Needle in a Haystack

 

I'm finally working on the binding of the Needle in a Haystack quilt. 

It's much easier when I can "watch" tennis at the same time. I am watching the tennis at the US Open in New York. Streaming it on ESPN means I can choose what match I want to watch instead of being stuck watching the one that is being broadcast on normal television. I am quite enjoying it.

I'm also working on the talk I will give to the Connecticut Piecemakers Guild in a couple of weeks. I'm talking about the kinds of things that inspire me, and how I like to work in series. I'll be showing word quilts, scrap slab triangle quilts, my Zebra quilts as well as examples of quilts I make based on the inspiration I get from simply looking around.

I've never given a talk quite like that before, and I am excited about it. I'm also teaching a bird making workshop the next day, so that's going to be fun too.

I'm feeling a lot better. The congestion from Covid is gone, but I am still building up my stamina. So I am trying to take it mostly easy and not doing too much in one day. 

You Really Didn't Think...

 You really didn't think I would make a quilt so uniformly ... Blue, did you?

SURELY, my regular readers would expect me to put in some sort of joke...

Or visual pun,

Or anomaly,

that MAKES YOU LOOK!

Surely you all know that I love nothing more than breaking the rules while following them at the same time. Above there is indeed one purple triangle. It's been in the photos all along, but you have missed it because....

VALUE SUPERCEDES COLOR!

(Nyah, ah, ah!)

So, for those of you who missed it, you can often substitute a different color in your quilt as long as it is the same VALUE. Most people will miss the difference, because it looks like it belongs. It DOES belong, because it is the same VALUE.

So the title of this quilt is: Needle in a Haystack.

As in, Needle? What needle? Where?

I love to put surprises in my quilts to reward viewers who are paying attention.

SO, why purple? Well, there are some pinks in this quilt, in the light blocks with the insects and beetles and the lotus leaves. 

Pinks are really light red-violets. You can see the relationship in the photo above. I tried this red violet block in the quilt but it didn't "hide" as well as the purple did when lined up with the other blue triangles.

As you can see.

Purple is a mixture of blue and red, so the purple block fit in with the overall plan. Of course I used a fairly nondescript print so it wouldn't draw too much attention to itself.

THIS IS IMPORTANT...

WHAT I WANTED was for the different block to DISAPPEAR with the others. I wanted it to be there, but I WANTED it to HIDE. I wanted viewers to notice it if they looked hard enough. Had I WANTED it to show off, I would have used the red-violet block. This was a conscious choice. The color, the print, the location for this block were all specific, conscious. and deliberate choices.

When YOU make YOUR quilts, you have choices too. WHAT do you want your quilt to say? How do you want your quilt to LOOK? How do you want it to FEEL (visual feel, not texture.) As Yogi Berra famously said, "If you don't know where you are going, you will end up somewhere else."

I knew what I wanted this quilt to be from the very beginning. The choices I made were choices that would make that idea come to life. It is very important to know that when you make a quilt, or any other piece of art.

Kill Your Darlings...

 

Sometimes no matter how much you like something, you have to recognize that it doesn't work and you have to get rid of it. In the block above, the color of the flowers in the blue triangle on the right match (and thus blend) perfectly with the blue in the fabric on the left.

This kinda breaks my heart as this fabric is the inspiration for the entire blue quilt. 

You can see that blue flowered triangles in the layout above. You can see that they attract the eye right away, and they also do not "read" as blue. There's a white flower up there, that is surrounded by blue and it reads as a "hole." That's a no-no.

Here I have covered up those flowered fabrics and the design really shines. What I want in this quilt is to emphasize the sharp blue triangles. Without those flowers, what you see is TRIANGLES. Which is what I want.

I also removed the light blues in the above blocks. These light blues "read" as too dark and were too close in value to some of the other blues that were used as "darks."

I ended up discarding 20 blocks, which is 12% of the total blocks on the design wall, so I had to make more blocks before I started to design the quilt for real.

And one more thing:

Am I the only quilter who has ever done this?

And I did it TWICE!

Monochromatic <> Boring

 

Just because something is monochromatic (one color), it does not have to mean monotonous, or boring.

This quilt is shaping up to be just what I had envisioned. It just took me 126 blocks on the design wall to know for sure.

Yesterday I still needed to make about 45 blocks, and for that I had to cut more fabric, so that is what I did. I cut the blocks and sewed them into pairs and put them up on the design wall. These are arranged willy-nilly, with no editing whatsoever. That will change later today when I get to designing in earnest.

Blue Triangles Start

 I started sewing pairs of triangles together and put them up on the design wall. One of the things I liked about the Triangle Dance quilt was its liveliness, but I have not yet decided if I want this quilt to share feeling. Originally I conceived it as an all blue quilt.

Here I have cut more blocks and threw them up on the design wall. 

Arranging blocks is often like creating a Sudoku puzzle. It can be tricky to evenly distribute the various prints. Here I tried to put the busier colored lights in diagonal rows. Didn't thrill me.

Here I played with the idea of two different triangles next to each other creating parallelograms. This is a better idea in the imagination than in real life.

When I get stuck I remove ALL the blocks from the design wall and go back to the start. In this case, my original idea (even if I have since wondered if it would be too boring.)

It is quite literally monochromatic (one color) but that's not always a bad thing. I'm going to keep along this route, making more blocks and seeing where it goes. I have kept the busier blue prints in the "light" category for now. I always like to have a little surprise.

One Two Three Four...

 

Sewing the blocks together is a kind of a precise thing. I start at the right side of the quilt, and then place the right side triangle over the blue one, and then set it down. Then I move to the next block, and do the same thing. All the way to the end of the row.

My stack looks like this. Next I pin the two pieces together, keeping the sequence the same. Then I sew them, stack them, and then press them in that same sequence. Then I square them up,

and pin them together (same sequence), being careful not to flip the blocks over.

Then I press them, seams open.

After I have two rows done, I sew them together. Then on to the next two rows. Then I sewed the two two row pieces together into a four row segment. The photo above shows two four row segments sewn together, (at the bottom). I'm working my way through this each evening.

Complicated quilts can be really cool, but there's something lovely and hypnotizing about one block repeated over and over.

In this particular layout, it's very important the blocks line up at the corners so the points match and the blue and white shapes are crisp and distinct.

What I Did Last Weekend

                                       

I spent some time working on the blue and yellow rail fence quilt. It doesn’t look like much, but it’s getting there. I have an idea of mixing up the blocks but I need to make more of them before I can play with them.

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I spent Friday afternoon with my friend P. We had planned to take a drive up north to look at the fall foliage, but we had to postpone our trip due to Covid concerns. We went out to eat at one of her favorite restaurants and we did some shopping at the same time. I bought a new purse, and because I got a new purse, I made a new lanyard for my work keys.

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I also made a trip to the Apple Store for some instructions on how to use some of the applications (Write, Keynote & Numbers, the equivalent of Word, Excel & PowerPoint). It’s enough to get me going. While at the Mall I bought two sets of bedsheets, because that morning I work up with my lower leg in a hole on my bottom sheet. Sigh.

But the biggest thing I did this last (4 day weekend) was visit a local crematorium and make my own final arrangements. It was one of the things on my list of things I wanted to get done this year.

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This and That and That and That

 I confess I have been spending a lot of my time lately lying on the couch, reading. But I haven't been a total sloth.

The last of my blue and yellow fabric arrived, and it has been washed, ironed and cut into the strips I need for my next project. I hope to be sewing later today.

I'm going to make a wonky rail fence quilt, from Sujata Shah's book Cultural Fusion Quilts.

Earlier this year I was walking through the house in the middle of the night and I tripped on something and fell. I knew where I was and what was where, but that could have been bad. In my trips to the hardware store I discovered small motion sensitive lights, and have since installed them in strategic places around the house. Now no midnight trips to the bathroom or anywhere else in the house will be made in total darkness. I've also installed a couple in some of my kitchen cabinets so their contents are no longer in the dark. These also mean I no longer have to leave a light on all day so I won't walk into a darkened room.

Flowers are nice, but watching them wither and die isn't much fun. Since the guest bathroom is filled with light (but not direct sunlight) I decided to buy these small succulents. They satisfy my desire for plants in that room and fill the corner in an interesting way.

I have tried to bring stuff to Goodwill twice in the last four weeks and been stymied each time. The fist time the place was roped off and there were no less than SEVEN police cars with their lights flashing nearby. Turns out there was a bomb threat. I'm just speechless. Who would do that? The world has become a very scary place. I went by again yesterday and the drop off was closed. I'm hoping to make a return trip later today. I still have lots more stuff to donate.

I went clothes shopping. The last time I bought clothes in a store was in 2019. Since then I've bought a couple of pairs of jeans and some nightgowns, but I really needed things, so I made a list. I bought turtleneck shirts, pull over and cardigan sweaters, and some tops. Everything was on sale so I was a very happy camper.

After days of phone tag, I finally have an appointment for a colonoscopy. It's in February. (sigh)

Lastly, I went to the Apple Store. My iPad is over six years old and is showing signs of age. I wanted to update it. While there I talked about possibly getting a slightly more robust one than the one I have now, but using it to replace my Windows laptop. I'm paying for backup software, antivirus software, security software as well as other applications. All those costs go away if I make the switch to Apple. So I am considering it.

And I'm trying to get rid of Comcast.

 

Bloo

 

I think I figured out what I want to do.

I've cut a pair of WOF strips for each of these fabrics.

And these,

And these. I have more strips to cut, but they won't be blue.

In Pieces and On The Couch

This is the quilt in five big chunks.

 Here it is after I have sewn the big chunks together and completed the top. It's going to  be a really pretty quilt.



Just a reminder that my diamond quilts are inspired by Pam Goecke Dinndorf's Harlequin Quilt. She sells a pattern for it here.

 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

By the way, I got irked at the guy at the big box store because he did NOT listen to what I asked. I told him I wanted a work light to illuminate a wall six feet wide by eight feet tall from a distance of about between 10 and 12 feet. Then I showed him a picture of my design wall.

"Is this inside or outside? Is this a dining room?"

"It's inside, and it isn't a dining room. Why does it matter what kind of room it is? It's a work room. It's a studio. I don't need to install it permanently and I only need to use it when I take photographs."

He held up his hands, "I'm not trying to offend you."

"Well you're doing a pretty crappy job. I described exactly what I needed and you didn't listen to me."

He sighed. "OK, let's look at lights..."

When I had the little box in my hand, I looked at him. "Men do this all the time. They minimize what women do. And most women just take it. I make quilts, and I make money at it. My tools are important. I know a lot of quilters who don't have good tools or good lighting who work on a rickety ironing board and bend over a dining room table that's too low. Yet the men have every power tool known to man, table saws and riding lawn mowers. When I come to a hardware store to buy tools, the men try to sell me cheap crap. It's really aggravating."

"If that light doesn't work, bring it back," he told me.

Well, it works, so I won't have to bring it back. In fact, I went back later and bought a second one for my travel kit. The guy wasn't there, or I would have told him just how great the little light really is.          

Getting Bigger

The Blue Quilt is growing, and it's looking good.

 The view when I turn around from my sewing machine.

(btw.. The fabric on the curtain on the door to the left is tomato pincushions.)

Upper Right

Here is the upper right hand corner of the BLUE quilt.  Yes, I am standing on an ottoman to get far enough away to get the whole thing in one frame.

I pinned those two big corners back up on the design wall, and am continuing to sew the components together.


Yeah I know it's about as exciting as watching paint dry, but hey, it's what's going on in my studio right now.

Upper Left

I'm pretty happy with the layout of the Blue quilt (Blue Thunder?)

So I started sewing the components together. I sew the four patch diamonds next to the medium diamonds, and then those get combined into larger diamonds that are the size of the giant diamonds. Then they get sewed together.  It is my preference to trim the quilt just outside the vertical row of four patch diamonds, so I have to add extra medium blocks on the edge.

I'm traveling shortly, and I want to get this sewn together into a flimsy before I go, so I'll be working on this for the next few days. This should surprise nobody.

Blue Fantasy? Blue Planet?

Blue Paradise?

Actually, I think the title for this quilt has been staring us in the face for way too long. It doesn't need anything else.  It's just BLUE.

Blue, Re-blue'd

(You can click, then double click on the photos and they will enlarge, showing you a lot more than if you just look at them normally. You will probably see the changes I have made in greater detail.)

It's a funny way to design a quilt, but once I am happy with the placement of the giant diamonds, I remove the four patch diamonds and rearrange the medium diamonds. I like to place the medium diamonds so the colors relate to the larger diamonds, and I try to distribute darker prints so they aren't bunched together. 

The changes may look minor, but (for example) all the cream and light green prints (like these, above) are gone. From a distance they read as "green" and not "blue" and didn't fit.

(By the way, I had decided that I was NOT going to go out and buy one more damn piece of fabric for this quilt. I was going to solve the problem with what I had on hand.)

 After I've got the medium diamonds placed, I place four patch diamonds next to the giant diamonds so their colors connect to each other. See the yellow-orange and orange four patch diamonds next to the yellow-orange tail of the bird in the lower-right of this photo? And then on the other side, see how the lime green four-patch connects to the limey-green leaves in the same diamond? And above that, the yellow orange again, and then higher up, the red connects to the red of the fish on the right and the red flowers in the big blue floral diamond?  That's how I start. I place one at a time, and then work out where everything else goes.

By the time I do that, though, I've got a big stack of the four-patch diamonds. There are 16 different colors here. (Yellow, yellow-orange, red orange, red, lime green, olive green, grass green, red violet, violet, a dusky pink, and six shades of blue.) I didn't use all of them. The yellow and olive green didn't work at all, but I didn't know that FOR SURE until I tried them.

(Remember my favorite quote: "In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are different." Translation: You have to try it out in real life. It doesn't always work the way you think.)

I didn't arrange the four patch diamonds like a rainbow, either. Blue is next to red, orange is next to blue, green is next to purple... and so on.

I'm almost 99% sure this is IT. Of course that means it will stay on the design wall just like this for a day or so while I study it and make minor changes.  Of course, when you get the big things right, and then you pay attention to all the tiny little things that don't appear to be important, well, then you end up with a good design.

I already see something I don't like. That dark medium diamond in the bottom row. Too dark. Gotta go...

Blue Diamonds

Since I added the big diamonds, I thought you might like to see them in detail

I bought this one at the Vermont Quilt Festival a couple of weeks ago after I figured out the quilt should be blue-ish.

I bought this one when I bought the gold and brown giant prints.

This is left over from the backing for the mini Slashed Squares quilt.

i fell in love with this print back in 2012 and bought it in blue, green, grey-beige (it is the background of the mini four patch diamonds), brown/golds and a multi colored version. The only colorway I did NOT buy was the pink version.

I've had this blue fabric at least ten years.

 It may not look like I've done much, but I made a lot of four patch diamonds and have moved a lot of the medium diamonds around.

I also went to see the movie, The Incredibles 2. What A Blast!

And I paid the bills. (Trip to visit my grandbaby coming up...)

And I watched the tennis at Wimbledon (another day of upsets.)