Beauty Shots

 

I finally got outside to take some long overdue beauty shots of a couple of quilts. This is Nonchalant. Everyone who sees it loves it, and I agree. There's a lot to like. It's something anyone can make. It's just bright prints on a white background alternating with White on White blocks. This one has spectacular quilting also.

This is Blitzen, a Christmas themed Macnas quilt that LOOKS simple, but really isn't. The colors repeat in a very specific pattern, each print is kept right side up throughout the quilt (no upside down trees) and the values are very precisely placed. It's a Christmas themed quilt, but I didn't want to knock you over the head with it.

It was my pal Julie who long ago inspired me to make pieced backings for my quilts using leftover blocks and fabrics. The leftover blocks in this quilt are often prints that didn't work on the front surrounding a Christmas themed pre-printed panel. While I was arranging the quilt to take this photo a pinecone dropped on the quilt. It seemed appropriate so I left it there!

The gate to the community garden in my neighborhood is a great place to display a quilt. It was cloudy the day I took this quilt out for beauty shots, but it seems perfect for the mood of this quilt.

I showed this photo the other day, but it's just so pretty I had to show it again.

These are Macnas quilts, inspired by my pal Julie Sefton. She and I have each made about a dozen of these. I still have four that have yet to be quilted. Nothing really special about these - start with blocks that are 2-1/2" x 4-1/2" and have some fun.

Hijacked!

 My brother is visiting from California. I knew he was coming, but I thought it was a bit later in the month. My mom got the dates wrong. So my schedule got a bit messed up.

My brother was here to visit my mother and give a talk about rock climbing to a group at Dartmouth College. We got to see the autumn foliage on the drive up to Hanover NH.

I agreed to make us all lunch to eat after the hour plus drive and before the lecture. I had wanted to have everyone over for dinner and this turned out great. I had a lot of fun putting these lunch boxes together. I made tuna salad sandwiches on home made bread, veggies and hummus, cheese, crackers, cookies, a hard cooked egg, a bag of crackers and a bottle of water. My brother described it as beyond anything he had expected and it was "fabulous."

This is my brother on the right, with the guy he climbed El Capitan with for the first time, over 50 years ago, talking to someone from the audience after the talk. My brother has recently retired from rock climbing. He is 71, and was up on El Capitan as recently as last year.

I finally finished the Little Brother macnas quilt. I had made it around Christmastime last year, and got it back from the longarm quilter in June. This is one of my favorite beauty shots of the quilt.

I'm finally caught up in taking beauty shots of the quilts I have finished this year, and I'll be showing them off over the next few days. Work on the scrap slab triangle quilt has been set aside with my brother's visit.

About Those Lazy Hexagons...

 You didn't think I was going to leave them alone, did you?

When I was first playing with this, I knew I wanted the triangles that make up those hexagons to NOT be dark blue, so I just grabbed random SS Triangles (yes, I have about 300 or so already made) from the SST bin and put them up on the wall to establish the basic design.

You can probably figure out why the triangles above are circled. In my opinion they stick out too much.

Remember, I have decided that for THIS quilt, I wanted to showcase the dark blue diamonds. 

They are not on the design wall because I have spent the last couple of days sewing the side triangles to them.

Now all art manipulates what you are seeing in one way or another. Packages are designed to grab your attention and advertising does the same thing. But good design means that the artist has considered what HE or SHE wants you to see, and has arranged the elements in the artwork (or quilt) so that you see precisely what he or she wants you to notice. I WANT you to focus on the blue diamonds. I do not want any of the other colored triangles to hijack your attention. 

The ones circled above, in my opinion, do just that. Remember the EYE is first drawn to CONTRAST of some kind. This is the way the eye in your head works. It has nothing to do with what you think you see first. We are designed to notice patterns, and that means we notice what sticks out of the ordinary FIRST. It goes back to Fight or Flight when humans first walked the earth and needed to keep themselves alive.

Now I do not mind the other triangles are different colored and I don't mind you seeing them. I just don't want the viewer to notice them FIRST or even second. I want them to be innocuous, and kinda boring. I want them to sink into the background just a bit. I want you to see they connect into those loose six pointed stars, but I don't want to hit you over the head to notice them. 

I could do that, of course. I could make them equally bright and busy. But then you would be looking at something that could be visually overwhelming and you might not notice the diamonds at all. There is, of course, a balance to all this, and good artists do it very well.

In MY quilt, I want the loose hexagons to be in the background. I want them to be the chorus, if you will. I don't want any of them to be the Divas.

So I have gone through my collection of SSTs and replaced the ones I thought grabbed too much attention with triangles that are less busy in terms of pattern or value. I have removed some triangles I thought were too dark, or the same value as the dark blue diamonds. I have for the most part left them in the same positions so you can go back and forth and see what I didn't like with what I changed. I am not sure I am finished, and quite frankly, I am not 100% sure I am done with making those changes. I have said it before and I will say it again, you can't really tell until you have ALL the blocks on the design wall. So when I have finished adding the side triangles to the 58 blue triangles that will make up the blue diamonds, I'll look at it again and reconsider. If I need to make more triangles I will.

Because I don't let one damn thing out of my studio that I am not 100% happy with. I know what I want, and most of the time I know exactly how to get it, so that's what I do.

I love reading comments that tell me you love me explaining the what and why I do what I do and the changes I make. Years ago one lady wrote that she could tell right away that something I had changed made all the difference, but she couldn't tell what I did. This post and the ones I have written and will continue to write about this quilt, will be my attempt to do just that.

Questions always welcome.

It's How You Look at It

 

I love taking an idea and pushing it around, to see what else it can do. These blocks are arranged the same way as in Saturday's post.

Here is the photo from Saturday's post, so you don't have to go anywhere else to see it. In the top photo the orange triangles form open six pointed stars and they have different colored diamonds in the middle.

In the bottom photo the same six pointed stars are less obvious because I have made them with different colored triangles. Your eye is more attracted to the dark blue diamonds at the center of each of the stars mostly because there is a strong light/dark contrast between the dark blue diamonds and the white background.

It's interesting how different they look.

The layouts above are about four feet across by three and a half feet high, so not quite big enough to fill out a whole quilt...

so I added more dark blue diamonds above, below and to the right of every "bowtie" pair of blocks. I like where this is going.

and because looking at something in a different way is always instructional, here is the same photo rotated ninety degrees.  It looks completely different, and oh, the possibilities this has!!!

But back to the unrotated view. Here I added more "bow tie" pairs thus surrounding the blue diamonds at the top and bottom with multi colored six pointe stars.

Now I am really loving this. I love the "graphic" quality of this. By "graphic" I mean "modern," "flat" (no three dimensional space), and "geometric." I love the traditional Amish quilts for the same reason.

While this is now five feet wide (60") it still isn't quite tall enough for me as a quilt. Remember I live where the ground freezes and it snows in winter. A lap sized quilt won't cut it here.

Here I have filled out the left and right edges and added more blue diamonds to the top and bottom. 

This quilt would be about 60" x 78" and that works for me.

Now this is a Scrap Slab Triangle quilt. You can see the others I have made here. And should you want to make one (and use up your scraps), you can get the updated tutorial here. I

n the past I have used small prints on cream or white fabrics to fill in the spaces around the slab triangles, but I have decided for this quilt, I will fill in the empty spaces with WOW fabrics.

Long triangles, left and right, which are NOT interchangeable in White On White fabrics which can be hard to tell apart.

What can possibly go wrong? (ROFLMAO)

By the way, Mom's boyfriend is doing very well. He can drive short distances and is going to physical therapy. 

Updated Scrap Slab Triangle Tutorial

 

Earlier this year I discovered the ruler set I use to make the Scrap Slab Triangle quilts was discontinued. I found two acceptable substitutes, and have been working to update the tutorial for use with the new rulers.

As long as I was at it, I added photographs of all the quilts I have made using this pattern. I also retook some photographs to make the ideas more clear, but the basic instructions remain unchanged.

It's live now. You can get my Scrap Slab Triangle Quilt tutorial here, at my Etsy shop. I've made fourteen of these and each is different!

 

Jeweled Macnas Quilt Complete

 

The Jeweled Macnas Quilt is complete and I took it out for some beauty shots. 

There was a new stone wall in my neighborhood so I used it as a prop. I know I'll be photographing more quilts here.

I liked the sun peeking through the leaves for this photo. I've written the story of the quilt, and will gift it soon.

When I wrote about not hand sewing bindings on my quilts, I didn't mean to indicate I was doing it because I couldn't sew invisibly. I am going to stop because it HURTS when I do it, so the answer is definitely NOT to do my hand sewing on the back. I'm inclined to agree with Wanda. If the quilt is Very Special, I may hand sew the binding, but otherwise I'll sew it on by machine. Most people never notice anyway.

We Interrupt...

 You all know my mom is 93 and has a boyfriend (MG) who is 90. They get along really great and are happy together. They normally spend a week at her place and then a week at his. I live 4 miles away from my mom's house, and 3 miles away from his. My mom has multiple health issues and she's blind in one eye. MG doesn't like to leave her alone because she's unsteady on her feet and uses a walker. He brings mom to all her appointments. He bristles if I ask him if he needs help. I try to take care of them. I make them homemade bread every other week or so and keep them in biscotti. (Recipe here.) They come to my place for dinner about every three weeks or so. I am fully aware that without MG I'd be my mom's personal chauffeur/assistant/personal shopper.

When he called me the other night at 3:09 in the morning I knew something was up.

Or down. MG had tripped on something and fallen and hurt himself badly. He'd not wanted to call 911 at 11 PM when he fell, but after being in pain for 4 hours, called 911 and they were getting ready to take him to the ER and could I come over and stay with my mom.

The answer, of course, was yes. Since I figured I'd be sleeping there for the rest of the night, I threw stuff into a bag and drove over.

When I walked in MG was on the bed and the EMT's were standing around. They hadn't believed he'd broken anything and felt that if he went to the ER he could wait hours before being seen. It was decided that he'd wait till morning. I could go back home. Urgent care opened at 7 AM, so I'd call MG when I woke up and then I'd bring him over. Then he got out his cell phone. "Your mother has some appointments this week and I won't be able to drive..." One appointment for each of the next three days. I entered them all in my phone and got the addresses.

So I went home and tried to get some sleep. When I woke up I gave him a call and then drove over.

He was in a lot of pain as we got him into the car.  

When I wasn't reading as I waited I spent a lot of time texting M's daughter, my mom and my sister (since I'd be leaving in a few days and she'd need to pitch in while I was gone.)

After four or so hours he texted me from the exam room. He had broken his collarbone, and would be in a sling since that's a bone they can't set.

Long story short I haven't got much work done in the studio because I've been driving back and forth and to MG's house and my mom's ophthalmologist and cardiologist and pain specialist. (She's got another appointment next week too.)

I did spend a little bit of time sewing the binding on the Jewel Toned Macnas quilt, but that's it.

To add insult to injury, I was giving my sewing machine a dust out, which I normally do after I finish a quilt, and I did something wrong because when I put it all back together and gave it a test run it rattled, where it didn't rattle before. So my sewing machine will be going in for a checkup next week.

So no Quilty pictures to share. The backing for my DGD's no-batting quilt should arrive later today but that will have to wait until next week.

On the plus side...

A gal named Bethanne Nemesh (White Arbor Quilting) posted a quilt she is making with my birds on Facebook. You can go over and check her out. If you want to make birds, you can get the tutorial at my Etsy shop, here.

Binding the Jeweled Macnas Quilt

 

After I finished the Jeweled Macnas flimsy, I chose this teal fabric for the binding. But when I got it home I noticed something else I thought would look better,

So which one did I choose?

Yeah, that was pretty obvious.

So I made the binding, attached it to the quilt, folded it over and pinned it all around.

I sat down and started hand sewing the binding down while watching the Ladie's Final of the USTA Tennis yesterday.

Twenty minutes and forty inches later I had an epiphany.

My hand sewing binding days may be numbered. Why?

My thumb hurt. It was so bad I had to go into the kitchen and massage it with ice. I stopped drawing in pencil when that became a regular thing.

It isn't just my thumb. The muscles in my shoulder and upper back also get sore.

I've known this has been coming. Over the last couple of years I have noticed my "blind stitching" is not always so invisible, and my corners aren't as always as perfect as I'd like them to be. 

It's no surprise. I'm 72 years old and I have arthritis in my hands, shoulder and spine. I've been lucky I'm able to do what I can, but moving forward allowances will have to be made. 

I'm good with that, and I am well aware there is no shame in it. 

Life is Tweet!

This is a quilt I made way back in 2014. I hadn't even written the bird tutorial. I remember wanting to make a "row quilt" with different blocks in rows. I was making it as a sample quilt for a class in which I would teach how to make the birds, butterflies, asterisks and hearts. (That happened only once.)

My birds simply did NOT behave. They did NOT like being on the same baseline. And then one of them simply HAD to be taller than the rest.

The hearts were no better. Of course it didn't help that I couldn't seem to make two even remotely the same. And then that little guy just seemed to float higher than the rest.

The butterflies had minds of their own as well. And it didn't help that they simply didn't FIT when they were all lined up. So they just did their own thing.

By the time I got to the asterisks I knew that all hell had broken loose and there was no point to try to prevent it. The asterisks wanted to fly on their own and by that time I knew that this quilt wanted to do its own thing, and what the quilt wanted, I had to let it do. So I played with them until they floated the way I wanted them to. When I got to an arrangement I liked I then had to figure out how to sew everything together, so I started at the bottom and worked my way up. 

Much finagling was involved.

Then I sent the quilt to Chris Ballard in Tennessee and told her to have some fun with it and go all out. As you can see, she did.

I've been making a lot of what one reader called "block quilts" and I thought you would all like to see something else.

Incidentally I'll be up in Northern New York in a couple of weeks teaching a Bird workshop for the Borderline Quilt Guild.

If you want to make your own birds, or butterflies, or asterisks, you can get my tutorials at my Etsy shop, here.
 

Dancing Jewels Complete!

 

The Dancing Jewels quilt is finished. 

Quilts look so different outside. In the shade or sun this quilt really sparkles.

My nephew is happy with it.

As you can see, there's a bit of ham in this kid. (Type "nephew" in the search box at the right to see more posts about him.)

I made the new quilt because my nephew said his old one was wearing out. This is the "old one" I made him in 2015. I had asked if I could see it because I was interested in just how worn out it was. When he held it up I was stunned! Several fabrics had worn out completely, and the binding had come apart from the quilt in at least two places. I'm pretty sure the quilt got washed once a week. (That's 624 washings.) I'm surprised he didn't ask me to make him a new quilt sooner!

Given the wear of the original quilt, I stopped hand sewing the binding and ran it through the machine. I figured that hard use necessitated a very sturdy binding.

According to him, "It's perfect. I don't need a sheet or even a blanket. I just wrap myself up in my quilt at night and I'm just fine." You can see pictures of the quilt when it was new, and a photo of him wrapped up as he sleeps in his quilt here. 

I told him that the biggest compliment a quilter could get is evidence of a quilt worn out because it is so well loved.

Binding Dancing Jewels

I've made and adding the binding to the Dancing Jewels quilt for my nephew. I have been staying up late to watch the tennis in New York and it has been going on VERY LATE, so I was so tired I didn't finish pinning the binding over to the front. That will happen next, and then I'll finish it.

This is the back of the quilt. I used the leftover backing as binding for it.
 
 

A Collection of Riches

 

I picked up three quilts from my longer quilter, Janet-Lee Santeusanio, the other day. This is Dancing Jewels, for my nephew. I'm happy with it, and will be working to finish it up for him ASAP.

I also picked up another quilt that doesn't have a name yet. I've been referring to is as the Jewel-toned Macnas quilt.

Here's another photo. This quilt has a home, so I'll be working on this one after I finish the one for my nephew.

The third quilt I picked up is the third Nightingale*** quilt. The first two of these flew out of my studio pretty quickly so it's nice to have this one to myself.

This photo of a small section of the back of the quilt may show the quilting better.

I have always loved brightly patterned fabrics on a black background, and since I believe if you are going to "go for it" you should really GO, I have picked equally vibrant prints for the back of this quilt. I also like to use panels on the backs of my quilts.

I was giving a talk to a quilt guild once and a lady came up to me afterwards and said, "You like busy backs." I looked at her and said, "Mostly, I hate boring ones." 

This reminds me of something some art critic or historian (I can't remember which) said of the artist and illustrator Alphonse Mucha: "...he doesn't like empty space." 

Apparently, neither do I.

***This quilt is really easy to make, and you can get the tutorial here, at my Etsy shop. While I think it is pretty spectacular made with bright colors on a black background, you can of course make it any color or colors you want. You can see it in green here, And made from bright prints on a white background here.

No-Batting Nonchalant is a Flimsy!

 

The no-batting version of the Nonchalant quilt I am making for my granddaughter has reached the flimsy stage. She and her parents both love the quilt and my DGD oooh'ed and aaah'ed when I sent detail pictures of the various fabrics in the quilt (Cats, cats, cats, Dinos, flowers, bikinis, bicycles, beetles, dot and stripes to name just a few).

I had a black and white backing fabric on hand for this quilt, but it just seemed too depressing compared to the lovely fun happy prints on the front, so this floral print is on order.

Piece by Piece

 

I'm working my way through the big no-batting quilt for my DGD. I've taken to sewing blocks together in chunks rather than complete rows, so I have divided the design into four big columns.  The section still on the design wall is the fourth column, and what you can see on the floor at the right is the third one.

I took the blocks off the design wall and grouped them by rows, and clipped them with a tag showing which row number.

I pin the blocks in each row together while I "watch" the US Open tennis.

Then I sew them together, and press them,

then join the rows into pairs and pairs into quads, etc etc.

The stack of 16 rows that were pinned together fill this space, above. 

This empty space represents the rows that do NOT fit on the design wall. So I have to design them, then pair them up and continue as above.

Sewing the pieces together in this way allows me to make pretty good progress. I expect to have the top done by the weekend.