More Pink Triangles

 

I've been cutting more pink and light long triangles, and putting them up on the design wall. Do not be fooled. This quilt will NOT be as predictable as what you are seeing now.

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Judy, I have no magic fix for the raveling threads when fabric is washed. I keep a pair of scissors near the washer and generally spend 20 minutes cutting fabric threads away when I move the just washed fabrics from the washer to the dryer. ONE THING I DO KNOW... When I get fabric from the Portsmouth Fabric Company I never have any trouble. They TEAR their fabric, so there are hardly and loose threads to give me grief. (They also have the largest selection of Kaffe fabrics I have ever seen.)

July

It's July, and time for the pink table quilt.

   It is a complete coincidence that my morning smoothie of golden mango, raspberries and strawberries coordinates.

Tickled Pink

The Tickled Pink diamond quilt is all finished. I sewed the binding while watching the finals of the tennis at Roland Garros. 

I put the quilt on the table to see what it looks like. When July comes, I'll put an extra leaf in the table so the top will be bigger and more of the quilt will be visible. This looks so pretty and feminine (duh). It will be such a lovely tablescape when the table is set with white dishes and silverware.

I'm also a bowl freak. I found this in the local Home Goods one evening. I had stopped at the grocery store in the same mall for something I needed for a recipe and I thought I'd cruise over to HG to see if they had anything interesting.  As soon as I saw this pink flowered bowl I picked it up and headed toward the cash register. Pink bowls are kinda rare.

A Detour

I finished sewing the binding to the Tickled Pink quilt. Now I just have to fold it over and hand sew it down on the front. Yes, I do my final stitching on the front. I was taught how to do it so it doesn't show. If you want to know more about how I do it, click here.

It will be nice just to sit and do some hand sewing.

Tickled Pink!

The "Tickled Pink" flimsy is complete. Yeah, I'd say this tickles my fancy but good. As it is, it measures 72" wide by 98" tall.

I have learned something about this quilt, and that is that the TINY diamonds will make or break this design. They - not the large diamonds - are the star of the show.

The colored ones determine how brightly the quilt sings, so there needs to be good contrast with the "main" color. So in this pink quilt the tiny diamonds had to be bright turquoise, blue, deep purple and bright green.

 The "background" tiny diamonds need to blend with the "main" color of the quilt, they shouldn't stick out too much, but they shouldn't be monotonous either. And they shouldn't be "dull". The most successful background prints, in my opinion, were the ones with a pink allover design on a cream background so the fabric "read" as light pink and not cream.

I am very happy with this quilt. You could say I am tickled pink!


Just a reminder that my diamond quilts are inspired by Pam Goecke Dinndorf's Harlequin Quilt. She sells a pattern for it here.

Leftovers

I always say that I do my best thinking when I'm not thinking. What that really means is that sometimes ideas come to me when I'm doing something else. This idea came to me while I was brushing my teeth after breakfast the other day. I had just been in the studio looking at the layout of the Tickled Pink quilt, and when I looked around I saw a lot of leftover pieces that had cream backgrounds.  What would I do with them?***

MAKE ANOTHER QUILT!

That night I went into the studio and gathered up some of the leftover bits and tried to see what they would look like. This could be pretty good. I won't work on this right away, and I don't think the quilt would be as big as Tickled Pink, but hey, you never know.




*** I always find it's important to pose a question when I am working out a problem. If I ask a question, particularly if I ask it to myself before I go to bed at night, I often find I've got an answer to the question the next morning. But it has to be a question.

Filling In

 The thing about the sides of this quilt is that it has to be filled in with extra pieces on the other side of the diamond four patches. So even though the pieces you see above to the right of the giant diamonds aren't in the layout of the finished quilt I showed you the other day, they still have to be there, and I can't just sew any old pieces.

 And sewing them together is a little bit finicky.

To assemble the rest of the flimsy, I'll make sew the four patch diamonds to the medium sized diamonds to make diamonds as big as the giant diamonds, then I'll sew them together in diagonal rows.

It's kinda boring work, but it will be relaxing to do. I'll enjoy it.

And then, of course, I'll have to clean the studio and the whole cycle will start again.

Messy Pink

I don't know how much pink fabric I bought in terms of yardage, or the number of different pink fabrics. I'm not quite sure how many different pink fabrics are in the quilt, but I do know one thing.

(The design wall is over on the right.)

.

.

My studio is a mess. (If you want a tour of my studio, click here.)

Happy Valentine's Day.

This Pink is IT!

Woo Hoo! I got it!

I got rid of all the four patch diamonds with cream in them. Then I looked at it again.

I thought, hell, I'm getting rid of all the medium sized cream diamonds too. Now THIS is IT.

Well. It doesn't mean I won't tinker with one or two things if I think it needs it.

Yeah, I know it's a lotta pink! Now I need a title with the word pink in it.

Pink Shopping and An Experiment

One of the advantages of not making all your decisions about your quilt design before you get started is being able to adapt as you see your work develop. After the last work session, I knew what kind of pink fabrics I needed, and bought these eleven pinks. I was looking for lighter pinks, and pinks with prints that were slightly bigger than blenders (like the one on the bottom left.)

I bought the Tula Pink print on the right two weeks ago, but over the last few days I was worried it was a bit wimpy, so when I saw the slightly redder version on the left I bought it right away. I've replaced it on the quilt, and it's looking good.

The more I looked at last layout I thought it was way too dark, so I tried adding back some of the four patch diamonds I had previously rejected, but after getting the new fabrics, I knew I needed to go back to the drawing board.

So I removed ALL the four patch diamonds, and ALL the medium sized diamonds. Then I cut new medium sized diamonds from the new fabrics, and placed them on the design wall.

Then I started filling in with the small four patch diamonds. I've still got some of the cream four patch diamonds in there.

I started adding four patch diamonds working from the right to the left. Those of you with eagle eyes will notice I swapped a pair of large diamonds. At this point, I am pretty sure the four patch diamonds with the cream diamonds are going to go.

The Replacements

Before I start telling you about the replacement four patch diamonds I've been making, I need to remind you of something.

The quilt I am making - the PINK one - my idea for it was that it would be overwhelmingly PINK. I wanted it to "read" as PINK, not Pink With Other Colors, but MOSTLY PINK. And for this particular quilt, I really don't want the individual fabrics to stand out and sing on their own. I want the fabrics to sing in a chorus. After that sinks in, I want the quilt to slowly reveal its true fabrics, and the underlying design.

That IDEA, is my IDEA, and my interpretation of that IDEA is the thing I have been comparing the quilt that is ACTUALLY in development on my design wall against.

These pink on creams "read" as a light pink and I like the way they look.

What happens on my design wall has not necessarily been BAD or even MEDIOCRE. Many of the iterations of the quilt I have been working on are perfectly FINE, but they do not match the IDEA I have in my head so that's why I have been pushing things around.

I say this because I don't want any of you to think there is only ONE way out of a particular problem or puzzle you set for yourself. Very often there are NO Wrong Answers, and you simply have to choose the one that sings for you.

I live for problems like this. Oscar Wilde said once about creativity, "Oh, the anxiety. I hope it lasts forever."  That's just it. I just LOVE cracking the nut. I LOVE pushing an idea around to reveal that extra something that was hidden. I LOVE finding the way something can be JUST THAT MUCH BETTER. My friend Julie says, "You play for keeps."  Hell yeah.

What I didn't like about the cream fabrics in the little four patch diamonds was the way they commanded your attention. They were the lightest light in the whole quilt, so they popped forward (Light areas pop forward, dark areas sink back. That's not just me blabbering. That is a Design Rule.)

I didn't want them to be so prominent, so I had to do something to them to tone them down and push them back visually. So they had to be a darker value. Since this quilt was to be PINK, they should "read" as pink. We had a snowstorm the other day, so I stayed home to sew. Couldn't go fabric shopping so I had to shop in my stash.

I found two pink on creams, and three other pinky fabrics that were pale enough for me, and got to work.

The colors here are pretty much the same ones I selected in this post, except where I ran out of fabric and had to substitute something else or if I thought there wasn't enough contrast between the pink "background" fabric of the four patches and the pink of the colored diamonds.

This is sorta what I am looking for. The light isn't great and only the giant diamonds will stay where they are, but I think this photo gives you an idea where I am headed, and now the background little diamonds do not look like six million white butterflies arranged like a marching band on top of my quilt. (and hey, if I WANTED it to look like white butterflies in a marching band, guess what? I know how to do that! LOL)

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Thanks for all comments, all the time, everyone. You always make me think, and that's good, but I did want to respond to the comments in yesterday's post.


1. Elaine, I have family in LA. Hell yeah I'd love to give a class when I visit. Email me privately and we can work it out. I like to visit twice a year.

2. Melody, like I said above, there is more than one correct answer. I have a requirement, so I want this quilt to meet it. Hey, I could be dead wrong. If so, I'll change it up.

3. Swooze, hell no, I won't dye them. Not only is dyeing NOT my forte, but one of my core beliefs is to use fabric the way I find it. I actually prefer to work within that big limitation. It makes things more interesting, more challenging, and allows me to feel much more virtuous satisfied when I pull it off.

4. Karen, yeah, making quilts on the fly results in a lot of orphans, but sometimes great stuff happens with those leftover bits. The quilt that lives on my bed (and has since 2011) was made by my best friend Julie out of a box of my leftover odds and ends. It's called "Magic Happens." Read about that quilt here.

5. Julie (the best friend I talked about in # 4) Yes! Yes! Yes! Read about Magic Happens here too.

6. Glen, THANKS! It's always fun to write about something I am working on and have somebody tell me they get it too!

7. Sharon, it's actually better with the visual effect of somebody slapping their foreHEAD, which is how I finally "got it".

8. Audrey, thank you. Being a little loose with an idea creatively leads to many more options, and as far as I am concerned, much more interesting and lively quilts.

9. Robby, thank you and welcome. How did I get the eye to put fabrics together? Sorry, I have absolutely no clue. HOWEVER... I have written a tutorial that may help you. It is called "Making Your Fabric Work For You," and you can get it here, in my Etsy shop. It's an instant download, so you can get it right away.

10. And to Sewgirl, from Wednesday's post, who thanked me for sharing the ups and downs of my process, you are most welcome. I really don't think seeing only the end result is much help to quilters who are struggling to find their own voice. We all learn more from our mistakes than our successes, and my strongest reason to blog is to SHARE my process with everyone.


I'm going to be teaching a Barns class at Quilted Threads on Saturday and won't get back into the sewing studio until Sunday, if then, so this blog will be quiet for a few days. I still have six more strip pairs to sew up into four patch diamonds before I can design the quilt in earnest, but don't worry, I'll bring you along every step of the way. Enjoy your weekend.

A Stark Realization

There's a saying, "Dawn breaks over Marblehead."

Actually it's a pun, because dawn really does "break" over the seaside town of Marblehead Mass. But think of it as a "D'oh" moment and you get, "Dawn BREAKS over MARBLE-HEAD." Which is a wake up call. "HELLO STUPID!"

I'm good, but I'm not perfect. I make mistakes and sometimes even I don't "get" it the first time. Or even the second.

I texted my pal Julie the other day, about these diamonds, after I had made 84 four patch diamonds with the cream background:

"I changed my mind [about the print]. The prints looked awful. So I made these and dammit they may be wrong too.

"Maybe someday I'll learn that these tiny diamonds are as important as the big suckers.  Sigh."

I've been griping about those damn four patch diamonds for the last three quilts. The first quilt (Diamond Jubilee) was perfect. But after throwing a lot of fabric up on the design wall (photo above) just to fill in the spaces (this will NOT be the final quilt) it is ABUNDANTLY CLEAR that the problem with the little cream diamonds is that they are.... (wait for it)... Cream.

They are not PINK. They are supposed to DISAPPEAR, and these quite clearly don't. To disappear, they need to be the color of the surrounding pieces, which are... PINK!

(Cue the "Dawn breaks over Marble-head" line...)


So it's pale pink fabric shopping I go.


Which is why the talk I am going to give at MQX Manchester on Saturday April 14 will be "Quilting Without a Net, More Interesting Quilts Without a Plan." Because sometimes you'll have a real nice idea in your head but when you get it all out in front of you it all goes to pot (or hell.) You MUST learn to adjust and adapt.


Anyway. Good thing I am teaching a class at Quilted Threads on Saturday. I can do some shopping after class. The class is free pieced barns, and there is plenty of room left if you want to join us. I'd love to see you.

Working it Out

When I get to this point, I really need to see the little four patch diamonds to get a feel for where this is going.

Actually, that's not quite true. I need to see the background of the little four patch diamonds to be sure.

I had thought they would be this flowery digital print. I was so convinced I bought two yards of it before I knew for sure.

But I wasn't really impressed when I set the four patches next to the light prints I used for the medium sized diamonds.

If I used darker pinkinsh medium diamonds, I didn't like that much either.

When I tried them with a mixture of both light and other pink medium diamonds I liked it even less. Although I frequently go over the top, this was just too much. It's a big jumble. My problem was really two problems. The background of the four patches was too busy, and many of the light prints, while charming, just added to the mixed up feeling. A little off kilter can be OK, a lot is not. (It's a juggling act.)

 One of the things I like about these diamond quilts is that the diamonds disappear into each other, and then reappear as if they are playing hide and seek, but you still see diamonds. As you can see in the quilt above, Diamond Jubilee, the background of the four patch diamonds is important because you want it to disappear and let the rest of the colors and diamonds shine through. The medium size diamonds in this quilt don't compete against the big prints either.

 There's a lot going on in this version, Dark Majesty. But it isn't really over the top. I'm not 100% thrilled with the way the dark fabric in the four path diamonds sticks out, but had I transposed them and made dark vertical rows of diamonds, I would have liked it even less. Still, though, those dark diamonds give the quilt a kind of rhythm that works.

I think this version of the Diamonds, Jewel Box, works very well.

I'm not looking for your suggestions. I know what I want, and I'm willing to work to get it. I'm not even sure if I made too many PINK four patches (which I will show you tomorrow), because that may end up biting me in the butt also. You never know until you try, but YOU MUST TRY!

You must also THINK. Writing this post has helped me figure out what does and doesn't work for each of these quilts. I now have a sneaking suspicion I'm still getting it wrong and I have a lot more four patches to make before I get this right.  Argh.  We'll see...

More Four Patch Diamonds

My sewing room faces South, and when the leaves are gone, it's a really nice place to be on a cold winter day. I try to work in there when the sun is out this time of year.  I sat down the other day with all the strips for my little four patch diamonds and sewed up all the pairs.

And sewed and sewed and sewed.  Then I pressed the pairs with the seams open.

Before sewing the pairs together the points need to be trimmed. Here is what I do so I don't have to handle each piece over and over.

On Sunday I worked my way through the stack one pair at a time, cutting the strips in pieces, trimming the corners, pairing them up, sewing them into diamonds, and pressing them.  After fourteen pairs my shoulder hurt and I was tired. I've got six more strips left to do.  The Diamonds quilt is much easier to design when these four patch diamonds are ready to go up on the design wall.



***Note: I'm showing you things out of sequence. Everybody wanted to know how I made the four patch diamonds, so I am showing you. But behind the scenes I have been playing with a layout for the Pink Diamonds quilt which uses the blocks I showed yesterday. I did not like them, so I made these. You'll see my layout process tomorrow.