I Talk...

 

I gave a talk to the Seabreeze Quilt Guild in Exeter NH last week. It was a glorious day, sunny and unseasonably warm. They wanted me to talk about my letter quilts, so I did. I brought fifteen quilts, including Too Much Chicken (behind me).

One of my all time favorite letter quilts is the Quick Brown Fox.

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I watched Project Runway from the very beginning, although I stopped after a few years. I always loved Tim Gunn's trademark phrase, "Make it work." He meant to use what you HAVE, not to go out and buy more stuff or change your mind. 

It reminded me of an Arthur Ashe quote I found in my notebooks as I was working on my talk. "Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can." That would make a great word quilt.

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Naturally I brought the Not Paper Pieced quilt.

Afterwards, a lady game up to me, "I almost didn't come tonight, because I couldn't see any point in putting letters on a quilt. But I'm so glad I did. I am so excited. I have SO MANY ideas. You have totally inspired me."

Afterward I got this text from the program coordinator from the quilt guild. Made my night.

One of the really nice things about the evening was that my mother was able to attend. She had never heard me speak before.

I wrote a tutorial about making free pieced letters. It's enormous, but comprehensive. You can get a copy here, if you want to make letters yourself.

Not Paper Pieced is Finished

 

The Not Paper Pieced quilt is finished. I sat down on Saturday morning, and started sewing. I had found a really silly television show to stream - Holey Moley - about extreme miniature golf. Think miniature golf meets Wipeout, with crazy ridiculous trick miniature golf holes with near impossible tricks. It was just the kind of mindless thing I needed. I worked steadily, taking breaks to have lunch and strip the bed, throw the sheets in the washer, then the dryer, then remake the bed, then have a snack, then make dinner. So I watched ten episodes of season one. 

As you can tell, I finished the flimsy for this quilt in 2019, then brought it to Janet-Lee. We weren't quite sure how to quilt it, so it sat and sat. Now it's done and I'm happy with it, and it will be the centerpiece of my talk to the Seabreeze Quilters in Exeter NH on January 9, 2024.

Happy New Year's Eve!

Letters

 I was talking to my pal Julie on Friday in one of our marathon monthly telephone calls. We talked about letters and somehow I got the idea to make KEEP IT SIMPLE in free pieced letters.

Why KEEP IT SIMPLE ? Because we have both noticed that my best quilt are quilts that I don't think too much about when I am making them.

So I got the idea of making several KEEP IT SIMPLE panels and put them together in one bigger quilt.

This was my first one.

I wrote a tutorial on "liberated" letters. You can get it here at my Etsy shop. Yes, it's a big tutorial, but I tell you everything you need to know to make all the letters in the alphabet in upper and lower case, as well as all the numbers.

JOY

 

I started my Holiday decorating. I brought the decorations out from the closet, and I went to the big box hardware store and bought some poinsettias. Heh!

This little pointsettia is on my bedside table next to photographs of my son and DIL and DGG. But that’s not what I want to show you.

I decided to make a cover for the small pillow for the red chair in my living room. I wanted to make something with letters, and the word JOY would fit perfectly. Plus I had a good selection of red holiday fabrics with which to work.

Here is the finished pillow on the chair.

It looks great! I got a small nutcracker and displayed it on the small table nearby with a Holiday Gizzy quilt.

The letters I make are “free-pieced” meaning they aren’t made with traditional patterns or templates. I wrote a tutorial to make these letters too. The tutorial shows you how to make all 26 letters in the alphabet, both upper and lower case, as well as numbers. You can get it at my Etsy shop as well. Click on the bird in the sidebar and it will bring you to my Etsy shop.

Love!

 

I made the word LOVE, and tried putting a heart in the O. It's cute, but that O doesn't "read" as an O.

This is the final word. I like it. I like the point at the bottom of the V, and the reddish purple color of the letters.

I made a pink asterisk. It came out a little cock-eyed, but I like it anyway.

My letters are made without patterns, or templates and they are not paper-pieced. If you want to learn how, you can get my tutorial here, at my Etsy shop.

Laughter

 I've made an asterisk and started sewing the letters together for the word laughter. I made the L bigger, too.

Right from the time I made the U I knew I wanted it to float slightly higher than the baseline.

I made both the T and the R wider. I knew I wanted to float the T. Regular readers know I like to use a variety of WOWs and I use them interchangeably. You can see that in these photos.

Trimming a l-o-n-g word is the biggest reason to have an equally long ruler to use when trimming. Sliding a shorter ruler along doesn't guarantee a straight cut.

Laughter is 41" wide.

I made a few orange-y asterisks, and I like this one a lot.

 

These letters are made without patterns, templates and they are NOT paper pieced. If you want to make your own, you can get my tutorial here at my Etsy shop. It's an instant download so you can get started right away.

 

Make Me Laugh

 

Before I make a word, I gather my fabrics together and lay them out close to where I think I might use them. For this word, LAUGHTER, I wanted to use more than one fabric in each letter and I wanted the word to be cohesive, so I selected fabrics that were close in hue and value.

I usually make my letters from scraps. In this letter 'a' you can see that even the WOW background fabrics are all different.

Here are the first four letters. I never trim my letters down to size until I sew them together, so I always make them fatter and taller than their finished size. In this case, though, that letter 'g' is just too small. I'll fix it later. You can see all the different fabrics in this photo.

The 't' and 'r' look really skinny here, but these are their finished sizes. If I still think they are too skinny when I start sewing the letters together, I'll remake them.  

Next up: a bunch of asterisks!

 

I don't use patterns or templates when I make my letters and they are not paper pieced. If you would like to make your own letters, you can get my tutorial here at my Etsy shop. It's an instant download so you can get started right away.

Bird & Bits

 It never takes me long to make a bird, any letter once I decide what fabric I will use, and how I want to use it. Getting there, however, takes some time.

Here is the bird. Right now he is sitting on the P of the word Picnic.

Here is a heart. I haven't got the hearts "wired." I still struggle with them.

I like my hearts irregular, and different from each other. I like this group of three hearts.

This is everything all together. Because I am sure you are wondering, the word SUNSHINE is 38" wide.

In other news I got the crown for my implant last week and was more than just a little shocked to discover it cost three times as much as I thought it would. It was rather demoralizing.

If you like my letters, you can get my tutorial here: Lynne's Liberated Letters.

If you like my butterflies, you can get that tutorial here: Lynne's Pieced Butterfly Tutorial.

If you like the birds, you can get that tutorial here: Lynne's Liberated Birds.

Gizmos for the new Quilt

 

Here is the new word, Sunshine.

Here's a pink butterfly.

The letters are made without templates, patterns or paper piecing. You can make them too. I show you how in my tutorial, and you can get it here, on my Etsy shop. It's an instant download, so you can get started right away.

 

I designed the butterfly also, and wrote a tutorial for the butterflies as well. You can get it here, also at my Etsy shop, and it is also an instant download.

 

It's a Picnic!

 

The new word is picnic. It isn't sewn together and the letters are not at their final size. I will make the i's smaller.

I've decided this is a summer fun quilt. 

 

My letters are "free-pieced" or "improvisationally pieced." They are made without templates or patterns and they are not paper pieced. If you are interested in making letters, you can get my tutorial here, at my Etsy shop. It's an instant download, so you can get started right away.

I got an email from the curator of the New England Quilt Museum. The plan is to have a one person show of my quilts there and we are looking at April or May of 2021. WOW!

Giggles

 I decided the next word should be GIGGLES. It's fun and silly.

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I knew where I wanted to go with the word, but it wasn't until I tilted the letters that I really started loving it.

 I think the fabric I is perfect, and the dino dot is the bomb!.

 

I'm not quite sure about the L, but overall I am pleased.

Of course, looking at it now I think the third G needs to be a bit bigger.  I want to make a pink butterfly as a companion to this word.

If you want to know how to make letters, you can get my tutorial here, at my Etsy shop. My letters are made without patterns or templates and they are NOT paper pieced.

JOY *

 

 Here is today's word, Joy.

Here is an asterisk. 

I've decided to use the fabric from the leftover triangles in these letters.

These letters are not paper pieced. They are "improvisationally" pieced. They are made without templates or patterns. If you want to know how to make them, you can get my tutorial here, on my Etsy shop.

 

 

Hope This Finds You Well

 There was an article in the New York Times about that phrase, "Hope this finds you well," that we have all been using when we check in on each other. 2020 will undoubtedly be the strangest year most of us will ever live through. It hasn't been easy for many of us, and downright disastrous for far too many.

I live alone, so it's up to me to keep myself involved. I usually have the TV on when I work in the studio. I'm used to watching the big sporting events - The Kentucky Derby, The Masters, The Indianapolis 500, The French Open, Wimbledon, and so on. Those have been cancelled or postponed, or run without spectators, as you can see from the photo of the Indy 500 race above.

I've got one more quilt to bind, but I wanted something to keep my brain occupied. My pal Julie said she was going to make something pink, because we all need more pink in our lives.

Hmmm, I replied. Maybe I need words. Fun, happy words. We need happy. Maybe something with birds, hearts, asterisk flowers. "Yes, yes, yes" Julie texted back. "Hope."

Flowers, happy, joy, fun, laugh...

"Sparkle"

It should be cuckoo like the chicken, with upside down words, vertical words, silly spelling. And it should have images... sailboats, cats, cake. Butterflies

"Sunshine"

It should have white on white backgrounds...

"Duh!"

OK! I'm going to get my notebook and start writing this stuff down...

Kites, smiles,

Thus inspired, I went into the studio to make some

The plan is to make a word a day, and also some "thing" else - here it is a heart. I want lots of other stuff in addition to the words. I want a quilt of happy. We'll see how this goes. Regular readers know I often get started with less than a complete idea, but that as I work other ideas will pop up, things will change, and after a bit, I'll figure it out, and then I'll be off to the races.

 

These letters are not paper pieced. They are "improvisationally" pieced. They are made without templates or patterns. If you want to know how to make them, you can get my tutorial here, on my Etsy shop.

HEY: https://squamish.arcteryxacademy.com/films, check out the film, FREE AS CAN BE. That old guy is my brother Mark. Yeah, it's rock climbing on El Capitan in Yosemite Valley, but hey, it's my brother!

Size and Space Matter

It's easy to lose track of how big something is until you see it in context. I looked up from my worktable on Saturday when I was sewing big chunks of the Not Paper Pieced quilt together and saw this.

I spent most of my sewing time last night removing the Grouchy Seamstress from the quilt.

Yes I did! She was too close to the letter Q, so I moved her over to the left.

She only shifted an inch and a quarter to the left, but I think it looks better.

You can see some of the things I've hidden in between the NOs. I see two things I want to change. The man between the two NOs in the top row needs to move so he's leaning next to the NO on the left. Right now he's sort of hanging in mid air. Now that I know I have that much space, I may fill it with the rest of his body.

The light grey NO on the left side, opposite the Grouchy Seamstress is now too light. When I envisioned the border of NOs I thought of them as very low key, but they got darker and brighter. Now that one looks like a hole through which the rest of the quilt (and the precious viewer's eye) can escape. Can't have that!    

  The lady at the sewing machine has also finally found the perfect spot. She'll be down in the bottom border of NOs, right next to NEVER!

We're in the home stretch.