Last Row of Boxes - Update

 

I've sewn the last row of the Holiday Boxes together. With luck I'll have the flimsy sewn up over the weekend.

I called about getting a larger mat. The most economical one is twice as big as I need. I've contacted the retailer to ask if they can cut it in half for me. They said they'd get back to me, but so far I haven't heard a reply. The mat on the table above is only two feet wide (or high in my case) and I really need a bigger one.

I've already ordered some double stick tape to hold the mat in place on my table (right now I use big clamps at the corners. I keep getting poked by them.) I also bought an adhesive measuring tape that I can adhere to the bottom edge and I am looking around for a pencil ledge which will keep my stuff from falling off. Worse comes to worst I'll call my local glass company and get a couple of pieces of colored plexiglas and tape those to the bottom edge of the table to create a lip.

I registered for the vaccine. I am in Group 1B in my state. There are approximately 300,000 folks in my state with that designation and currently 20,000 doses are delivered each week, so doing the math it will take 15 weeks for all those in my group to be vaccinated. That brings us to the first week in May. 

So I am not holding my breath that I will be called for an appointment any time soon. I will continue to have my groceries delivered and do as much shopping as I can online. I pick up my prescriptions at the drive thru pharmacy, and when I get gas (about once every 8 weeks) I wear a mask (and with the deadlier strain going around, I now double mask) and gloves. I always wear a mask when I am out and about, which isn't often.

I read, watch TV and Netflix (Lupin!), sew, work and cook/bake (Snacking Cakes is terrific!). I chat with my family on FaceTime. It sucks, but the alternative is worse.

UPDATE: I have a time and date for my vaccine appointment. It's at the end of February. Fingers crossed.

Two Rows

 

Not that you can tell with all the WOW going on, but the top two rows of boxes are sewn together and to each other.

The new cutting mat continues to be an absolute DREAM to work with. It is so smooth it requires barely any pressure from my rotary cutter to make a beautiful clean cut.

I will be ordering a larger mat very soon.

Back in the Studio

 

I cleaned off the work table and set up my new mat, then started sewing the holiday boxes together.

I sewed the top row of boxes together. This photo also shows my old cutting mat. You can see where it was worn out. That area also doesn't lie flat any longer. I rotated the mat so I could get more use out of it, and there is a corresponding worn area just out of sight in the lower right of the mat.

So, the mat. How's it work? In a word, FABULOUS. I always use a sharp rotary cutter blade, and working with this mat I exert very little effort. It is smooth and a pleasure to work on.

I never thought I'd miss the grid, and I don't, but I miss the ruler. but I am going to have to install a ruler along the bottom edge because I used to lay fabric strips along the ruler to know how long or how wide they were. Piece of cake.

The mat is so smooth it is slippery. And since my work table is at an angle, EVERYTHING slides off. Even pins!!! This will probably resolve itself as I use the mat, but in the meantime, I have to set up a little edge at the bottom to catch errant pins, rotary cutters, rulers, scissors, etc. And since the mat does not go up to the top of the table, it isn't held in place up there, so things slide under it. I can fix that, but these are things that aren't the MAT's fault. It's because the table is at an angle. But the mat is a freaking dream. The mat passes my test with flying colors.

The mat has NO ODOR at all, and it's just a pleasure to work with. I'll be ordering one the size of my big table later this week. I will also order some double sided tape to hold it in place.

Here's my mat: 2' x 4' Rhino Self Healing Large Cutting Mat (No Grid.)

Surprise, Surprise, Surprise

 We all have to clean the house sometime. (And yes, I know I have to Pick Up the Pencil.) 

I was dusting yesterday. This is the bureau in my bedroom. As you can see I love small boxes. I read that you should keep your collections together, so all my small boxes live on my bureau. My pal Julie made the runner, and her husband Larry made the lovely bowl above.

When I "dust" I like to dust each box, so I have to move each one. When I got to the cedar box at the right (with the stuffed gekko) I found a lovely surprise.

I have no idea why I have fifty bucks in that box.

But I sure as hell am not complaining. :-)

A Do-Over

 

Sometimes when you are so focused on one thing, you miss something else. This is a Do-Over of the Red Bird. When I made it I wanted to get the feathered edge of the angel's wing on the bird wing, but I didn't pay attention to how much "air" or negative space, was above the angel's head. In the new bird, above, I have fixed that. While I was at it I changed the color of the bird's legs and changed the beak.

This is the original bird, so you can compare the two. It isn't a big difference, but I much prefer the way the angel fills the space of the wing at the top. I know it's a little thing, but every time I looked at this bird that space bothered me, so I made a new one.

Call me crazy, I know, but I am happy I made the change.

If you are interested in making your own birds, you can get my tutorial here, at my Etsy shop. This bird is NOT PAPER PIECED.

More Boxes

 While Life is keeping me busy (I have been trying to decorate for Christmas, but last night I got sidetracked watching The Queen's Gambit), I have decided to show you bigger pictures of the boxes I made earlier, but did not show in bigger pictures. You can decide for yourselves if some of them are too dark, too light, or too bland.

This is leftover fabric from the backing and binding of the Happy Holidays quilt.

I found this Christmas fabric in a box of fabric that was given to me. Because they are complimentary colors, red and green together in one print can cancel each other out, and often look dull or dirty, so it can be tricky to use. In this case, the green trees are small enough that they don't alter your perception of the red.

This print is a variation of the background of one of Gustav Klimt's paintings. The movie about his painting of Adele Bloch-Bauer, Woman In Gold, is really worth seeing.

I made my sister a Christmas tree skirt years ago and used this as the backing. I've used the scraps in many projects since.
 

This is another fabric that came to me in a box. Vertically, this print would have made a good evergreen tree. With the other striped fabrics in the boxes on this quilt running vertically, I wanted this one to be different.

Striped prints are tricky to work with. They aren't always printed on the straight of the grain, and they aren't always parallel, so you have to make some adjustments when you want to emphasize the direction of the stripe. Striped fabric has a very interesting history.

This is the gold box that shows up as solid in photographs when seen from a distance. IRL it is clearly a print, and has some variety. Quiet boxes are necessary in the quilt to balance out the busier ones.

I have always found that if you want good reds or dark greens you should look in the Christmas section of any fabric shop or online store no matter what time of year it is. 

I think this is all the boxes.

The boxes are from a Moda pattern.

 

Fine Tuning

 

I really, really, really did not like that pink box of peppermint candies. It stuck out like a sore thumb, so after finding another surprise in my stash, I made yet another box.

I liked it a lot better. But then I noticed the busy box in the bottom row. (Actually there are two busy ones down there.) ANYTHING close to the edge of a piece of artwork that draws your eye there (usually it is something with strong contrast) is not a good thing. Because your eye will then be drawn OUT of the artwork, and that's bad. It's a Design Rule and it's based on how your brain sees things, so don't bother disagreeing with me. You won't win that argument. If you are making a piece of art (a quilt is a piece of art) your point is to get your viewer to look at it, not away. So YES you want to control the movement of your viewer's eye.

It's kinda funny. When I talk to quilt guilds or students I tell them I want my quilts to shout, "Look at me, look at me, LOOK. AT. ME."

"ME! ME! ME!"

"NOW LOOK AT ME SOME MORE!"

"Don't look at that other quilt, LOOK AT ME! LOOKATME LOOKATME LOOKATME!"

I pause. They shift in their seats uncomfortably. They look askance. "SO are you going to tell me I'm an egocentric crazy lady?" I ask them. "IF YOU HAVE A QUILT in a show, what do YOU think?" I ask them. "You think the same thing, right? Because if you don't, YOU ARE LYING!" Now they laugh.

"You want your quilt to be the CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE! You want EVERYONE to look at it, and look at it, and then look some more. TO DO THAT, you have to follow some basic design rules to keep your viewer's attention..."

That's WHY I take so much time fine tuning the layout of my quilts. Because I don't just want them to just look nice. I want them to be DROP DEAD KNOCKOUTS.

(True story. The Selvage Fairy once commented to me, "It's interesting that you think the worst something can be is nice." Now she'll correct me because I'm pretty sure I have the quote wrong, but you get the idea.)

So I moved about a dozen of the boxes. I rearranged them so I didn't have too may busy ones together. I moved them so there weren't too many quiet ones together. I moved them so the greens and the reds didn't sit next to each other. I moved some so the REALLY busy ones weren't too close to an edge. I moved them so prints with similar shapes were not sitting next to each other. Given the fact that I don't have an infinite number of blocks it's rather tricky, but I did my best.

When More is Not Better

 

This is most likely the final layout. I know that odd numbers work best, but I'm not sure a see a place for a fifth bird. (I am NOT open for suggestions about this.)

In one of the comments recently, Lynne N asked why I did not simply use a horizontal strip looking like a ribbon to disguise the horizontal seam. The answer is simple. EACH BOX in this quilt has a vertical "ribbon." When the eye scans the quilt, all those boxes are the same size and shape. It sets up a kind of rhythm, a repetition of elements that are exactly the same (except for color). It's a rhythm I like, and have mentioned in the past. It's actually the reason why I decided to make these boxes.

If I were to insert a horizontal stripe, not only would the eye see it RIGHT AWAY since it would be a big variation in what is already here, but it would break that rhythm that I like so much. It's adding one more element and in this case, it would be a distraction.

This is also the reason why the boxes are the same size and shape and arranged in strict rows and columns, and not alternated, in rows of 6, then 5, then 6, etc., like Judy in Michigan suggested yesterday.

That rhythm is also why (I'm pretty sure) the quilt will not have a border of any kind, or any other kind of new element, like an asterisk or two or three. 

This quilt is an example of when More is Not Better (and I am having second thoughts about the fourth bird I showed you yesterday). You all know me for going over the top. When I can get away with it, I do. In this quilt, I don't want MORE STUFF. I don't think this quilt needs it.

You may not have noticed it, but there is a pattern to the arrangement of boxes. The arrangement is by color and it is fairly regular. The reds and greens are separated by a light or brightly patterned print. The red and green blocks follow a diagonal from upper left to lower right. 

That arrangement of colors is another rhythm. You are not aware of it, but your brain sees it. 

Oh! Did you catch the change I made?

I decided the little gold bird has to go. And that "solid tan" box is really cream with a gold swirly print on it. It is very noticeable in real life, but hard to photograph. I never use solids.

This is probably it.

Probably. (I'm still not sold on those round peppermint candies fabric that looks so pink...). You have to remember. I make the quilts I want to make. I liked the rhythm of the boxes, so that is the quilt I am making. You may think it would look better with any number of variations. They very well might. But that is not the quilt that I want to make. You go do your thing, it won't hurt my feelings. I'm quite sure you could turn this thing on its head sixteen ways to Sunday and make it look really cool. Not my jam.

Besides, I've already played with different sizes of boxes, trees, asterisks and birds and letters.  Been there, done that. Got the quilt to prove it.

My son said to me once, about another quilt I was making years and years ago, "Mom, you REALLY thought about this didn't you?" Yes dear. "And this," he pointed. Yup. He looked up at me. "You think about Every Little Thing?" Yeah. If it's in one of my quilts it's because I put it there (or left it there) or left it out on purpose. 

It's the Fabric, Silly!

 I tell my students all the time that the success or failure of a quilt depends on the fabrics selected.

Of course, you also have to use it to its best advantage. It you have fabric that has such a terrific design, you'd be a fool NOT to show it off. I have the same print in green on a cream background, so I was wary about using this one. But when I needed five or six more blocks, I knew I had to use it - but differently than the other box.

I was surprised to find some of this fabric at the bottom of a bin somewhere, but there was a long strip about six inches tall. However, with a little judicious cutting and stitching...

This is another piece of fabric I found folded up at the bottom of a bin. Guess what I did with it?

Can you say "fussy cut?"

Again, you have to see the potential in your fabrics.

I've been avoiding this fabric since I started making the boxes. The background of this fabric is BLACK. Not exactly in line with a Christmas quilt. Or was it? With my back up against the wall and my fabric options limited, I decided to go for it. If I was lucky, the casual viewer would think it was a dark green.

 OF COURSE I fussy cut this too.

OH, do you see that gold ribbon? 

That's not only NOT a Christmas fabric, I salvaged it from this strip set I sewed over 15 years ago.

I bypassed this fabric from my stash several times since I started this quilt. but I needed a green fabric that was NOT a boring blender, so I pulled it out and made a box.

I also decided I needed another bird.

Cornerstones... Or Not?

 

The pattern for this quilt calls for the boxes to be separated by this much space, and cornerstones placed this way. I spent a lot of time measuring this all out to see what it would look like. It didn't take me long to see that I didn't like the cornerstones.

I took them off and immediately I could see this was better. But I felt that now the boxes were too far apart.

This is probably what it looked like yesterday. But if I want this to be a couch quilt that will cover me when I take a nap on the couch, it needs to be a bit wider.

Which means I need to add another vertical row and make more boxes.

The Third Bird

 

This is the third bird. I think of holiday colors as red, green and gold. So this red and gold bird really fits.  See that wing? Hold that thought.

I had thought this fabric would make a terrific box, until I realized the scale was all wrong. The box in this picture is 8-1/2" wide. There is no way that print would work on a box that size. It's just too big and the print would be cut up and nobody would know if the box was gold or white or red. And it would grab too much attention.  HOWEVER...

Students are often aghast when I tell them to cut a hole in the middle of a perfectly good piece of fabric to get a fussy cut of whatever they want. YES! I expect you to do that. Do you want a terrific bird (or whatever) or do you want an ordinary, plain one? I know which one I prefer.

Rearranging things a bit got me to this placement of the birds, and I liked it. I don't want the birds in the corners, because there is too much white space around them and the quilt would look like it had a corner chopped off. I like the way they stand in for boxes. Actually, what I like about this pattern is the rhythm of the repetition, one shape after another, but with variation in color and pattern to break it up a bit. Then the birds add a bit of sass. Of course, I needed more boxes, and you can see how I audition fabrics.

This is the kind of fabric you have to be careful with. At first glance it is red with gold, but really it is the other way around. Set on the design wall, it doesn't look as red as some of the other red boxes.

This reads as "pink" to me, and not really Christmas-y. But I was running out of options, and there is already a box in the quilt with a pinkish ribbon, and the Amaryllis print has a lot of pink in it, so I knew I could get away with it. (Translation: it would not look totally out of place.)

 

I found this red fabric in one of the big bins I had set aside for "other projects." DAMN!

This box was made from scraps. I only had a long too-narrow piece of this green. You can hardly tell where I sewed it up.

This fabric was in a box that was given to me over 10 years ago. I did have to piece this together, and you don't have to look too hard to see where, but I tried not to make it so obvious that it stuck out like a sore thumb. There's pink in this fabric too.

So now that I have enough blocks I have to finish working out an arrangement I like. I am not sure I am going to use the border of the original pattern (in fact, I'm sure I definitely WON'T be doing it like the pattern, but that should surprise no one).

The Second Bird

 

I made a Red Christmas bird. If you look closely you will see part of an amaryllis flower, which was made into a box and is shown in yesterday's post. Also check out the legs, they are mini Christmas packages. The beak is as big as it is because I wanted that swoop.

Before I figure out how I want to arrange the blocks, I have to decide where the birds go. Once I know whey they (or one of them) will go, I will rearrange the boxes. So for the next few pictures, ignore the boxes and the prints and just look at the birds. This one, above, is way too symmetrical for me.

I like this better, where the birds aren't in the same row.

Trying to get the birds closer to each other, I stuck in a really tall narrow box. I had originally made this box for my HAPPY HOLIDAYS quilt, but here it just looks like a wall separating the two birds.

Getting rid of that box doesn't make this better. There is too much space surrounding the birds.

When I arrange the birds like this, they look like they are getting ready to duel. Not exactly Holiday-friendly.

I will figure out where I want to place the birds, and then I will rearrange the boxes. Stay tuned. I might just turn this thing on it's head!!!

I heard from my friend SewGirl.  This is her quilt, above. Hers is big enough for a king sized bed - 7 rows of 10 blocks each! And she quilted it herself on her Bernina 830. Yowsa!

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

If you want to make free pieced letters like in my Happy Holidays quilt, I have a tutorial for making letters without paper piecing. You can get that here.