Kangamangus, Finished!

 

This is a close up of the Kangamangus quilt. You can see some of the warm brown fabrics, the creams and the spectacular quilting. I've had this for a few weeks, waiting for me to add the binding and finish it up.

I finally got to it, and actually took it out for beauty shots the next day. Such is summer in NH. 

Sometimes you arrange it, back up, and you just know that you've got the "definitive" shot. That's what happened this time. I looked at this and I thought, Yup. That's the one. Funny that.

I didn't stop though, because I have learned that sometimes what I THINK I see is not what shows up in the camera, and there's nothing more irritating than getting home and looking at the pictures on my computer and thinking they suck and knowing I'll have to go out again. At at rate, this is pretty good too.

Long time readers know I dislike brown, and I hate, loathe and despise beige, so this quilt is rather a departure for me, but I really like it. I'm keeping this one.

Yeah, I know. Live and learn.

This is a Scrap Slab Triangle quilt, and I have made a few of them. You can see them here. If you want to use up some scraps, you can get my tutorial here. I am continually surprised at how many variations of this quilt there are.

Green Deco is a Flimsy!

I've been sewing the green deco blocks together over the last few days.

The Green Deco quilt is now a flimsy. It is brighter and a bit lighter than these photos show. I am really happy with it.

Then I cleared my work table and set out the Kangamangus quilt and added the binding to it. This photo shows the gorgeous quilting. I quite love it.

After I added the binding, I turned it over to the front and pinned it in place. It's supposed to be very hot here the next few days and if I have to stay inside where it is air-conditioned, then I can be hand sewing the binding down.

Quilts Quilted!

 

I picked up three quilts from Janet-Lee. This is the Harlequin quilt. It is going to be mine, so I chose PINK thread for the quilting. I love the quilt design.

This is the Kangamangus quilt. I'm not usually a brown person, but I love this quilt.

This is the Little Blocks quilt. The squares are 4-1/2" square. 

The backing of the Little Boxes quilt has bumblebees on it, so the quilting design has bumblebees in it.

I've made all the bindings for these quilts, so I'll be getting right to work.

You can see photos of the quilts here.

Backing for Kangamangus

Here is the backing fabric for the Heartbeat Kangamangus Quilt.

I always, always, lie the quilt on top of the backing I have prepared for it to make 100% sure it is big enough before I bring it to the long-arm quilter. This tells me it really is big enough. 

This also shows me that this backing is perfect for this quilt. I intend to keep it for myself.

And I have renamed it. In the White Mountains of NH we have a scenic highway that weaves through the mountains and has spectacular views. It is the Kancamagus Highway I renamed the quilt the way I heard it mispronounced as a child, "Kangamangus." For me, this quilt will be "Kangamangus."

Kangamangus Backing and Updates

This is the fabric I have ordered for the backing of the Heartbeat quilt. The big leaves are about 4" long, so I think this will be great. Years ago I gave a talk to a quilt group and one gal came up to me afterwards with a comment about the fabrics I chose for the backs of my quilts.

"You like busy backs,"

"Not necessarily," I replied, "but I think a tiny print is boring and that's a lot of space to fill. I think the back of a quilt should compliment the front, rather like a good frame compliments but does not overpower the artwork it surrounds."

Mostly though, I just don't like boring.

A few years ago I bought this panel of owls. I happen to love owls. I think this would be fun to include in the back of the Heartbeat quilt. It's fun, and I think sometimes we take things way too seriously. I haven't decided to include it yet, but I think it would look good. We'll see.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The biggest other news I have is about me. Over the years I have put on too much weight, and my blood pressure has gone up. My doctors are also worried about my A1C. I am not diabetic, but I fall into the pre-diabetic range. Those three things together are not good. So I have visited a nutritionist and am making the appropriate modifications to my diet and lifestyle (meaning I have to move my body more). I am also testing my blood regularly. It's been quite an adjustment and that has been occupying my thoughts and time the last week or so.

My Mom and her boyfriend are also recovering from their respective trips to the hospital and are now reunited and happy to be back together. My Mom is 91 and he is 89. I am under no illusions. 

It was -7F here this morning, and I am glad I can stay inside where it is warm. We've got snow on the ground and it's pretty. Take care and stay warm and safe.

Kangamangus

 The new quilt is at flimsy stage. I added a cream border and decided to call this HEARTBEAT. I haven't chosen a backing yet. (Everything I like at eQuilter is out of stock, so I'll wait another week or so and try again.)

But I will use this as the binding.

Every time I have gifted a quilt in the last couple of years I have written a story about it. I thought I might make a book for every quilt, so I thought I might make a list.

Well, it took longer than I thought. I'm not done, but I was kinda sorta not really surprised that I got up to 100 and there were still quilts to be added to the list. Of course that does not include the 200 Gizzy (kitty quilts) I made years ago.

When I saw the list I knew I would not have books for ALL of them, but heck, it gives me a project I can work towards completing.

Making the list made me realize I hadn't created a page on this blog for Quilts made in 2022, so I fixed that. Now that I have the official list I will rearrange some quilts on those pages (I noticed a couple lived in two separate years.)

Sideways

 

By the time I figured out that I wanted the design to run sideways, I had sewn three rows together, so I had to do some unsewing. Then I had to move the blocks on the design wall, yet keep them in sequence so I could shift the design. I used Julie's paper-plate method.

I had to redesign two additional rows at the bottom.

Then it was start sewing things together. Pressing all the seams open kept the blocks more in shape. 

After I make my blocks, I always trim them to size. It means things sew up much more accurately.

Here all the rows are sewn together. I will add creams as a border and the quilt needs a name.

This is a scrap slab triangle quilt. You can get the tutorial here at my Etsy shop.

A Change of Perspective

 I started sewing the blocks together (far right).

As usual, when blocks are sewn together the design really starts to pop, and I am liking where this is going.

I particularly like this shape at the top of this photo. I had to do a bit of thinking...

The top drawing emphasizes the new shape I like, the bottom one is the original layout. Both of them cut off the design at either side. The quilt is designed to be 10 blocks across, and what do I do with the extra rows at either side? Neither one floats my boat.

Since I believe that you really need to SEE something in real life, I sewed a row of triangles to place beside a panel of three vertical rows I had already sewn together.

As I lay the strips together on the floor,  I saw this... which answered all my questions. ALL I HAVE TO DO is rotate the design 90 degrees, and I can get THREE perfect four row designs on my quilt.

I like this a lot better, so now I have some rearranging to do.

Stay tuned...

Right Church, Wrong Pew

 

This is the layout with the brown triangles and black on white side triangles. I stepped back and looked...

WHAT was I thinking? CLEARLYthe black on white side triangles were just plain WRONG! I had my box of leftover side triangles out, so I was not looking (or thinking) properly. It was apparent the side triangles needed to be CREAM or BEIGE...

Sigh. 

Back to the cutting table.

I had even bought a large selection of creams and beiges for just this purpose back in November. Must have had a lot on my mind. (ya think?)

This is SO CLEARLY so much better. Just goes to show you...

"No matter how far you've gone down the wrong road, turn back!"

I will start sewing this together!

This is a Scrap Slab Triangle Quilt, and is mostly made from scraps. If you would like to make one, you can get my tutorial here, at my Etsy shop.

PS, My California family is not near the areas burning in LA right now, although some of the places we have visited have been affected.

Brown Zig Zags

 

Almost eight years ago I arranged the triangles for the third Scrap Slab Triangle Quilt in these zigzags. I called it Snow Day, and you can see it here. I decided to revisit those zigzags for the brown quilt.

Now in the photo above, I have not fussed over the placement  of the brown triangles. I can't really play until I get them all up on the design wall, but I do have enough to get a sense of the basic design, so I wanted to figure out a basic idea for the light side triangles. I went through my bin of leftover side triangles and put some up on the design wall and stood back to take a look.

Now I have to tell you a little design theory here. Dark AREAS tend to sink to the background but LIGHT areas tend to come forward. I do not want the LIGHT diamonds in this design to take center stage. So in order to do that I have to make the LIGHT diamonds boring and less interesting. 

Which means I have to make them boring to the viewer's EYE and NOT give them any contrast, (like color in the light diamonds). Your eye is drawn to CONTRAST, so I won't have any color in the light diamonds. So the color in the light areas above is going to go away. 

Here is the basic layout of the brown triangles so you can see what the overall thing will look like. 

You can also see the brown triangles are just randomly arranged, and they don't flow and they seem a bit jumpy and disconnected. That's the next task.

Here I have arranged the triangles so they flow into one another, and I lead you there through either color or pattern.

Here is another example of what I tried to do with the brown triangles.

It's funny, but when I first started making these quilts, I added the side triangles to the colored triangles before I designed the quilt. Now I place each piece intentionally.

Next up is figuring out which light fabrics I will use in the side triangles. The only way I can work that out is to try them up on the design wall and experiment.

My mother's boyfriend's surgery was a success and he is doing well. I have spent three days cooking for my Mom so she will be all set in her apartment on her own. She has Macular Degenerative disease, so she sees poorly. She describes it as "seeing through lace." What's good is that whatever I made, I kept half, so we both have an assortment of prepared meals for the rest of the week. I've been her chauffeur and errand runner so it's been nice to get home at the end of the day and not have to worry about having to cook.

BRRRR.... Brown!

I am working on sewing the binding of the first Nightingale quilt, but I have to do that during the day, because as I get older it's harder to see hand sewing black fabric with black thread. I needed to be thinking about what I would do next.

Sitting in my studio looking at my stash and the big bins full of scraps, I thought, "What have I been neglecting? What have I been avoiding?" The answer was Brown. It isn't my favorite color, but sometimes  it's a good thing to get out of your comfort zone.

So I gathered up my brown fabrics from the scrap bins and the leftover stuff from the big pins and piled it all on my worktable.

Then I ironed it all.

Then I paired it all up, before I started to cut triangles.

.

I found some fat quarters of Charley Harper fabrics and included that in my slabs. I loved this little cat!

Here are seventy triangles. I don't know what I will do with them yet, but cutting these triangles is a good way to reduce the stuff in the scrap bins.