Duds, Glorious Duds!

Every word quilt I make generates lots of duds or "misfit" letters.

These are from Nine x Nine.

The letters in the lower half of this photo are the "duds" from my quilt Daft Zebras.

The only letters worth keeping in this photo were the "out of the box" ones that formed an arc above the box in The Black Box quilt.

The BOX letters on the bottom of this photo are all duds.

Now, duds aren't BAD letters, they just don't "work" with the rest of what I've made. So I set them aside. I might use them in another project, and I might even raid them for bits of fabric.

But most of my dud letters have made their way to my friend Julie.

 Back at the end of 2010 she told me I should send her my dud letters "because students need to see that the first letters they make aren't BAD and can still be used to make a beautiful quilt."

 She made this quilt, Hidden Potential, for me. I love it.  I then sent her another box of my leftover bits including some houses, stars, butterflies and other stuff.

The result was this quilt, Magic Happens, a collaboration between Julie, Chris (our fabulous long arm quilter) and me. I love this one so much it lives on my bed.

Julie and I have talked about how she takes what I consider a dud and makes magic out of it. "When I get your castoff letters, they don't have any negative associations for me," she says. "So it's easy for me to use them in something new."

Good point!  Check out what Julie made with my castoff letters from the Black Box, Red Letter Alphabet and Mashed Potato Crayons.

The letters may be mine, but the rest, Create With Abandon, is all Julie's.

The lesson, Rebecca, is that it's all in how you look at it; that inspiration, and (hidden) potential, is everywhere.

Even in the castoff bin!

Office Fun

I brought the Daft Zebras to work yesterday and hung it up over my desk. Let's just say it attracted a lot of attention, and that I had to explain what a pangram was more than once.

OK I admit it. I'm a bit subversive.

Daft Zebras at Home

My quilt Daft Zebras has taken up its permanent home in my sewing room. Woo hoo!

Daft Zebras

Here is "Daft Zebras", all finished. It measures about 32" square. I tried not to compress the photos too much so you could click to enlarge and see some details. It was raining outside, so these pictures will have to do for now. This first one shows the letters, but not the quilting.
This picture may not be in focus (hard with no flash inside), but you get a sense of the quilting. (Remember, I've got an old Kenmore sewing machine with a walking foot.)
Here's a detail of one edge. You get to see the spiffy binding too.

Overall, I am very pleased. It was well worth all the aggravation. These letters really push the envelope, and that was what I really wanted. I will hang this in my sewing studio, so I can finally (three ABC quilts later...) have a letter quilt for reference.

And by the way... here are the "real" zebras hiding in the letters. Can you see the [two] zebra tushies now?

Zebra Binding

I love adding small bits of "zing" to my quilts. I found a new binding idea over at the Doll Quilt Swap. I was directed to TLC Stitches, where she has posted an excellent tutorial. So I'll just show pictures, and you can check Trisha's blog for more details.

Here are my two fabrics. I want the black-and-white to provide the "zing."

Fold it in half, wrong sides together...
Ta-da! This is gonna be SO cool!
Here I am attaching it the the back of the quilt. One of the lovely things about this binding is that it is designed to be machine sewn to the front! Whee! My arthritic hands rejoice!

You can see the binding sleeve at the bottom edge.

Reveal tomorrow! Woo hoo!

Quilting the Zebra

I went to a local store yesterday to buy thread to quilt the Daft Zebras. In conversation with the store's owner, I mentioned I wanted to quilt this (I had the flimsy with me) like a zebra. She pulled out a book on quilting and opened it up to outline drawings of animals. I looked at her quizzically.

"What do I need that for?"

"You said you wanted to quilt it in zebras."

"I know how to draw. I don't need a book like that. Besides, that's not what I meant."

When I drew what I wanted in the air, her face brightened. "Perfect."

So here it is. Look for pictures of the finished quilt very soon.

Daft Zebras - the Flimsy!

Here is the completed "flimsy" of "Daft Zebras." It is 32-1/4" square, but I think I need to add a bit to the sides.The two brown lines on either side of the quilt are crochet cotton tied to weights that I have pinned to the ceiling molding at the top of my design wall. They hang away from the wall, allowing me to determine if the various blocks in the quilt line up vertically. They also help me to quickly and easily determine if the rows are the same width.For the weights, I used the first small heavy things I could lay my hands on. Being a Geek, these just happened to be two VGA-DVI video adapter connections.

Daft Zebras Hit Brick Wall

I didn't really plan this quilt, or I would have made sure I had enough fabric before I started. I ran out of green, so I am figuring out what to do next...
I don't really feel the need for that zebra fabric. I think the words conjure up the image much better than any representation could.

Must. Go. Fabric. Shopping.




oh gee darn!

How Quickly Daft Jumping Zebras Vex

Well, the daft zebras almost did me in. I worked all weekend, and finally got the letters I wanted.
You can click the photo, then click it again to enlarge.
How many letters did I make in all?Fifty-eight. The phrase has 30 letters.

Details later, I'm a bit exhausted!

Daft Duds

I re-made the words "HOW" and "DAFT." The new letters look much better. You should click the photo to enlarge, then click it again for a slightly larger, more detailed view.

This little quilt is getting quite a collection of duds.

Jumping - Revisited

I loved the green fabric I used for the word "JUMPING," but the letters didn't have enough contrast, so they were hard to read. I just didn't like the way the word looked. (For a better view, click the picture to enlarge.)So I did them over, using a green batik fabric I found in my stash. Yes, I did try to copy the way I used the fabrics in the original letters. I thought the "G" disappeared too much, so that got a new version, and I'm thinking the "I" might need a makeover too.

I don't like the background of the word "HOW" and looking at all the words together, I don't like background of the word "DAFT" either.

And, frankly, the "ZEBRA" isn't doing much for me, no matter how clever the letters are...

This little experiment has shown me that if I am going to exploit the concept of the "figure-ground" relationship, where some letters -appear- black, and some letters -appear- white, then I have to use background fabrics that have a similar value (lightness v. darkness) and intensity, or "saturation" (brightness v. dullness) throughout. ***

What I am -trying- to do here is manipulate the way your eye perceives the letters. If I make the backgrounds different, your eye doesn't do that flip-flop, on-off, movie marquee trick I want them to do.

Which is why I really don't need to literally represent daft jumping zebras.



*** for more on Color Theory, check out this Wikipedia article.

Got Zebra?

Yes.You'll probably have to click the pictures to enlarge to see how I made them.This isn't what I planned to do when I bought the zebra fabric yesterday. I am not quite sure the letters "work" the way I think they should.
I still have to make the "S".

These might not be quite "daft" enough for Clare, but let me tell you this little story. I sent pics of the "Z-E" to my pal Tracey, and she texted me... "Is that a zebra head peeking out? Will there be a zebra tush anywhere?"

"Yes, and yes!" I texted back. Perhaps you can find it!

Jumping

How Quickly Daft Jumping....

To get the best view, you need to click the photo to enlarge.
Clare, Wanda, Selvage Fairy, Julie, and all who asked...

Susan, you owe me a buck!

How am I going to use these guys? Funny you should ask...

Daft

For my Daft Zebras. The letters will finish out at 3" tall.

Clare and Wanda, NO! No free-pieced jumping zebras! Enough already! No! No! No!

(you can click the image to enlarge)

How Quickly...

daft jumping zebras coming soon.

Daft Jumping Zebras

The phrase "how quickly daft jumping zebras vex" got stuck in my head. I liked the idea of the black and white zebras. How, I wondered, could I use only black-and-white fabrics for the letters, yet not lose them against a background?

Completely clueless, I visited various quilting blogs, more out of numbness than conscious thought. And Jackie provided me with an answer. See her blog post here. Black and white fabrics with one middle-value color.

Thanks Jackie!

THIS letter quilt will be small. The finished letters will be only 3" tall, and it will be only words. No daft jumping zebras. None.