Nightingale, Redux

 

This is the original black quilt, that started me writing the tutorial for what I came to call the Nightingale quilts. You can go read the whole story here. You actually should go read it, then come back. I'll wait.

I'd always known the quilt was different, but I often wondered if others might like to make one. When at the end of 2024 I decided to make another one, my friend Susan jumped right on the bandwagon, and made one of her own. She has some terrific insights here, and you can go read that too, if you want.

What really stuck with me however, was her comment that "you could be blind and make this quilt and it would still be beautiful."

I think she's right, and I kind of want to go back to that thought, because I have another idea. (You knew that was coming, didn't you?)

I think the reason these Nightingale Quilts work is because they are all about color and pattern, and not patchwork. The unifying thing is the black background. It's consistent, and colors really pop when surrounded by black. This is. because the light that hits the quilt reflects the colors back to your eyes, but the light that hits the black doesn't reflect back at you, it is instead absorbed. This allows the brighter colors to really shine and show off.

In this quilt, what you see first is the COLORS, and THEN you see that the quilt is made of many different fabrics, and THEN you realize the thing is PATCHWORK, and there is no obvious pattern. The patchwork is subordinate. The quilt is actually made of squares and rectangles, and it doesn't matter one bit if the corners of each block line up or not. How radical is THAT?

I wrote in the tutorial that I think it is the easiest quilt on the planet to make - all you need to do is use fabrics that have colors on a black background. IN THEORY, you could do this with fabrics with a consistent color as a background, but in REALITY, it is very difficult to find a lot of colored fabrics with (for example) THE SAME blue background. Or red, or yellow, or whatever other color. The effect would be slightly different with a color in the background as colors are affected by the colors that surround them. Black shows them off to great advantage, other colors, not so much. 

Susan and I were talking recently and she says that everybody who sees her Nightingale quilt "goes nuts, they love it so much," and she can't understand why the tutorial is not flying out of my Etsy shop, the way Lynne's Liberated Birds does.

Well, I was thinking along the same lines. The original black nightingale quilt (above) lives on my bed, and I've been sleeping under it for over 20 years. The quilt is made the way my grandmother made them, with no batting. It is tied, not quilted. On my bed it lives on top of the top sheet and under the wool blanket, so nobody ever sees it but me. One day recently as I was making the bed I noticed some of the edges were wearing. Maybe I should make another one?

But you know me, I like to push ideas around.

What if I made a white one? It isn't as easy as it looks. Sometimes you can get away with a slightly off white background, and sometimes a fabric looks like one thing online and then in real life it's different.

So I searched through my stash, and then did a bit of shopping. The fabrics arrived yesterday and they all took a trip through the washer and dryer, then I ironed them.

I love the dragonflies, but there seems to be too much gray in the background. I'm not sure about the butterflies in the upper right either.

Three of these seem to be out, one might be back in, but I'll bet it's not the one you think.

I originally thought the big print at the bottom wouldn't make the cut, but I am not sure. The second one from the right at the top is out. Too much great in the background, although it looks fine in the photo.

These all fit the brief, but the bright blocks at the bottom left don't really "read" as print on white. Since I don't want any one fabric to jump out and grab your attention, this may not make the cut, but only time will tell.

These will all be in the quilt, and since this is a quilt that benefits from MORE fabrics rather then fewer, I've got another half dozen or so on order. And I haven't cut the ones I am on the fence about.

Remember, what I want is a "party of color," or a happy colorful dance of color across the surface of the quilt. I do NOT want to emphasize the patchwork or even the individual fabrics themselves.

In Drawing we call two adjacent shapes that share the same color or value along their shared edge to have "lost and found edges." In traditional patchwork you do not want that, because you want the edges to define the shape, like the difference between one block and another. In this quilt, I very much want those "lost and found" edges, because the colors will blend from one block to another and carry the viewer's eye across the surface, discovering things to look at, and to bring delight.

My goal is to surprise and delight the viewer.

Stay tuned.

Rainbow Crush is a Flimsy!

 

I sewed the last of the Rainbow Crush blocks together yesterday, as I watched the coverage of the Kentucky Derby. In the end, it took me only 7-1/2 minutes to take apart a block.

On Sunday I assembled all the blocks into the flimsy.

Here it is, all 60" x 72" of it. A vast improvement over 80" x96".

I've had this quote pinned to the wall above my ironing table for the last fifteen years. The key, of course, is knowing you've gone down the wrong road.

Silver and Pink

 

When I get an idea that sticks in my head, I have to do something about it. So the other day, after getting the idea of using pink and gray together, I decided to gather up some pink and gray fabrics.

I have more grays than this, but these are part of a box of grays that Julie sent me. Those were okay but I never just stop there. I went rummaging around in my stash and I found this:

OOOOOOOO! I love this fabric. Loved the humor in it. Loved also the greens.

When I put the fabrics together, I knew this was going to be a lot of fun.

Based on the Ghastlies fabrics, I've selected some other fabrics I might use.

I always tell my students not to be so literal when they have an idea or inspiration. Gray and Pink doesn't have to mean ONLY Gray and Pink. It's just a place to start.

This is just the color story. I still haven't figured out what I'm going to do with these fabrics. I have a vague idea, and it's still percolating. But these fabrics already excite me, and I think it's going to be fun.

Exciting Times (?)

 

I'm moving along at rebuilding the Spring Fling quilt, which one reader suggested I rename to Rainbow Crush, because I didn't want to rename this happy quilt something like "Kill, Crush, Destroy." I like that idea.

I think I'm a bit faster at taking the blocks apart. Here are last three blocks for the fourth row of the quilt. It's not exciting work, but I've got it down so it's pretty mechanical to do.

Last week in the Arthritis Swim class the instructor suggested a leg exercise I had not done before. My right knee did not appreciate it one bit. It swelled up so much I almost fell over when I put weight on it when I got out of bed the next morning. So I tried to rest it and take it easy. It took several days. 

Finally I decided to go back to swim class on Monday, hoping the 92F water would help it. It did. But I didn't go to my normal class at noon. I went to the one later in the afternoon. I must have had something else on my ming because when I got to the Y and parked, I forgot to display my handicapped parking tag.

When I got out of the swim class, and back into the car, I saw that I had a ticket. Because we all know it's illegal to park in a handicapped spot if you haven't got a handicapped permit. The fine is $250.00.

Needless to say I was a little bit freaked out. I had 36 hours to pay the fine or it would increase. There was no telephone number for me to call.

I woke up about 3:30 in the morning and tossed and turned worrying about it until I finally looked up the address for the police station, and then went back to sleep.

I went to the police station and explained my situation to the young lady who answered the buzzer. "I'll have to find a supervisor," she said.

A few minutes later I was explaining it to a police officer. I handed him my handicapped permit, and after examining it, he voided the ticket. I thanked him and told him how embarrassed I was, that I had been going to the Y at least four times a week for the last six or seven months and hadn't forgotten any of those times. "I can't imagine I am the first person who has ever done this," I told him.

He smiled, "It's happened a time or two before," he laughed, "and if it happens to you again, you just come to see me." All righty then!

I may have mentioned I play the Spelling Bee game on the New York Times. Some folks prefer Wordle, which I play also, but it doesn't really sing for me the way the Spelling Bee does. I used to play until I hit GENIUS, which is the end of the official game, but one day quite by accident I got my first Queen Bee, which is when you get all the words in that day's puzzle. Sometime later I discovered they had Hints, and then later I discovered the "Hive," which is a comments section for the game, and realized that several players got up at 3AM Eastern time (when the game is released) so they could not only solve the puzzle, but provide clues to each word. As soon as I figured THAT out, I was able to get to Queen Bee consistently, and that became my daily goal. Somewhere about 2023, the NYT started keeping track of the number of games you played, and how many QB's you got. Yesterday I hit my 1,000th Queen Bee. It was a good day.

The third great thing about the day happened at my hairdresser's, where I got my getting now shoulder length silver hair trimmed. My stylist, who has been cutting my hair for something like 40 years, complimented me on my pink glasses. They look so good with your silver hair, she commented.

A light bulb clicked in my head. "OH! You've just given me inspiration for my next quilt! Silver and Pink!"

Oh and the warm water did the trick for my knee. It's not "normal" but it's significantly better.

Re-Making

Here is the top row of the re-made Spring Fling quilt. The blocks are sewn together into the top row.

Gail, I can't just cut the larger blocks apart in rows and then sew them back together because the new blocks need to be 3-1/2" square. If I cut the rows down to 3-1/2" they would still be 4" wide, and that won't work.

It takes between eleven to twelve minutes to cut apart a big block into the smaller pieces.

One smaller block at a time.

Now I've finished ten of the thirty blocks. These blocks are sewn together into two rows.

More Right Facing Birds

 I love seeing what students do with my birds.

This is from my pal Susan, in California. I showed two of her sister's birds a couple of days ago.

This is another of Susan's birds. I love the way the fabrics in the leg panel are all different. I always make mine the same and I guess I have to loosen up!

This bird is from Louise. She wrote to me a few months ago and showed me a drawing of this variation, which she called a Kiwi bird. I didn't get it. But seeing this! I just love it. 

I love love love seeing what other quilters do!

These are the birds I have for the second student bird quilt before I got the birds I showed you above. I know there is at least one more bird flying my way, so I am almost ready to get to work on this.

If you want to make your own birds, and you know you do, you can get my tutorial here, at my Etsy shop.

Kill! Crush! Destroy!

So for those of you who haven't been following along, I made a quilt top that ended up just too damn big. I decided to re-make it so it ended up smaller.

I could have done it by unsewing the blocks, but that would have taken too damn long, and there was a faster way to do it. The blocks before I sewed them together the first time were 4-1/2" square. I wanted them to be 3-1/2". There was plenty of room to just cut them down.

The first step was to cut the big blocks out of the quilt, which I did but cutting along the seamline dividing two blocks, like you can see above.

Then I cut the blocks apart into rows, and trimmed away the seam allowance.

Then I cut the rows apart into blocks.

Next I trimmed each block down to 3-1/2" square. Having a ruler that was 3-1/2" wide was helpful.

I'm going to sew these together by webbing the components into larger blocks.

The block is now 12-1/2" square.

You can see the smaller block to the right.

You all know that I will do anything necessary to get the quilt I want. Yes, this is a lot of work, but that's OK. I know I am going to end up with a terrific quilt that will be the perfect size to use.

 

Coulda Shoulda Woulda

 

OK, It's a flimsy.

It's enormous.

Did I mention it's ENORMOUS! 

E-N-O-R-M-O-U-S

E-N-O-R-M-O-U-S  

It's gigantic.

It's WAY TOO FREAKING BIG.

I spread it over the bed and it hung down two feet over the end of the bed. I knew I'd never get it quilted because there would never be any place to put it.

And I knew I wasn't going to take it apart because I just don't have that kind of patience or motivation. I thought, I should have sewn it together to make it 60 x 72 inches. The blocks would have been 3 x 3, but I like the LOOK of the 4 x 4 blocks.

Well when something aggravates me that much, I know enough to know I have to put it away and do something else. I finished sewing it together after swim class, but I hadn't taken a shower yet, so I figured that's what I would do. Take a shower.

And somehow, taking my clothes off and getting ready to get into the shower, I figured out what I could do. 

I laughed.

It's EVIL! It's DEVIOUS! It's DANGEROUS and DESTRUCTIVE.

It's INSANE.

It's perfect.

I haven't done it yet, but I can't wait to get started. 

Right Facing Birds

 I received some right facing birds from Janet and Liz,

This is from Liz, who made this bird in a class I taught way back in 2018.

This is from Janet.

Another bird from Janet.

I am always interested to see what other quilters do with my birds. I am not sure I would have used a solid black breast for this last bird, but it looks fabulous!

I've got a few mored birds flying towards my house. I'll get to work on that bird quilt just as soon as I finish assembling the Spring Fling quilt.

Later this week I'll share some photos from the bird class at NightOwl Quilt Studio.

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

Oh Dear!

 

There's more to life than sewing. For me, one of those things is cooking, and baking. The empty spot on my counter is where my stand mixer lived. I was kneading bread dough in it the other day and suddenly it started shrieking, then stopped.

Fortunately the dough was ready, so no harm done there. But OH! I used my mixer VERY often, which is why I gave it a place of honor on my kitchen countertop. That and the fact that it was so heavy it was just easier to leave it out all the time.

After a bit of troubleshooting, I did a bit of research. Turns out I bought the mixer 33 years ago. Yup. Thirty-three years. I probably used it once a week. I've been using it to make bread once a week since Christmas, since Julie bought me the King Arthur Baking Company's Big Book of Bread.

I've been baking bread not only for myself, by also for my Mom and Mike. The loaf, above is a Semolina Sesame bread from that cookbook. Absolutely divine. I make a loaf for them every week.

So then I went shopping.  The new mixer (still a Kitchen Aid) arrived a couple of days later,* 

and was in use not twenty minutes after it was delivered. I made my Chocolate Pecan biscotti (You can get the recipe here.)

*Bet you can tell why I got the lovely blue one!

OH! Once Mom and Mike found out my mixer died, they gave me $100 toward the new one! How kind!

All Blocks Sewn

Here are all the blocks that fit on the design wall.

Here are the ones that belong in the far right column.

Here are the blocks laid out on the floor. And I have an answer. It's worse to work on the floor than on a design wall.

Now I have to sew all these together.

 

Bird Class at Night Owl Quilt Studio Today!

 

I'm teaching a class on my birds at the Night Owl Quilting Studio in Amherst NH today. We're going to have a lot of fun.

If you want to make birds, you can get my tutorial here, at my Etsy shop.