas.  

Pal has decided he likes the little zigzag quilt and he is busy
sorting through the Christmas decorations.

Making some progress

Perhaps another one of this year's started projects will make it to the finish line by the end of the year!  (Is is sensible to take this on when Christmas is right around the corner and there are still holiday preparations to be done, you ask? Hey --  I'm sure I read somewhere that the only place housework comes before quilting is in the dictionary!)

Some time ago I began making blocks with plaid strips.  I blogged about it here.  I am happy to report that those blocks have been completed and assembled into a quilt top.

Seven blocks by nine did not lend itself to a traditional symmetrical layout.
 Instead the diagonals zigzag across the quilt. 

It is time for borders.  Auditions are taking place.

Slab pieces of various medium plaids would do the trick. 

I like this idea, especially because it uses up a few more odd pieces.  That medium green seems to help the transition between the centre and the border.  (And if that particular piece isn't large enough for the job my "mature stash" probably has something else similar to augment it.  Sigh.)

In the Pink

Some of the scraps in my sewing room are sorted by colour.  This is what the Pink and Purple drawer looks like:

Drawer of odd pieces of pink and purple that don't have homes anywhere else.

This is a collection of odd bits.  Anything larger than a FQ, or anything that has been cut into one of my favourite useful sizes is not in this drawer.  And this is how full the drawer is now, AFTER a couple of projects that were done specifically to use some of this!

I spent a happy afternoon picking out squares (and cutting out more squares from some of the bigger pieces) to make this pink and green quilt.

Lap-sized quilt will be used as a Prayer Quilt by my church group.

And I've just finished a quilt  top that will be a gift for a new baby girl. (Since the picture was taken quilting has been done.  Pink binding has been added and is being stitched down as we speak!)

Baby quilt from 2" squares and triangles.

I can't imagine how many more quilt tops could be lurking in just this one drawer of scraps.  Isn't it a wonderful thing that we have such riches of fabric resources that we never need to worry about running out!

Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks #14

A new edition of Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks comes out this week! It looks like this:

Volume 14 -- on newsstands about November 15

So, why am I so excited about this, you ask?  Because I have a block in this issue, that's why!  And not only that, my block is on the cover!  Right there, first block at the very top!  

Let me know when you see this magazine out there!  (And if you buy the magazine, you get directions for not only my block (see page 38), but 99 other blocks that are nearly as wonderful as this one.)

Pondering the scraps

Lots of things I SHOULD be doing in the sewing room, but this week the overflowing box of plaids caught my eye again.  I decided to work on "just the small bits" and try to get rid of the messy part of the collection.

I cut strips 6 1/2" long and assembled strips of "piano keys".

I made a pile of strips like this -- and most of the plaid pieces were cut a little straighter than this lot!

.

Then I cut triangles from the strips until I had a good pile. 

I added light coloured triangles to pieced triangles to make blocks.  

There are lots of possibilities for these blocks, and I'm still playing with them to see what they might become.  But I know I don't have quite enough of that gold fabric for all my blocks.  What to do? -- make a smaller quilt?  choose another background and make some blocks with each?  or pull out all the possibilities and go scrappy?  The last choice is what I'm inclined to do, but I need fairly large pieces.  Around here, 8" strips count as yardage, not scrap!

Here are a few of the fabrics that came to light on the first look through the stash.  (These are all a bit darker than the photo would suggest -- the fabric I've used in the blocks already is third from the right.)

One great thing about quilting is that there are really no "wrong answers" -- at the end of the process I'll have a quilt and it will be fine.  I just don't know yet what it might look like!

Meanwhile, here is a project that actually did get finished!

Tiny zigzags.  Blocks are 2" finished.  It didn't use up much fabric, but it is done!!