Making Blocks

Each pair of colors I have chosen will make 16 4-1/2" pieces, that when assembled, make a four by four block that will finish at 16" square. As I make a set of blocks, I've been putting them up on the design wall.

A couple of weeks ago I talked about the limitations of my design wall - it's big, but not big enough for four sets of these blocks to be laid out completely, so working out how to arrange the blocks is going to take some thought - how can I do this without spending a lot of time on the ladder? I'll figure it out, but first I have to finish making all the components.

The Next Thing

Cherie was right when she predicted that my next project would be improvisational. But after a couple of quilts based on straight lines, you kinda had to know that I would do something off-kilter.

Given that my long-term goal is to use up as much fabric in my stash as I can in the next 15-20 years, I have decided to make quilt tops that please me. They may or may not have a purpose, or a reason, or a future home. I may or may not have them quilted. I'm going to take a look at the fabric in my stash and the bins and take whatever hits me at the moment, and do something with it.

In other words, I am going to Play. I am going to try to have some fun.

In January I made these as part of a proposal to teach a class based on Sujata Shah's method of making traditional blocks with gentle curves. Here I have arranged the blocks in a Rail Fence arrangement.

Here are the same number of green blocks arranged in a kind of zig-zag design.

As I looked around my studio and saw the leftover pieces of various projects, I decided to do something with these pieces.

Since I had made four blues and four greens, I knew that I had to have four pairs of the other colors - so I selected oranges, pinks and purples. I deliberately chose fairly plain darker fabrics and the lighter ones were mostly equally blender-ish, but I did allow a few of them to be larger, busier prints.

Here you can see all the pairs and the prints in detail.

That's the start!

Need Help

 

A few years ago I asked for birds so I could make a bird quilt exclusively from birds made by students. I got enough birds for TWO quilts. I made one, and I bring it to classes I teach so students can see REAL birds made by quilters other than me. These are the birds that I didn't use in the first quilt. I'd like to finish the second quilt, but as you can see, most of the birds face left and only four face right.

I need about a dozen right facing birds, like this one, above. Can you help me? Would you be willing to make me a right facing bird for this quilt? The birds should be on a LIGHT background, like the WOWs, above.

If you would like to help, email me at patcherymenagerie AT gmail DOT com. You know how to put them together. I live in the US and the birds can fit in a normal envelope. 

THANKS!

This and That

 

I finished the binding on the Green Birds quilt, so that's done. I'm gearing up for changing the quilts to spring colored quilts on the first of April, so this is good. This is the first bird quilt I made that didn't use White on Whites as a background.

The greens weren't even the same fabric in each block. 

(If you want to make your own birds, you can get my tutorial here, at my Etsy shop. It's the ONLY place to buy it.)

Some time ago my sister called me and told me to read the book, Project Hail Mary. So I did. Earlier this year we learned there was to be a movie about it, and she and I went to see it yesterday. It was grand. I recommend it. I REALLY recommend it. Now, I read the book, so I knew what was going on, which was a good thing, because 1, I didn't stress myself out about the ending, and 2, as I age I find it slightly difficult to hear properly in a loud movie theater.

I've also been reading, catching up on some housework, going to Swim class and Tai Chi class and working out in the yard with the spring clean up when the weather is warm and sunny. I've also been keeping up with the new seasons of Top Chef and Tournament of Champions VII as well as watching Grace and Father Brown on BritBox.

I've also updated the blog page "Not Yet Quilted" showing quilts I have that aren't finished yet. This is kind of a big deal. In 2022, the year my dad died, I completed two quilt tops. The average before that was anywhere from eight to ten. In 2024 I made twelve. In 2025 I made fourteen. So far in 2026 I've made five!!!!

I don't know what I'm going to do next, but I need to do a deep clean in the studio first.

Binding the Green Birds Quilt

 

I am finally sewing the binding on the Green Birds quilt.

Otherwise I've just been doing the usual blah blah blah.  Still have to prepare the backings for three quilts: The Yellow Macnas, the Dancing Jewels and the other one.

It's a Flimsy!

 

The Opalescence quilt is now a flimsy. Here is a shot of the back. Regular readers know all the backs of my quilt are this neat.

Here's the quilt. It's a bit lighter in real life, and I'll try to take a picture of it outside if the weather permits over the next few days.

The quilt is pretty, and I like it more than I expected to. While it looks random, it isn't. Each block was placed, and while there are some blocks that seem to blend into each other, I left them there. I wasn't too worried about the overall "scheme," I wanted something that looked fresh and didn't look too perfect.

I remember some terrific advice I got years ago, "You never want your quilts to look like a machine made them." I don't remember the name of the person who said it. 

My own personal corollary is: "You don't want your quilt to look like it's a design you'll find on the tiled floor of a hotel lobby, airport, museum or public building." Yeah, I know. I'm a bad woman. 

I have six yards of this in my stash, and it will be the backing of the quilt. Woo hoo! 

WHAT will I do next?

I don't know either!

   

Almost, but Not Quite

 These are the last four rows of blocks to sew together for the pastel Macnas quilt, which shall be called Opalescence.

The pieces are pinned together, and you can see by the pins I have put on the leftmost edges, which row each one is, so I don't get them mixed up when I go to sew the rows together.

These four rows will be sewn together and fit into that space at the lower right of the quilt. Then I'll sew all the chunks together and the flimsy will be complete. 

I am happier with this than I expected to be, and am pretty sure I have the backing for it already.

Pastel Macnas Grows

 

I've sewn the top eight rows together into four big chunks and moved it to the top of the design wall.

There's also an eight block wide chunk at the lower left that is sewn together. That far left piece represents the bottom edge of the quilt. 

So it's growing.

The Design Wall Limitations

The design wall in my studio is 64" wide by 83" tall. When I show you photos of what's on it, I generally crop out the floor, and extra stuff around the design wall, like the door at left, the wall of the bookcase at the right (that's a long green cutting mat that hangs on the side of the bookcase) and the area above the design wall.

I also try to straighten the photo. This one, above, is a bit crooked. And I usually move the stepladder out of the way.

BTW, Thank you all for caring so much about my safety. I do indeed have to be very careful with the ladder. I have osteoporosis and arthritis and at my age balance is definitely an issue. It's why I am taking Tai Ji Quan, for better balance. It's not the "normal" Tai Chi. It's is designed for better balance. My Mom asked me the other day if I noticed any changes in my body seven weeks into the class.

"Well, my body hasn't changed. I haven't lost weight and I'm not any thinner, but the other day I put a sock on one foot while standing on the other, and no, I wasn't holding on to anything." Granted I was right next to the bed, but still. And it's only one foot. I can't do that quite as well on the other foot, but I'm better.) A few months ago I would never have even TRIED to balance on one foot. So the Tai Ji Quan class is working for me, although the change is gradual. But I am not going to risk anything on the ladder.

The Pastel Macnas quilt uses blocks that are 2-1/2" x 4-1/2". My design requires 30 of them in each row.

30 x 2.5" = 75”. Note my design wall is 64" wide, so I could only show 25 blocks across, like in the photo above. I needed to sew a lot of blocks together to make room for the extra five blocks to fit on the design wall.

Sewn together, those 30 blocks equal 60.5", which will fit just fine.

But trying to tinker with that many blocks while on a ladder is indeed foolhardy, which is why I have not bothered to fill the design wall with blocks. I'm working as high as I can comfortably reach while standing safely on the floor. Then I'll sew that all up and move it higher on the design wall and work below it.

In the photo above, you can see sorta how I'm working my way along. I've also been working to sew blocks together so I can have enough empty space on the right side to continue to add those five extra blocks to the design.

Is this ideal? Hell no. But needs must.

The size of the blocks definitely makes a difference. In the Dancing Jewels quilt, above, the top row of blocks is eight inches tall, most of the blocks are six inches wide and there are only 10 blocks in each row.

There are tricks. You might be able to see a thin sliver of silver on the green cutting mat in the photos above. That's a thin 24" long metal ruler that hangs on the same nail the long mat hangs on. If I want to remove a high block from the design wall, I just grab the ruler and slide it under the block. This disturbs the surface tension and the block loosens from the wall and flutters down to my feet. (It would be nice if I could catch them, but no such luck.) 

I also know better than to go anywhere near the stepladder when I'm tired.

Finally, Nancy: I used to be a 2D artist and I worked on paper. That means I'd put hundreds of hours into a piece of art on paper, (see the first photo in this post. )so I long ago learned to keep foods or liquids of any kind FAR AWAY from what I was working on. My cup of hot chocolate NEVER sits on my sewing, cutting, or ironing tables. I don't eat in my studio either. Snacking is also forbidden. In fact, I make sure to wash my hands BEFORE I got into the studio and get to work.

 

Pastel Macnas

 I'm less than five feet tall and have to be very careful not to fall, so designing the top of this quilt on the design wall means I'd have to use a stepladder, and that isn't a very good thing for me.

I decided to sew the top part of what I have together, then I can lower it to a comfortable height on the design wall and then I can add the  2 rows above what is shown in the photo. Since my design wall is a bit too narrow for 30 2-1/2" blocks so I decided to sew the leftmost blocks together. This will allow me to shift everything over and add the extra blocks to the right.

The Next Thing

 

I finished sewing the jewel-toned Macnas quilt together. Here it is draped over my ironing table. You can better see the fabrics and colors. A random arrangement of fabrics works well many times, but this regular arrangement has a rhythm that I like very much.

Instead of ironing the backing fabric that needs it, I went into the studio yesterday morning with my hot chocolate and looked around, wondering what to do next.

I've got a lot of fabric in the big scrap bins and I've been working my way through that, but working on the jewel toned Macnas quilt had me searching through my stash, and I discovered a lot of older stuff hidden in there.

WHAT IF... I wondered, I used all the small pieces of forgotten stuff in the stash?

So I put my hot chocolate down, (mind you I was still in my nightgown), and looked through the stash. I found several smallish pieces of a lot of light colors - pastels, really.

Something else jiggled in my brain, and I went over to where I have stacks of Macnas-sized blocks resting on trays. I brought them over to the worktable and sorted through them. I had A LOT of pastel fabrics I didn't even need to cut.

I could get started RIGHT AWAY. 

I got out the laser level and set up plumb lines and cross lines on the design wall, putting random Macnas blocks on the wall the to establish a basic grid. The plumb lines help me to line up the blocks so the design  looks more or less straight and keeps the design from going out of whack. The plumb lines are nothing more than crochet cotton tied to a push pin at the top of the design wall, and with something heavy tied to the bottom. Sometimes it's a bulldog clip with a bunch of old business cards, but anything heavy-ish will work.

It quickly became clear that this new quilt was not going to take long. I knew I wanted something low-volume, pastel, spring-ish colors. I also knew I wanted to arrange the blocks randomly, and not pair them up first.

Excited, I picked up my now empty mug and headed toward the kitchen, where I had breakfast, and then to the bedroom where I got dressed and made the bed. (A shower would come after I got home from Swim class.)

I know from experience that I need 540 pieces to make a quilt 60" x 72" and that when I cut I can get a whole lot more really quickly, so I sorted through those pieces and made a stack. Then I went through the stash and found the smaller pieces of pastels and cut some blocks. It was quickly apparent that I had enough blocks to get started, so I put blocks on the wall, and then I'd cut more.

Quite frankly, these photos look terrible. It's dark, and I have every light in the studio pointed at the design wall, and the sun is out, so you have to believe me. It is not this dark, or dull, or unexciting.

This is not going to take long.

Piece by Piece

 

I've been sewing the blocks of the Jewel toned Macnas quilt together the old fashioned way. In the photo above all the blocks are sewn together into rows and except for the bottom two, the rows are sewn together in pairs, so all, (you know, that pesky "all") I have to do is sew those together and the flimsy will be complete. This one may or may not have a home yet. I haven't quite decided. 

This is the backing fabric I have chosen for the Yellow Macnas quilt,

 and this is the one I have chosen for my nephew's quilt, Dancing Jewels. Both are quilt backings, so quite large pieces. I have to iron them and get them organized. 

This past weekend my local art museum, The Currier Museum, had a show where garden groups from throughout the state were invited to do floral arrangements based on artwork in the museum. This is one of my favorite pieces in the museum, and you can see the floral arrangement beside it. I am always interested in how artists get inspired, so this was a great show to see. I was fortunate enough to be there when the floral designers themselves were available to discuss their thought processes that led to their creations.

Decisions, Decisions

 

I shifted some of the blues, all three of the reds and two of the purples. I was happy with this.

Then I tried to zig zag the design, but I got to this point and decided it didn't bring anything at all to the party, so I put the blocks back.

Again, there's nothing wrong with the zi-zag, it just didn't ring any bells for me.

So now I'll be sewing this together.

I meant to show this photo the other day, but apparently I forgot. These are most of the fabrics in the quilt. (I see I accidentally chopped off the fabric I paired with the blue at the far right. Sorry about that.)

More More More

 

As you can see I've been making blocks and adding them to the design wall. 

There is one teeny tiny problem.

The design wall is just a bit too narrow for all the blocks to fit. You can see some of them hanging off the edge in the photo above. (They are at the far right.)

The bookcase that stores my fabric stash is right next to my design wall, but the bookcase leans forward a bit, and there is a space behind it. You can see it in the photo above - it's the dark area above and below the watermark in the photo. In theory this is not a problem, but I have had some blocks fall off the wall and slip BEHIND the bookcase, which is the equivalent of disappearing into the Pit Of Doom. Since I have a finite number of blocks and have used up every last inch of some of the fabrics, I could not afford to lose even a single block, so rather than work from the center to the right, and risk losing blocks into the POD, I went back to the far left of the quilt and worked from the left edge to the middle. Once the blocks pairs are sewn up, there will be space on the wall for the pieces to adhere and not hang off into space and be at risk of falling into the POD.

Because the pattern shifts half a block over, some of the block pairs are split up, with the dark part of the block sewn at the far right edge of the quilt, and the corresponding light part will be a the beginning of the next row. (This pattern LOOKS easy, but that's deceptive.)

I have sewn all the blocks together.  Don't get excited. I still have tinkering to do.