From the LongArm Quilter

 I picked up two quilts from my long arm quilter, Janet-Lee Santeusanio.

This is the Blushing Zebras quilt that I made for my granddaughter, who requested a quilt of black, white and red.

This quilt has so much going on we didn't want the quilting to overwhelm it in any way, from the quilting design to the color of the thread.

I'll finish this so I can get it to my granddaughter before Christmas. She's in the City of Angels on the west coast, so shipping is involved.

This is the Silver and Pink quilt, based on my hairdresser's comment that my pink glasses looked great with my silver hair (check out my profile photo in my sidebar on the right).

As you can see we went with a more complicated quilting design.

Here's another view where you can see the color of the quilting thread. If you know me, you know I am not into bland or boring, so green was appropriate.

Lastly, I left the Pizzazz quilt with Janet-Lee for quilting. This is a really wild quilt.

I don't remember which of us thought of an olive-y green thread, but I like it.

Here is the thread on the backing of the quilt. This is going to be good.

This is the quilting design we chose. When I have a quilt that is so much about straight lines and angles, I like to use a quilting design that emphasizes curves. I'll get this quilt back sometime in the new year.

Court Jester Laughing

 

When I'm deep into a quilt I'm having fun with not much can tear me away. Yesterday I didn't even bother to get dressed before I went into the studio and started sewing the blocks into pinwheels and the pinwheels into rows. 

Since the design wall would allow me to display only 14 blocks across (and I needed 15) I couldn't add the extra one on the left (to make the quilt 60" wide) until I had sewn the rest of the row together. So the eagle-eyed amongst you will see that the four rows of pinwheels (above) have one more block in those rows than the rows below, which have not yet been sewn together.

In the photo above the 12  rows of blocks have been sewn into pinwheels, and those into rows, but I haven't yet sewn the rows to each other. I'm busy with other things today and tomorrow so I won't get more done on this until Friday. 

Nancy from Philadelphia made my day in the comments yesterday when she said she coveted my stash of black on white fabrics. That made me count. There are over 40 unique black on white fabrics in this quilt. I've had some of these fabrics over fifteen years.

Every piece of fabric in this quilt came from stash or from the scrap bins, so that's a win.

My friend Susan wants me to write a tutorial for this, and I can't really see the point, it's so damn simple. (I can already hear my long arm quilter, Janet-Lee Santeusanio saying "NO LYNNE, this is NOT simple!") But really, while juggling this many black on white prints, especially with prints of varying scales and density of black can be tricky, this quilt could just as easily be made with blander backgrounds of off white or a collection of small prints on white. 

If. you want more details, let me know in the comments.

See you on Saturday or Sunday!

Forward!!

 I drew out four blocks to scale on graph paper, and now that I know for sure how it will look, I am very happy with the proportions of the block.

With that decision made, I rearranged some of the blocks. I still need to add blocks to the bottom. I had a brainstorm about that - I'll place the black and white pieces where they will look good and then I can easily add the colored triangles afterwards, Because this is so close to the floor, I'm going to sew the blocks together from the top down, so I'll have more room at the bottom of the design wall to work. At my age, getting down close to the floor is tricky.

When I conceived this quilt last week, I wanted the quilt to be stupid easy to sew together. No points at risk of getting chopped off, nothing complicated to sew. As you can see from the wrong side of the pinwheel block above, mission accomplished.

I've sewn the top row of pinwheels together, above, and parts of the next three rows.

I thought you'd like to see some of the blocks closer up.

Size Matters... I think?

 

I usually know what I'm doing. But that doesn't mean I don't get second thoughts. When I conceived of this quilt originally, I knew how big I wanted the triangle to be. I mean I thought I knew in my head. I knew I wanted the long point to be beyond the halfway point of the block. So I worked it all out in my head and made more than a few samples until I got it right.

But it wasn't until I decided to make these into pinwheels that I started to worry. On the design wall the pinwheels looked perfect, but once I sewed them together they would shrink in size. Would they be too small? 

Only one way to find out. So I sewed four together. The result is the photo above. But you know me, I had to know what the blocks would look like if I made it bigger, so I did that.

This isn't really a fair example because the pinwheel is VERY bright and the background is consistent,

Here they are side-by-side. My first impression was the bigger pinwheel was too big. I had originally conceived this as a black and white quilt with some color in it.

I sewed some more blocks together and put them on the design wall next to the un-sewn pieces and took a step back.

I hemmed and hawed.

I was torn.

Finally I called my son who has a terrific eye for proportion. His reply: "...this is an argument in millimeters." We went back and forth. I was really torn. "I don't think remaking the quilt is necessary. I think it looks good already," he reiterated.

I was still on the fence. "[Mom,] Proportions are perfect before sewing, yes. The ones you've sewn still look good. We're not into bad territory here. I think if you make them bigger you're doing to make them too big."

We talked some more and then he said something that made me realize when I sew the pinwheel blocks together, I'd lose 1/4" all around with the seam allowance. For some reason that finally penetrated my skull.

Then he added, "Glad you didn't line up the pinwheels, Mom, that would have been really boring..." I laughed. Gosh I love this kid!

So OK, I'm good.

I wanted to share this with you because I want you all to know that EVERYBODY has doubts, even me.

Court Jester Jokes Around

You know me. I'm never happy with the status quo. I moved some of the blocks around and got this pinwheel. I liked it, and thought I'd play with it.

I could have lined up the blocks so the pinwheels were lined up in rows and columns, but where is the fun in that, so I offset them. I liked the way this was turning out.

I made more blocks and put them up on the design wall. But something was bugging me. I have learned that even in the earliest stages of work, if something bothers me, I have to pay attention. 

So I backed up and took a good look at what was on the design wall. When I had the first few blocks up on the wall (second photo) I thought to myself that this was FUN. But as I looked at the design wall some of the pinwheels were not "fun." Why not? I had to think about it. Some of the pinwheels were FUN and some were not. 

I figured it out. Some were FUN and HAPPY. Those were BRIGHT. 

This pinwheel was not "fun." First, it was DARK. The opposite of fun. Next one of the wings was not reading as a solid shape (the one on the upper right.) 

So I started moving the pieces around, trying to make sure each pinwheel had a bright triangle in it, either yellow or orange or pink or a limey-green. After a few moves I had some blocks that didn't fit anywhere. I have learned to take a look at these.

These were all cut from the same multi-color fabric. That was a bummer. I had had high hopes for this fabric in this quilt. Well that's out!

I made a few more blocks and put them up and yes, the pinwheels were happier. 

There are other fabrics that may go (there's a green with boxes and a very busy black and white stripe I am on the fence about) but I have to put a whole lot more blocks up on the wall before I make big changes. I have enough black and white squares cut to fill the design wall, and I have to make those blocks and get them up there before tinkering starts in earnest.

This is not going to take long. Working title for this is Court Jester.

Cooking With Gas

 For the last few weeks I've kinda been stuck. I've had some things to do, (meaning in the studio) and I've done them but aside from checking them off the "honey-do" list, their completion hasn't really felt very gratifying.

Now the horrors (and I don't use that word casually) of the things going on in our country right now have certainly played their part. My heating company has already notified me that my monthly heating expenses will increase next month, and the company that provides my prescription coverage for Medicare won't be offering it next year. It's damned scary. Make sure to vote come Election Day. To say nothing of the price of gas which is over $4.00 a gallon.

I know I have to finish my granddaughter's no-batting quilt, but what's holding me back is the idea of ironing that gigantic piece of backing fabric, and then getting down on my hands and knees to lay the top on the back and pin it in place so I can tie it... I know I have to do it, but it's hard work at my age and I'm procrastinating.

And while I generally have SOME idea of what kind of quilt I want to make next, in this case I just haven't had a clue.

So I sat in my chair in the studio and looked at the stash. What did I have a lot of that I hadn't touched in a while? Black and Whites. I have a lot of them, and I have a sweater sized plastic bin full of bits of black and white fabrics. OK, so HOW could I use these and make something interesting that I hadn't done? I did not want to do another Macnas quilt, or another Scrap Slab Triangle quilt, or another bird quilt.

Flipping through a couple of quilt books gave me the idea of a modified Snowball block, or a square with one corner chopped off and another fabric inserted in a triangle in one corner. Yeah, that's nice, but I didn't want something too predictable. If I would use a lot of fabrics from my black and white collection, I needed the traingles in the corners to be different.

And I didn't want them HST's either. I wanted them long triangles, twice as tall as they are wide. And I knew about the proportion of them. I felt a 6" block would be too big, so I'd want a block that would finish  out at 4".

After MUCH tinkering, I had this, and I liked the size and the proportions. Getting to this was tricky because although I knew how to cut the colored triangle block consistently, but working out how to cut the angle in the corner consistently and reliably took several iterations of attempts.

I wanted the triangles in the corner to be exactly the same size throughout the quilt, so next I had to work out how to cut those.

As it turned out I could use leftover Macnas blocks.

Which was really good because I have a LOT of them.

Here's how I'll sew a colored triangle to the white "square." Yes, it's bigger. Lots bigger.

Once the triangle is sewn and pressed, I'll trim it using this ruler. As you can see I have marked the ruler with tape to identify the outside edges. I'll trim off the excess and end up with a perfect block, like the second photo in this post. 

Sure I've got to trim it, but quite frankly every block you sew into a quilt should be trimmed square before you sew it to other blocks. That's how your quilt will always lie flat. This isn't wasting fabric, although I've heard some complaints, but for me the greater waste is wasting TIME, because you can never get that back. Doing it my way means it's a lot less fiddly, with much simpler cutting and fewer burned fingers from pressing a too small piece of fabric.

So here are twelve of them. I don't like the pink at the center of the bottom row, but that's not the thing you know about until you put blocks up on the design wall. But I like the direction where this is headed, and I already have some ideas of how I will tinker with this. 

At 4" square, I'll need about 286 blocks to make a quilt 18 rows tall by 16 blocks wide.

I've got a fair amount of work to do before I can really see where this is going. But now I'm "cooking with gas!"**

** (translation: I know what I'm doing, and I'm humming right along.)

  

Blue Diamonds

After sewing all the rest of the blocks together for this quilt, I started sewing the blocks together into long rows. Here the top three rows are sewn up (but not to each other.)

A day later I sewed the rest of the blocks into rows and was in the process of sewing these rows together.

The top half was resting over the back of the wing chair in the living room.

Yesterday I put all the rows together.

Here is a close-up of one of the corners. You can see some of the different WOWs assembled into the blocks. I'm not sure how successful this idea is, but I like it.

Here's the body of the quilt rotated 90 degrees. I never said it was "wrong." I think it has great potential. I'd love to see somebody make it this way. I'd love to see somebody else's take on it.

 

Lazy Hexagons Grows

 I've started making the corner blocks for the Lazy Hexagons quilt (Needs a better name, suggestions welcome).

I've tried to make sure the same fabric isn't next to itself. It sure does help to have a black light.

It's easier to put these on the floor rather than get up and down the ladder to put them on the design wall.

Here are six rows sewn up. Obviously this is looking at them the "wrong" way, but it's still fun!

Rolling Along

 

I've pinned the side triangles to the remaining colorful triangles.

I've sewn them all together and pressed them. Next I have to trim them square. I trim every block because no matter how good I think the blocks look, they always need to be trimmed.

In the corners where there are no colored blocks, I plan to make blocks that are all White on White.

Green Birds Beauty Shots

 

Last year several readers made suggestions for the title of the Green Birds quilt. There were a lot of good suggestions, but I decided to with "Green With Envy."

Here's a closeup of the quilting, which is pretty stellar!

If you want to make your own birds - of any color - you can get my tutorial here, at my Etsy shop.