Morning Garden is a Flimsy!

 The main body of the Morning Garden flimsy is complete. I will add a border to it next. (You can see it over on the left.)

Earlier this week when I was sewing the blocks into rows, when I would complete a row I would sew it to the row below it (so I was joining two rows into pairs), and I inadvertently inverted one of the rows so I sewed the two rows together the wrong way. I hate when that happens, but I took it apart and sewed the two rows together again.

And sewed it wrong AGAIN!

That was my cue to exit the studio and do something else. When I calmed down a bit, I went back into the studio and unsewed the seam again.

Then I double and triple checked and sewed the two rows together, properly.

And then kept going.

Morning Garden

 

I made all the blocks for the new Slide Show quilt, whose working title is Spring Garden. Here I have just thrown them up on the wall. I will rearrange the so the fabrics are well distributed. I can't quite see what it will look like without the "background" fabric.

Here I have placed the "background" fabric where it belongs, and I can immediately see the blocks with the light centers have to change. That is not a surprise. I can't really design a quilt unless I can see all the fabrics and blocks together. Obviously I've got to place the rest of the background fabric, and I have some rearranging to do, but overall I am very happy with the way this is turning out.

A New Slide Show

In 2021 I made a quilt inspired by water on the road that reflected the sky in it. I called the quilt Deep Space.  It was based on the Slide Show quilt from Colorful Quilts for Fabric Lovers. I am making another one in soft greens and teals. 

Here are some of the fabrics I have chosen.

Here are some of the blocks I have made.

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In this quilt, I have decided to use a print that will sort of run behind the back of all the blocks.

You can see some of the blocks set on top of that fabric, so you can get an idea of what this is going to look like.

A New Black

 

I've decided to make a Black quilt, so when I was reorganizing my fabrics, I cut some blacks with bright colors.

I've paired some black fabrics. I am excited about this. I am still waiting for more fabrics, so I have to set this aside until they arrive.

I'm also planning a quilt for a friend of mine who has helped me out around the house several times in the last year. We have discussed colors, and I have to let that roll around in my head before I get started with that.

And I have started hand sewing the binding on the Peonies quilt.

HOWEVER...

I had an appointment with my financial advisor recently, and we were talking about the "what-ifs" and close calls in life when he mentioned that one of the staff members who had greeted me when I walked in had recently lost everything when his house burned to the ground in the middle of the night. He and his fiancee escaped with their lives - and nothing else - both were completely naked!  Immediately I said, "Can we make them a quilt?" My advisor practically jumped out of his seat. "YES! How much money do you need?" So I'll be making the couple a quilt. He is a drummer for a band in his free time, and she works in health care.

Binding Peonies

 

I had made the binding for the Peonies quilt just after I finished it, so all I had to do was sew it to the quilt. Regular readers know I sew my bindings to the back of my quilts, and then do the finish hand sewing on the front.

It's going to be really pretty.

The Big Clean

 

Not only did I get the stash organized, but I cleaned the whole damn studio. (Well, 85% of it.) It started in this corner, where the return for the central A/C is located. It's getting to be that time of the year, and the heat has kicked on once or twice in recent days, so it was time to cover it up. As long as I was back there I decided to clean the area, and moved everything to do it. I also cleaned the shelf that runs along that wall under the windows.

You know how it is, you get on a roll and keep going.

This was what the studio looked like "Before." Sure, it was nice to work on the stash, but that was the least of my problems. This was late last Thursday.

This is the "After," taken just before midnight on Saturday.

SO much better. At least now my stress level doesn't INCREASE when I walk into the room.

This is good, because I picked up the Peonies Scrap Slab Triangle quilt from the long-arm quilter and now I have room to lay it out and add the binding to it. This quilt has a home, so I have to get it ready to go.

This is the eleventh Scrap Slab quilt I have made, and they are all different, and made from scraps. If you want to use up your scraps, this is a good, fun way to do it. You can get the tutorial here, if you are interested.

Finally - Sewing!

 

There's nothing like getting a big project done and then doing something you like as a reward. I made a bird. And not just ANY bird, a freaking Majestic bird.

I started with this bird. I found a piece of the green wing fabric, and it said it wanted have something blue in it. Alas, it came out a bit more bland than I would have liked, but still. So then I moved on to the other one.  They make me laugh. 

I added the last row to the Little Blocks quilt.

In the Great Stash Clean Up I found this fabric I had bought a year ago. I found six yards of it. Not only did I iron it (finally)...

I cut it into two three yard pieces and sewed them together. Now it will be the backing of the Little Blocks quilt.

Going to be awesome!

I had an idea for another tutorial, one that I am tentatively calling "The Easiest Quilt Ever," so I'm working on that. I think Julie's squirrels have migrated to my studio...

If you want to make some birds, (and you really do), you can get my tutorial here, at my Etsy shop.

and oh, I joined Facebook. I'm still not sure how it works yet, but I'm there as me.

Stash Reorg

 

It only took a month, but I have finally finished reorganizing my stash. And not just my stash, but the piles of fabric I had lying on the extra table, stacked on the recliner and thrown all over the place.

I ended up getting some shelf dividers from Amazon and that helps keep some of the stacks separate, and keeps them from falling into each other. This should help me keep it nice and tidy. I even used some to create more space on the top of the bookcase. I had had lots of large pieces of fabric - many planned for backings of future quilts, and now ALL those have been ironed and folded and are neatly arranged on the top of the bookcase. I'll need a step stool to reach them, but that's no problem.

Moreover, all the worktables are clear and I can get to work without the added visual stress of the fabric clutter all over the room. To be sure, I have several quilts in mind after revisiting all those fabrics, and I can't wait to get started.

And there's a new tutorial I want to write, and an old one I want to update and a pattern I should write. 

And I want to add a row to the bottom of the Little Blocks quilt because it looks too square and I got the Peonies quilt back from the long arm quilter and I have to add the binding and finish it.

Gosh, I sure am glad I am retired!

Murphy Visits

 

We all remember Murphy. Murphy's Law states that if anything can go wrong, it will. 

Can you see it? The quilt is all sewn up, but can you see the big glaring No-No?

Since I added a row of blocks to the left edge of the quilt, the big double sized blue block is now right smack-dab in the exact center of the quilt. 

Dammit.

There is, of course, only one thing to do, and that's rip it out. I decided I could shift the blue block to the right, and decided to do that by rotating it and the white and pink blocks to the right of it 180 degrees and sew it back in the empty space those blocks occupied. Problem was, there was a light blue block that would have sat right on top of the big blue block, so that one had to get replaced as well.

Major ARGH!

HOWEVER! I have learned that when you goof up like this there is only one thing you can do. Take a deep breath and just get to work. Fix it, and do not get emotional about it. Don't get angry, don't swear, don't grumble, and above all, don't put it off.

OK so that's done.

I like the way the center blocks are all off center, and the dark centers and the light centers kind of blink. It's fun, and I might make another one.

But I want to continue reorganizing my stash first.

OH: Here's a plug. Last year I so enjoyed Magpie Murders on PBS. They have another season this year, called Moonflower Murders. They are both murder mysteries and what makes them unique is each one is a murder mystery set in another murder mystery with many of the cast members playing dual roles - one in each. It's a clumsy way of describing a very elegant, enjoyable series. Moonflower Murders just premiered on Sunday September 15th, so if you want to watch it will be easy enough to catch up. I highly recommend both seasons.

The Little Blocks Get Sewn

 

I started sewing the little blocks together. I decided to start where I could reach.

Since there are five double sized blocks in the quilt, I couldn't sew them in rows. Oh gee darn.

While it looks like the big middle section of the quilt is all sewn together, it really isn't. There are groups of 2 and 3 rows sewn together.

Also, in all previous photographs, there are 13 blocks in one horizontal row. It wasn't quite as wide as I wanted, so I added a block to the left-most end of each row. The final quilt will be 14 x 16 blocks.

Here I have moved the bottom third of the quilt aside and lowered the middle third so I could move the top three rows of the quilt lower on the design wall, making them easier for me to reach to sew together. It's going pretty quick, and I'm having fun, "watching" tv while I sew. 

It is lovely weather, so I've got the windows open for the great breeze and the sound of the birds singing. I think the thing I enjoy most about being retired so far is simply enjoying the daylight.

A Lesson in Color

 

This was the last photo in yesterday's post. I have marked it up to show the areas that I think need work. If you look at them, you will see they are darks that are clumped together. I talk all the time about being wary of too many darks close together. 

Notice I said DARKS, not color. I'm going to give you a Big Hint. Pay attention. This is IMPORTANT. 

Value Supersedes Color.

You can say it another way. Value beats color. Whenever you design a quilt, I don't care what the COLORS are, the VALUES are more important. 

Every color has several properties. 

Hue is the actual color (Red, Yellow, Green, etc.) 

Value is the lightness or darkness. There is LIGHT BLUE and DARK BLUE. This is value. 

Intensity is the brightness. Do not confuse Intensity with Value. Think of an Orange. A real orange you eat. That's pretty much a true Orange color. That is Orange at its most pure, it's most intense. If you think of a light orange color, it isn't as bright. It has lost its intensity. A light orange isn't as intense as a real orange, neither is a dark orange. which gets closer to the color brown. Any time a color moves away from itself, it loses intensity. A lemon (a real one) is about as true to a true yellow as you can get. Because Yellow is so LIGHT (value) it loses its intensity pretty quickly. Yellow has a narrower range of value than a darker color, like blue, red or violet (purple).

OK, back to the quilt. In the areas that are circled in the photo above, the blocks are too close in VALUE so they make a dark blob. I do not like dark blobs, so I will have to break those apart.

The photo above shows my changes.

In the group at the upper right, I replaced the red block under the purple one with an orange one and switched the black one with the light green that was above it.

Moving to the left, I replaced a dark green block with a lighter green one.

On the far left, I swapped the pink and red blocks that were on top of the black one.

In the bottom group, I replaced the red block with a pink one.

This wasn't as easy as it sounds. EVERY color is affected by the color it is next to. Since each block has FOUR neighbors, I had to be careful not to create another dark area or a too light area. And since my own personal rule for this quilt was not to have two blocks of the same color sitting next to each other, it got complicated. 

I had made 12 different kinds of blocks: Yellow, Orange, Pink, Light Green, Dark Green, Red, Light Blue, Dark Blue, Light Violet, Dark Violet, Black, and Light blocks. In some cases I had to rearrange neighboring blocks to get the design the way I wanted it to look.

One note: In the camera, things always look a bit darker. The camera lens is not quite as sensitive as the human eye when it comes to distinguishing value. That can be an advantage for a real person, because the camera will often "pick up" a subtlety the human eye may miss. I can't tell you the number of times I have thought a quilt looked good, only to be reviewing the photo on my way OUT of the studio and see something I missed in real life.

These little blocks often became what I call "shape shifters" because while when I held one in my hand and thought it would be perfect for an empty spot, I'd put it there and suddenly it would look wrong, and I'd have to try a different block.

Yes, in some cases I went back to my sewing machine and custom made a block to fit into a particular spot.

How do I work this out when I design a quilt? I put the blocks where I think I want them to go, then I go across the room, take my glasses off (I am nearsighted) and look at the quilt. Sometimes I squint. I am not interested in the color at that moment, I am interested in the VALUE. 

Because of this I am very careful where I place my COLORS. I am always conscious of Value first. COLOR placement is secondary. I can think of two common color combinations where quilters get tripped up all the time: Red and Blue (often in red, white and blue quilts) and Red and Green (in Christmas quilts.) I see quilts using these two combinations all the time where I feel the quilt isn't successful because the values of the two colors side by side make the shape read as one thing instead of two separate, discrete things.

The eye notices CONTRAST first. It is hard wired to do this because it helps us see things in front of us. It helps us distinguish one thing from another. It grabs our attention. There are several kinds of contrast, and value is one of them. But it's the biggie.

So remember:

VALUE supersedes COLOR.

Now I am off to sew my blocks together.

Lotsa Little Blocks

 

I made more little blocks. I have black blocks, dark blue and light blue blocks, green and light green blocks, pink blocks, red blocks, yellow and orange blocks, purple and lavender blocks. Then I made some light blocks. For the light blocks I used colored centers.

I had enough blocks to start putting them up on the design wall. You all know I don't really start designing in earnest until I've got all the blocks on the wall, but I can already tell this is going to be fun.

This is the first pass. I could already see things I wanted to fix, but I was tired, so I went to bed.

The Little Blocks

 In July, I started making some little blocks because I was tired of making slabs. I was inspired by the High Five quilt in the book Sunday Morning Quilts. These kept me busy when my son and granddaughter were visiting other family members.

The finished blocks are made log cabin style, and end up being 5 inches square. Naturally I used my scraps and stuff I found in the big bins that need to be sorted and organized.  I cut a bunch of 2" squares of lights to use as the centers.

My DGD seemed unimpressed with the arrangement on the design wall, so I asked her to have a go at it, and this is what she came up with.

I made the blocks in groups of ten. They took about an hour to make and I had some fun with them. I set the project aside to make the Cobblestones quilts.

I started making blocks again last week. With the blocks finishing at 4-1/2" that meant I would need 224 of them to make a quilt about 63" x 72".  I clipped the blocks together in groups of ten.

Oh, one more thing...

There are about five of these double sized blocks throughout the quilt.

This is gonna be fun.

The Back of Joyful

 

While listening to the US Open Tennis last week, I added the leftover blocks from the Joyful quilt to this fabric I found for the backing.

The backing fabric wasn't a standard backing fabric - it was about 42" wide, so I sewed the leftover blocks to each length, then sewed the two long lengths together. Yes, I planned for the diagonal stripe to be where they joined.

Here is the quilt lying on top of the backing. I always do this to make sure there is enough fabric all around.

I think it looks great and will make a terrific couch quilt.

I know all retirees say it, but I have been really busy. I cleaned OUT the shed, and the next step was to sort through the stuff I wanted to keep. There were a lot of old rusty tools and extra Christmas ornaments, paint rollers and handles. That's now been sorted, and the good stuff will go back into the shed. The rest is consigned to the trash. (And yes, I already donated several items.)

I spent most of the day yesterday at the mobile carrier I planned to move my cell phone to. I was allowed to port the cell number I have had for over 22 years from my work and keep it. (Lucky me.) 

While the process to DO that was simple, in theory (you can see where this is going), in practice it was a lot more complicated. After about three hours we got it done, and there was MUCH aggravation and going back and forth involved. I'll spare you the details, but that is a nice thing to have done.

I've just finished the most aggravating jigsaw puzzle ever. I don't mind that it was hard, what I minded was that the photo was so small and I couldn't figure out where anything went. I have discovered I have an addiction to these things and I will devote WAY MORE time than I should, even forgoing meals to get these finished, so after I take this one apart and donate it, the puzzle board is going under the couch where it will stay.