Outside Shots!

I love taking photos of my quilts outside. Even if it's 29 degrees out. You can learn how to make free pieced letters using my tutorial, available here. 

As I was taking my pictures one of my neighbors came by and offered to take a picture of me with my Not Paper Pieced quilt. This photo also  shows how big the quilt is.

This is the River of Light quilt, in all of it's bright and wild glory.

Here's the back, which was made from a lot of leftover bits and stash.

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!

Merry Christmas

 

Merry Christmas! I have been working on the binding of the Not Paper Pieced quilt.

While I've been adding the binding, I've been watching Christmas movies. Since I don't want to get distracted, I've had a few on that I've seen before. Rather comforting!

I'll tell you a secret - as I age I am having a harder time actually SEEING what I am doing, so I am more or less blind stitching by feel. 

Have a very Merry Christmas!

Motto

I don't know how long ago I put the letters together for this smallish flimsy. It is made of leftovers and duds and other stuff I had hanging around. I finally squared it up, and added a border around the whole thing to keep the edges straight. I use it to bring to my letters classes to show two things - one, that dud letters are simply letters that don't fit where you want them to go; they are not necessarily BAD letters.

And two, I flip this over to show how the back of my quilts look. (I forgot to take a photo of it before I put it on the design wall, so the back of Not Paper Pieced will have to do for now...)

Which is to say, neat and tidy. No scraggly threads on the back of MY quilts. No ragged seams. Everything lies FLAT. Everything is neatly pressed. Free piecing or Improvisational piecing, Quilting Without a Net, or No Patterns, just sew one thing to another... whatever you want to call it, my craftsmanship is very good.

So "Don't be chicken; have no fear; just make super amazing quilts" yeah, that's a good motto for me.

Or anybody, really.

PS Happy Birthday Mary!

 

Quilts, Quilted!

Over the weekend I picked up three quilts from my longer quilter, Janet-Lee. Here is Greensleeves, a Zebra quilt.

and this is Prizm, another Zebra quilt. Check out the quilting on this one. I don't usually go in for fancy detailed quilting, but I am coming around. On a pretty plain quilt like this one, it's fun to have some detailed quilting in it. The quilting thread is lime green, which is pretty cool too.

The third quilt was Not Paper Pieced, which I made W-A-Y back in 2019. In the end we decided not to custom quilt it, but to give it a subtle all over design that would not detract from the message in the quilt itself.

I'm happy with all three of them and I have a lot of binding in my future.

You can get the tutorial for the Zebra quilts and a tutorial for my improvisationally pieced letters here, at my Etsy shop.

 

Scribble Scrabble is a Flimsy

 

Over the past few days I have sewn the blocks of the Scribble Scrabble quilt together.

All quilts look better when they're sewn together, and this was no different. Without the spaces between the blocks showing through, the design really pops.

I added a narrow light border of bright colored prints on a white background. That will be 1" wide when finished.

Next I selected eight different fabrics of mostly golds and browns on a black background and cut them up into roughly 20" lengths by 3" wide, joined them at an angle and sewed that to the quilt. I have already ordered backing fabric for this. I think this is going to make a terrific couch quilt.

And coming soon, a blast from the past...

Just in time for me to show off to the Seabreeze Quilt Guild in Exeter NH on Tuesday January 9, 2024, where I will be giving a trunk show of my letter based quilts. Perhaps I will see you there?

And Now.. The Last One

I put the words in the signature panel for the Not Paper Pieced quilt together. I love the lady at the sewing machine in the counter of the zero.

This is harder than it looks.

I call this part "quilt wrangling."

Here is the signature panel for the back of the Not Paper Pieced quilt.

OK! It fits! Yes, this is the wrong side of the Not Paper Pieced quilt, and yes, the wrong side of all my quilts are this neat and clean.

So now all my quilt tops have backings. Woo Hoo!

To The Nines

Way back a zillion years ago, in 2007 when I was first learning how to make free pieced letters, nobody had made numbers.

I wanted to make a signature panel on a quilt, so I figured out numbers. The numbers above, were my first numbers. In late 2008 and into 2009, I worked on my sampler quilt.

I showed off my "new" numbers in this quilt, Letters From Home, in 2009.

Here's a closeup of the row of numbers on the quilt. These letters are slightly less than 3" tall.

Here's a closeup of the year on the quilt - and yes, it was made in 2009. I haven't had an opportunity to make a number 9 in ten years, so I almost forgot how.

I struggle when folks say/think paper-piecing is the only way to get something "perfect."

Ask my pal Julie about how "casual" my free-pieced quilts are. Answer: Not At All.

My letters look the way I want them to look. Every single aspect of them is planned. After I make a letter or a number, I may not like the way it came out, but that doesn't mean it was an accident. I do a lot  all my designing in my head. I do all my measuring in my head. I measure things visually. I make decisions about what size, thickness, height, whatever, about something WHILE I HAVE THE ROTARY CUTTER IN MY HAND. I do NOT design something on paper first and then make it EXACTLY LIKE HOW I DREW IT.

they look damned perfect, and they are, but these were not paper-pieced.

BUT I COULD IF I WANTED TO, AND I WOULDN'T HAVE TO PAPER PIECE IT!

Maybe it's just because I have a constellation of skills that most quilters don't possess. One of my students said to me once, "you do paper piecing without the paper." Truthfully, I have no idea what that means, because I don't know how to paper-piece (and have no interest in learning).

Paper-piecing is NOT the only way to "perfection."  (And, quite frankly, that's my OTHER objection to paper-piecing: the result is an endless line of absolutely identical cookie-cutter, Stepford Wife look-alikes. I find that kind of "perfection" boring, dull, predictable and lifeless. But that's MY belief and MY opinion. You are entitled to disagree.)

I don't have anything against paper piecing. You ladies love it, knock yourself out! Go to it! Have some fun with it! JUST DON'T SAY THAT MY QUILTS ARE PAPER PIECED. That's the only thing that I object to.

For me, I see paper piecing as a crutch.

And I don't need one.

Year 2019

I made the numbers for the year on the signature panel of the Not Paper Pieced quilt.

And you know me, I couldn't resist adding a fun element to the hole in the zero. The lady is saying, "I'm watching you! No paper was harmed in the making of THIS quilt!"

So here it is. I've got to add fabric around the word sections to make it a big panel and then piece it into the rest of the backing.

I briefly considered making the numbers pink, but I felt they would draw too much attention, so they are gold.

AND BEFORE ANYBODY SAYS ANYTHING... I think there is a bit too much space between the T and the Y in TYLER, and a smidge too much space between the 0 and the 1 in 2019, and the diagonal leg of the 9 is too narrow. The second Y is made of components that are probably a bit too thick. Of all of those things, what I might fix is the numbers.

Otherwise, as the French say, "Tant pis." (And I'm 90% sure those of you who don't speak French can figure it out.)



In my tutorial on "Liberated" letters, not only do I tell you how to make all the letters in the alphabet without patterns, templates or (god forbid), paper-piecing, I also tell you how to make numbers.  You can get it here, on my Etsy shop. It's full of absolutely everything you need to know to make letters and make them well.

Black Butterflies

 I liked the black butterflies in the Ghastly fabric, and wanted to use them in the quilt somehow
.

I had made a black butterfly for the quilt back in April, but I had made it with a white background, so it didn't really fit.

So I decided to make a black butterfly for the signature panel of the Not Paper Pieced quilt.

I think this is going to work. Now I just need to add the date.


If you want to make your own butterflies, you can get my tutorial here. 

If you are interested in learning how to make  free-pieced letters that don't use templates or patterns and AREN'T PAPER PIECED... you can get that tutorial here. Both tutorials are instant downloads so you can get started right away.

Signature Panel, part two

So here's my last name, in letters. Be aware these letters aren't trimmed, lined up or spaced properly yet. They will look a lot better when they are all finished and sewn together.




If you want to make patchwork letters, you can get my tutorial. No patterns, templates or (gasp!) paper piecing needed. Get it here, at my Etsy shop. It's an instant download so you can get started right away.

Signature Panel & Maiden

First things first. When I got an alert on my phone that the movie MAIDEN was showing an hour's drive away, I made plans to go see it with my Dad, who loves sailing. It was a terrific movie, and it's a hell of a story. (It got a 98% on Rotten Tomatoes). You ought to find, and see it if you can. Click the link for more information.

I am working on getting the backings ready for quilts to bring to Janet Lee next week, and I had to make the backing for the No Paper Pieced quilt.

As soon as I laid the fabric on the floor to figure out how I was going to sew it into a backing I realized this quilt (of ALL my quilts), needed a signature panel. So I got to work making letters.


My letters are free-pieced, meaning they aren't made with templates or patterns and they are most decidedly NOT PAPER PIECED!! If you would like to make your own, you can get the tutorial here, at my Etsy shop. It's an instant download so you can get started right away.

Ghastly Garden

This is the fabric I will use for the back of the Not Paper Pieced Quilt. This fabric had the color inspiration for the quilt itself, so it is perfect. I'll put it together over the next few days.**

I texted Julie that I had "quilt fatigue" over the weekend. It's true. I. Have. Had. It. If I don't see the inside of the studio for the next few days, I'll be quite content. It's been a long time since I worked on an "arty" quilt that took so much time. (Since 2013-2014 when I worked on Too Much Chicken.)

FORTUNATELY... there is this tennis tournament going on over the pond that you might have heard of. I have to sew the binding on the Parade of Zebras quilt, so I can sit on the couch, watch the tennis and hand stitch.  'Twill be loverly.

See you in a bit!




**PS One of my readers, Sandy, asked about the backing of the Flight of Fancy quilt that is shown at the end of my Birds Tutorial. It's leaves, and the binding is eggs. It got me to thinking that I should show the back or at least the backing fabric of each of my quilts. So I shall be working on that sometime.

Done Not Paper Pieced!

 What I did NOT show you yesterday was how "not paying attention" messed up the bottom border. I don't know WHAT I was thinking, except I clearly wasn't. I knew, but apparently "forgot" that the last border would have to be finessed.  Having screwed it up, I knew I had to just step away and go do something else.

It didn't take me long to figure out how to fix it. I would need to take the bottom border apart and respace the fill-ins. Not hard, but fussy and time consuming. As for the space after NEVER, unless I wanted to re-do the spacing of the right border (and I did NOT want to do that), I had think about how to fill in the space.

An ellipsis (...) would work. Twelve hours later I went back into the studio and fixed that corner. I think it adds to the sentiment, so I am happy. After that, it was just ripping and sewing and pressing and being careful and doing what needed to be done.

And it is done. I've taken the picture this way so you can really see how big it is compared to the things around it. I have also uploaded a large photo so you can click it, and then click it again to check out all the details.

To the reader from California who visited Quilted Threads yesterday on my recommendation, I certainly hope you liked the shop. They were very excited and told me all about it when I visited yesterday afternoon. Sorry I missed you!



NOTHING in this quilt is paper pieced (duh!) and if you want 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. I also have a tutorial for the birds too, and you can find that here.

Borders & Corners

I figured if I was going to add borders outside of the row of NOs it would be easier to add them first.

Here I am ready to pin one side down.

After I sewed this side, I have to trim the corner...

Three sides down, one to go...

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.