58 Carats, Bound!

 

This is my quilt, 58 carats, so named because there are 58 unique fabrics in this quilt. Each diamond is different. There are a few prints that are represented with multiple colorways, and 80% of the fabrics came from my stash. One is over 30 years old. Many are a dozen years old. This quilt was not intended to be a colorwash style quilt, where the colors blend into each other. I wanted the edges here. I wanted to colors to look like layers or steps. What's really special about these fabrics is that they are "Giants." The vast majority of them are REALLY BIG PRINTS, what I call DIVAS. These are not necessarily designed to work with other big prints, they are designed to be the star of their own show.

In the movie Amadeus, Mozart talks about the final song in the third act of The Marriage of Figaro, where he has 11 people singing their own songs at the same time, "and it isn't noise." This quilt aims to do that kind of thing.

The binding is sewn, but now I have to sew the hanging sleeve on the back. I have discovered "The Repair Shop" on Netflix, so I have been watching that (along with the tennis in Oz) as I sew this up.

 

I'm truly sorry if you don't like opera, because The Marriage of Figaro is four hours of the most beautiful music ever written. Have you seen The Shawshank Redemption? Do you remember the scene where "the two Italian ladies sing?" That's from The Marriage of Figaro. Magic at its finest. If you are interested in opera, start with The Magic Flute, also by Mozart, and see if you can get a copy of the libretto (the "book") so you can follow along and understand what's happening. It's a comedy and quite wonderful. If you can't stand opera, don't bother leaving me a comment to say so.

Backing for 58 Carats

I always like to lay out my quilts on the backing I have chosen so I can be sure it is big enough before I hand it off to my long arm quilter.

Over the long weekend I ironed the backing I chose for the big diamond quilt, 58 Carats.

And because I hadn't trimmed it down, I thought I had better fold the edges over to make sure.

Am I glad I did! Look at this hole in the corner! Each of the four corners looked like this. I had to add fabric! I didn't need much, but from where? I didn't have more.           

Well, if the edge of the quilt was the point of the big printed diamonds, then I could trim these dark blue shapes smaller and use them to fill in those corners.

So that is what I did. This was one of those times when I could either do it or take pictures, and I just did it, and didn't take pictures. As you can see, it worked out fine. Thank goodness!

Here it is, ready to go. It was hard to find the right backing for this, so I ended up choosing a batikish backing with lots of colors all over it. You won't see any of that on the front of the quilt.

I'm So Charming!

Charm quilt:  A charm quilt is typically a one patch quilt where no fabric is used more than once.

THEREFORE:

This is a Charm Quilt. (Magic Carpet)
I feel charming...

This is a Charm Quilt. (Fifty-Eight Carats)
Oh so charming...

This is a Charm Quilt. (Geode)
It's alarming how charming I feel...

All three of these quilts are made with one block (in this case a large diamond) and in each of them, each fabric is used only once.

I love nothing more than strictly adhering to a rule and blasting it to smithereens at the same time.

Sadly, I have been asked if there are patterns for each of these quilts. (Cut large diamonds from 58-65 large prints and then arrange them as desired.)

Yeah, no pattern. Sorry folks.

Sorry, not sorry.



lyrics from "I Feel Pretty" from West Side Story.

Those Leftover Diamonds & Update

I got home from work last night and put my dinner in the oven and then went into the studio to start putting the leftover diamonds up on the design wall. I had thought of moving from light to dark so I started at the bottom. But that was just same old same old.

So I turned them on their sides. This was more interesting.

One thing I have learned is that you can't really make any decisions until you can see all the blocks at one time. So I put them all up on the wall, willy nilly.

 Then I set up a plumb line and the laser level and arranged the first row. I wanted to move from dark at the bottom, to light at the top, and I wanted to arrange the blocks by value, and not by color.

I worked my way up.

After about an hour of tinkering, this was the almost final version.

I switched four blocks, then put them back, then replaced two more. This is it. I'll have to fill in the triangle spaces on the sides with something (but it won't be a solid. I don't use solids. It will be a blender of some kind).

Here's the cool part. There are 60 unique blocks, and 60 unique fabrics. All were "leftovers." I didn't cut anything. I used what I had.

I'm feeling very virtuous.

Here, btw, is the quilt in black-and-white, in case you want to see how well I managed the values.

One Hundred Fourteen

These are the leftover giant diamonds from all the diamond quilts I have made. There are 114 of them. There may be duplicates.

I can tell you all have an idea where this is going. Let me tell you how the idea got started.

AS USUAL, it started with a conversation with my best pal, Julie. She had remarked that I should make a quilt of all my leftover zebra blocks. I replied that I hadn't kept any of them from the first one, Parade of Zebras, (the scrappy version.) Why not? I couldn't remember. But I had a ton of big diamonds, I told Julie. So one thing led to another.

THE QUESTION IS... Can I make a quilt (a decent one, not just a bunch of scraps sewn willy-nilly) using ONLY the 114 diamond blocks in the photograph above.

I already know that you guys are thinking, "Well if anybody can do it, Lynne can..." which is a very nice thought, and certainly a challenge, and the answer is, I dunno, we'll have to see.

So after I finish sewing the Firebird quilt top together (I have 3/4 of the top sewn. I didn't sew all day yesterday. I was reading The Children Return, Bruno Chief of Police #7 from Martin Walker and I wanted to finish it.) I am going to spread the diamonds around and see what happens.

Since I don't like to make two quilts that are the same, this ought to be interesting. My Number One Rule will be to use THOSE DIAMONDS and ONLY those diamonds. I am not going to allow myself to cut one piece of fabric.

We'll see how long that lasts.

Yeah, I know. (Rules are made to be broken and all that crap.)

Dino Diamonds Done!

It doesn't always happen, that a quilt comes out EXACTLY the way I had envisioned it, but this one did. This quilt is exactly what I wanted it to look like.

The quilt is bright, cheerful and colorful the way I wanted it to be, and you can see all that in these photos which were taken outside on a brisk November day. (It was 31F, just below freezing, and slightly breezy when these were taken, so I apologize if they are slightly out of focus.)

And here's the back. If my granddaughter wants to show off the big dinosaur panels, that's OK by me.

Now the quilt is taking a trip through the washing machine to get all soft and crinkly. I shall show this off to my family and friends before packing it up and sending it flying across the country for the big reveal on Christmas.

Sigh.

I can't wait.

More Dinos!

The Dinosaur Diamonds quilt is back from the long arm quilter, and is ready for binding. As you can see the quilting is happy flowers.

It's really pretty (at least I think so.)

For the binding I am using the small dinosaur prints in 20" lengths all around the quilt.

With the long holiday weekend coming up, I'll be able to get the binding sewn down so it will be in the City of Angels for Christmas.

One of my coworkers was giving me a hard time about this quilt. "Well, you've got your marching orders there, Grandma," they teased. They don't get it. I've basically been waiting my whole life to get a request like this.

"Hey, Memere, can you make me a dinosaur diamonds quilt?" 

I mean, like, really?



Happy Thanksgiving!

Dancing Diamonds

While I was at work yesterday I thought about this quilt, and how the first one reminded everybody of overlapping diamonds. Well, I wondered, I hadn't done that on purpose, but how could I do it to THIS one? Idly I wondered if making kind of concentric rings of color might do it. I was pretty sure I didn't have enough different prints to make that happen, and I don't plan to go shopping for more fabric, but I figured I'd try. I had nothing to lose, since I had a good photo of the previous layout.

So I started in the middle. Or more or less the middle, and tried to work outward. I did not move four or five diamonds, or the triangles across the top or most of the ones at the very bottom (those will be triangles, not diamonds), but I moved all the others. Many times.

I kept moving things around, and around, and around. I rummaged through my stash to find prints that were BIG so I could try them in the quilt. In this design, a fabric that is NOT A BIG BUSY PRINT just becomes a wallflower and doesn't do the design any favors. So I kept plugging.

At the end of the night I had this, and I was so brain dead I just couldn't see whether it was an improvement over yesterday or not. I think it might be.

What I found very interesting though, was looking at the thumbnail images of all the pictures of the process I had uploaded to my computer. I could see how the colors and values had moved around, and in the latest version, they actually seem more closely packed.

But even the pictures don't help. The edges get lost because you don't know where the quilt will really end, so I did a camera crop, and this is a lot closer to what the finished quilt will be.

OK, now that I see it this way, I think I'm good. There are a couple of things I want to tinker with (I mean, like, duh!), but you get the drift.

Better, but Worse

It's funny, but in the world of "Art" it isn't the most perfectly executed stuff that gets all the attention. Actually it isn't "funny" at all. You have all heard me say more than once that I prefer my quilts to have some "verve" and a touch of real life in them. The "perfect" quilts that win awards shows generally have me groaning in boredom. Just because it's more complex doesn't mean it's better. Google Rodin's drawings to see what I mean. An effortless looking line drawing can be very spectacular, and let me tell you, it takes real work to make it look "effortless."

The more I worked on getting these blocks to flow into one another, the less I liked it. I kept looking at the first one and wondered if I had lost my mind. It just looked mushy.

After watching the last "Poldark" (gosh, can you remember when I gushed in anticipation about watching the first one?) I had been texting Julie and one of the things we both liked about the first quilt was that it looked like it was made from big overlapping diamond shapes. Part of what gave you that feeling was seeing the points of the diamonds at the top and bottom. I went into the studio and tinkered. What is in the photo above is the result, and I liked it better already.

 Yesterday I got home from work and before I made dinner I went into the studio to take a look at what I had on the wall. I moved one piece, then another, and another. Two hours later (!!!) I think I had moved all but four or five pieces (and some that don't look like they moved went on extended tours around the quilt and ended up where they started). I like this better. I decided not to worry about using a print more than once.

It's also kind of funny because although I thought I knew where I was going when I started this, I really didn't, but I do now. It will probably change a lot before I am finished, but so what!!!

For Hubblebird, who asked, I use the Hex'N'More template to cut my big diamonds. I cut around one end, the flip the template over, align my edges, and finish cutting the diamond. And yes, I fussy cut the hell out of each and every one, then handle them very carefully to avoid stretching them out of shape.





I visited my dad in the hospital yesterday. I sat with him while he had dinner. "So what do you want for Christmas," he asked me as I kissed him goodbye. "Dinner with you," I replied. "And not here!" He grinned. Still no answers. He'll have more tests today.

The Bigs

I cut a LOT of my giant prints into big diamonds. Since they take up so much space on the design wall, I've stacked them by color. This is really not a great idea, since you need to be able to see them all to work out the design, but space is finite.

In the original quilt, the colors weren't really arranged in any particular way that made sense. Here I thought I would attempt to divide them cool on one side and warm on the other. I knew it wouldn't really work because I have more warmish fabrics than cool ones, but hey, you gotta start somewhere.

 
If there is one thing I have learned from taking the Colorwash 360 class with Wanda it's when you get everything up on the wall the first time, it is JUST A START. But as I was placing the blocks I could see quite clearly what my class with Wanda had taught me. I think you can see it too.

So this is the first pass and we'll see what develops. Like the first quilt, this is made from fabrics that are in my stash.

News

I promised this quilt to my son, but it's still in my house because I love it so much.

Then I remembered I have lots of giant diamonds left over and lots of giant prints in my stash so I figured I would make myself another one!!!

To make a quilt like this you need lot of blocks, so I spent the afternoon cutting diamonds out of my large prints.

I threw them up on the wall so I could see them.

Of course I couldn't stop from playing with them.

You get the idea. And here is where you can tell I took Wanda's Colorwash 360 class. I have more fabrics to cut, and then I'll be rearranging them.






As for the news, my Dad had a heart attack yesterday. He's anemic, losing blood and they don't know why. There is something else going on, and to treat one thing means possibly making the other worse. So we are all taking it day by day and keeping our fingers crossed. Remember he's 87.   

Go Slow and Sew

Sewing the diamond quilts together is an exercise in dealing with bias edges. These are 60 degree diamonds, and every block has at least two sides that are on the bias. So after I sew the blocks together, I place them on the floor, so they won't stretch.

Eventually I had to move it into the living room because it was getting so big.

Ironing can be challenging.

I had to cancel the Roomba's scheduled cleaning run.

Here's the finished flimsy.

Here's the backing. I used both the big dinosaur panels, some flower fabric from my stash,

 and the green "dragon scale" fabric I bought because my granddaughter said it was "green like T-rex." As you can see from the photo above, the scale (no pun intended) was too big for a lot of things, so it was perfect for the back.

The quilt will be going to the longarm quilter soon, and the goal is to have this in my granddaughter's arms on Christmas Eve.


And YES, this has been one hell of a quilt marathon.