Thinking Pink

 

July is my birth month, and I have decided that pink is my favorite color, so in July I put my pink quilt, Tickled Pink, on my dining room table. Long time readers know I switch out the quilts on my table every month.

In keeping with the pink July theme, I have put the Pink Panther quilt on the back of the couch, and put the pink pillows out.

I'll be retiring at the end of the summer, so this past weekend, I have been "practicing." Practicing what? 

Doing nothing; with no plan for the day.

Now I was lucky, the house was clean, the bills have been paid, the car is gassed up, and the laundry was done. So I slept late, woke up and decided to work on a crossword puzzle. Then I washed the last window that needed washing and cleaned the mini blind for that window.

I have two tasks to do before I do retire. One is to get a printer that will work wirelessly with my Mac and the other is to replace my cell phone. I'd done my research for the printer, and that is now on order. I'll be returning the work at home setup to the office in the next couple of weeks.

My company has been paying for my cell phone for over 20 years. I can have the number, so that won't change, and because my device is so old, I can keep that too, but I do need to get a new plan. Fortunately I have access to the invoices so I know exactly how much data I use. So one of my goals for the next week or so is to shop for a plan. I have a couple of options, so getting that done will happen in the next few weeks as well.

I offered to cook a meal for my Mom and told her I'd go to her house to cook it, or she could come to my place. I was not at all surprised when she decided to come over. I took this picture after we had a dinner of Korean Short Rib Tacos and homemade frozen yogurt ice cream sandwiches.

A good time was had by all.

Pink Panther in the Snow

 

There's something really cool about taking beauty shots of a quilt on fresh snow. This is the Pink Panther quilt.

It's hard to arrange a quilt because I don't want any footprints in the snow, so I have to toss the quilt and hope it lands OK.

It's also hard not to cast a shadow.

Overall I'm pleased with these. But my all time favorite shot of this quilt is the one below.

When I was taking the photo above, Millie wasn't in the room. Suddenly she jumped on the couch, and then walked from one end to the other. One of the things I have learned as an artist is to take advantage of anything that happens, so I took the picture as she walked by. I love the casualness of it.

Sheri, these triangles are twice as tall as they are wide, so yes they are elongated.

Pink Panther Done!

 

I finished the Pink Panther quilt. Here it is on the back of the couch with the pink flamingo pillows.

I've got at least one more bird (that I know of) flying my way, and then I'll get into the studio and work on putting that quilt together. In the meantime I have to write a quilt stories for Dragonfly Serenade and The Pink Panther. I also have to add the binding to the Allegretto quilt. And there's the whole Holiday season thing...

The Big Why

 

Whenever I start sewing the binding down on a quilt I start about sixteen inches away from a corner and sew towards it. Getting the first corner out of the way quickly is fun, but it means when I turn the fourth corner, I am well and fully in the home stretch. 

I am very eager to finish this quilt and toss it over the back of the couch and see it with the pink pillows for a few weeks before the Christmas decorations come out.

I've been telling you that Millie has been acting really demanding. This photo should really give you the idea of what she looks like when she Wants My Attention. 

(I told you!)

Later today I'll be meeting my dad at a local restaurant to gift the Garden Party quilt to Marjorie, the Lady Priest. I've made a PDF file of the story of her quilt and collected all the in-process pictures and copied all to a flash drive for her. I hope to have photos tomorrow. 

Pretty sure there will be tears.

So now I'm going to tell you something you may have heard here before, but it's the kind of thing we quiltmakers shouldn't forget. It's WHY we make quilts.

I believe that quilts are Magic. I believe that the very best present EVER is a quilt, that it supersedes money or any other THING. What separates a quilt from "other gifts" is time and touch. Quilts take time to make. Time to plan, to design, to sew, to quilt, to bind. During that time whoever makes the quilt touches every square inch many times. I believe that touch STAYS with the quilt, that the quilt holds that touch, that caring, those thoughts and then surrounds the persons who are wrapped or covered in it. 

Don't believe me? Go back to the very beginning of this quilt blog, back to July and August 2008 and read about the quilt I made for my goddaughter Violette. Violette's quilt was the first fully free pieced quilt I ever made. It had free pieced letters, asterisks and butterflies. It even had a cat hiding in a garden of flowers. I worked on that quilt for over four months, agonizing every inch of the way. I never gave up, even though the quilt changed many times from inception to completion. Violette lay under the quilt exactly once, when I took her picture. Ten days later she died.

To say I and her family were bereft is an understatement of epic proportions. I was disheartened that a quilt I had worked on for so long would be forgotten, tucked away in a drawer somewhere. One of my friends reassured me that would never happen. "Just wait," she said, "that quilt will be a comfort. You'll see."

After Violette's funeral (the quilt covered her tiny casket; not exactly the way I wanted to remember it), her eldest brother put the quilt on his bed, "so she wouldn't be alone." Weeks later her mother admitted that during one particularly rough night when she couldn't sleep, she went to get Violette's quilt from her son's bed and covered herself with it. "I fell right back to sleep, and slept so much better... I slept under it a lot after that. I even woke up one morning to find my husband sleeping under it...  It has become the quilt everybody wants. When anybody here is feeling blue or they are sick, they sleep under Violette's quilt..." (And every time I visit, I get to sleep under it. It always brings tears to my eyes.)

Yeah. Hearing that story took my breath away. But since then, I've heard other similar stories, so I know that quilts REALLY ARE as Magical as I think they are.

So remember this: When you gift a quilt, the recipient does not care if it is an original design or if it came from a book, a pattern or a kit. They do not care if the fabrics are "designer" or left over. They don't care if you bought fabric from eQuilter or the local big box sell everything store. They do not care if your seams are perfectly straight, if your quilt lies flat or if the tips of the triangles are chopped off. They do not care if the quilt was custom quilted, or hand guided quilted, or quilted by a long arm machine running a CAD program. They do not care which side of the quilt you finish sewed the binding on. They do not care if it was sewn by machine or by hand. They don't even care if it was never in a quilt show. Or even if it was.

What matters is that it came from YOUR hand. From YOUR heart, from YOUR time, and from YOUR love. What matters is that it came from YOU. That YOU made it. That YOUR touch is in it. 

NEVER underestimate the importance of that.

That is the rock bottom reason I make quilts, and frankly, I can't think of a better legacy.

I'll never be a millionaire. I'll never be so famous everybody knows my name, but there are people I love who sleep under my quilts every night and feel that love. Hell, even I don't sleep under a quilt I made. I sleep under a quilt that my best friend made for me, and another friend of ours quilted.

Like I said, tears.

**Update: I added a photo of Violette's quilt.

Pinning Pink Panther & Millie

 I've been pinning the binding over the front of the Pink Panther quilt. It takes time, but I like having it done before I sew the binding down.

Quite frankly I've been worried about my cat, Millie. She no longer jumps on the table when I have breakfast in the morning. and she spends most of her time curled up in a tight ball napping in the living room. She's been VERY DEMANDING when she wants me to lie on the couch so she can climb on top of me and nap. So that's what has been occupying my time lately. Me, lying down with Millie on top of me, purring, while I either watch TV or read. Oh gee, so tough.

She's fifteen years old. I can't tell, but I think she's a bit thinner. We have an appointment set up with the vet in a few weeks, so I will know more then. She still has lustrous fur, her eyes are bright, and she seems to move around the house freely, but she's definitely slowing down. She's had a great run, and I am aware that every day I have with her is a gift, so I try to give her the attention she wants. That means I don't post as much, but Millie is more important.

Pink Panther, Quilted

 

The Pink Panther quilt is quilted in a pattern called "Jester" which is appropriate, given how this quilt played with my head while I was making it.

Here's a closer view.

Millie had to give the quilt a once over. 

She gave it a second and third-over too. She was quite thorough.

Here you can see the back of the quilt, and the binding I'll use.

It's not often I have THREE quilts I'm excited to finish all at the same time.

Pink Panther Gets a Border

 

I'd long known that the Pink Panter needed a border, but I finally decided to add one. This white wasn't quite what I had in mind.

This pink looked great, but apparently I didn't take pictures of any of the other pink fabrics I tried.

This is it, and I like it. I have also worked out what to do for the backing, and I'll work on that next.

A Day Off

 

My boss encouraged me to take Friday off. Who was I to refuse? What did I do with my three days off? Not much. I changed out the table quilt for August, and set out the bowl that Julie gave me for my birthday. It's one of her husband Larry's creations. I have several.

The fabrics I will use for the backing of the Pink Panther quilt have arrived. I will use the stripe at the top (each stripe is about 10 inches wide) and the teacups. I might use some others. The birds and the colored raindrops might be used for binding. There was only 1/2 yard of the birds.

I also bought this panel. I haven't decided if I will use it or not.

I watched the Olympics, and some tennis, and did some laundry and cleaned out my refrigerator. Otherwise I pretty much took it easy.
 

I like to check out my reviews on my Etsy page. I found this one:

"The instructions are exceptionally good. Great pictures."

and this one that really made my day:

"The pattern was very easy to follow and customize. Decided to make just one bird to try it out and ended up with 35 before I stopped...."

Size Matters

From the very beginning of the pink quilt, I knew I wanted to use the Perfect Rectangle ruler.
 

I cut some of the triangles the full ruler size and set them up on my design wall. The big diamonds were so big, I'd only have had four rows of them. I decided to make them smaller by about a third. You can see the new size at the upper right.

I put a piece of blue painter's tape near the 8" line of the ruler. This was where I decided to cut the fabric.

This made the finished rectangle 3-3/4" x 7-1/2". 

And I'll say it again. This was not a scrap quilt.

The Pink Panther is Sewn Up

 

It's a flimsy! It is 62" x 76".

Sewing Rows

 

I've started sewing the rows of the Pink Panther quilt together.

Here are all the rows on the design wall. These aren't sewn together, but I wanted you to see it all.

I'll be watching the Olympics (like everybody else) while I sew.

Ten Rows Sewn

 

I have ten rows of blocks sewn together, but I haven't sewn the rows to each other yet. Soon.

Oh, and this is not a scrap quilt. I bought sixteen fabrics used in the quilt. The other twelve came from my stash.

The Pink Panther Grows

 No, Judy I will not think of Peter Sellars. I will think of the cartoon pink panther grinning slyly when I think of my Pink Panther quilt.

I finished designing the extra columns on the left side of the quilt. It's important to note that until the pieces are sewn together, things are apt to change.

It won't be long now before this is a flimsy. (And the eagle-eyed amongst you will notice the changes I made in the left side of the bottom photo.)

Stitched Up, Out of my Mind

 

Last week, when I was wrestling with the sewing machine dilemma, I knew the pink quilt, as I had designed it, would be too narrow. It would only be about 52" wide, and if you've ever tried wrapping yourself up in something that isn't big enough to cover you when you're cold, then you get it. Back then I figured the solution was simple - just add another vertical row of blocks to one side of the quilt. 

So Saturday evening, I did just that. I worked it all out, cut the blocks as I needed them, paired them up and pinned them into place. On Sunday I would start sewing the blocks together into horizontal rows and I'd be good to go.

Except.

Take a look at the photo at the top of this post.

On the left side, there is now half a diamond, or a pinwheel. Looks dumb. I can't add only one vertical row of blocks. I have to add TWO.

Like this, above. Now I have eight full diamonds running across the top.

This damned quilt is laughing at me, like Loki or Kokopelli, the trickster gods of mythology. I thought I might name the quilt Kokopelli, but I decided to look up trickster gods, and then I discovered a list of trickster characters in the arts that included something very famous and very pink. A trickster if ever there was one.

The Pink Panther.

And so this quilt has been named.

Adapt, Improvise, Overcome

 Yeah, I know, it's the motto of that big reality show game. But it's a good thing to remember when you are doing something creative. Sometimes when we encounter a problem we only see a fraction of what we really should be looking at. I had more than two options yesterday. In fact, I had two additional options I originally dismissed out of hand, but when I really thought about it, those other options seemed to have a lot of benefits. What were they?

3. Use the leftover pieces to make new blocks. After all, I cut more than I needed... When I looked through them that night though, some of the fabrics I needed weren't there.

That left option number 4. Cut new pieces. Now this pair on the top, I HAD to unstitch because I didn't have any more of that particular pink (I've only had it in my stash for something like 17 years), but for all the other pieces I cut new blocks.

I didn't have enough of the llamas to have them all facing in one direction, so I had to sew two pieces together (GASP! THE HORROR!) But this is where an Attitude Adjustment is needed. This is not going to be a show quilt. This is going to be a couch quilt that will live on that back of my couch a few months of the year. 

If anybody notices this, then they deserve a prize for being that observant. I had to do this a couple of times, but seriously, no big deal. Cutting all the pieces I needed for one row of blocks took less than an hour. It took me many more hours than that to take apart one row. 

So let's see, one hour and a few funny seams or... six or seven hours painstakingly ripping blocks apart? Hmm, not exactly a hard decision.

On to your comments: 

Gail, when ripping apart a seam on the bias I am more careful than careful. I am downright paranoid and do it very slowly and carefully. You are absolutely correct that this can be a recipe for disaster.

Before ripping anything apart, I think you have to take your "Risk Temperature." I have more than once stuck a seam ripper in between two pieces of fabric, cutting edge against a row of stitches and just pushed, cutting the stitching apart in long stretches. But this is NOT the technique to use with a seam on the bias. Doing it the way I describe also risks cutting a hole in your fabric, so like I said, you have to figure out your Risk Temperature before you do that and choose your ripping technique carefully. 

Here's something to think about: Don't set your stitch length so small the tip of your seam ripper can't fit into it... (Ask me how I know this.) Also, those sticky lint removers work great for pulling out the remains of cut stitches. The disadvantage is they will also make the edges ravel a lot more.

Michelle, Alas, my machines are a 1260 rebuilt Bernina and an Elna. The feet are not compatible.

And Julie, the Elna was overdue for its regular maintenance anyway. It should have gone in April of 2020, but we know what happened then...

Now I can get back to  the important stuff.

Murphy Visits

 You've all heard about Murphy's Law, right? Whenever something bad happens it will happen at the worst possible moment... or something like that.

Well on Sunday I was sewing two rows of my pink quilt together when some threads got jammed. I turned everything off, and took the cover off and tried to dislodge a thread that was stuck. It would not budge. I thought I fixed it, and finished sewing the seam, but looking at the seam I knew something was still wrong. It is past time to bring it for it's regular maintenance, so I packed it up, and got out my Bernina, and set it all up.

I sewed a row of blocks together, and then joined them and put them up on the design wall next to the others.

Can you see it? Let me make it bigger for you.

Yup. The row stitched on the Bernina doesn't match the two sewn on my Elna. (Now, let's not get carried away pulling hair out complaining THIS IS SO TERRIBLE or wondering WHY DID THIS HAPPEN, because that boat has sailed folks, and it makes no difference. We must move on to the solution with grace and patience because getting frustrated won't solve this problem.)

What to do? I can EITHER...

1. Take apart the row sewn on the Bernina, bring the Elna to be serviced and WAIT until it comes back to finish the pink quilt. (Now bear  in mind the repair shop is open Tuesday to Friday 9 AM to 5 PM and Saturday 9 AM - 1 PM, meaning I can't get it to the shop before Saturday, and I'd have to wait two weeks to get it fixed.)

2. Take apart the two rows sewn on the Elna and continue sewing the whole thing on the Bernina.

Either way I have to rip something apart.

Now you all know me, and know that if I ain't sewing I ain't happy, so I will save you all some guesswork and tell you I have elected option #2. I have already taken the two rows apart, and taken the pieces apart in one row and have resewn them together on the Bernina. Works just fine. I have been sacked out on the couch watching The Chef's Table on Netflix with Millie purring beside me, so it's all good.

My big takeaway is that my pal Julie deserves accolades of THE HIGHEST ORDER for taking apart over 300 HST's in a quilt and resewing them into Partly Sunny. As we both noted (almost simultaneously while texting each other about this) if it's important enough, we will do whatever it takes to get the job done.

~ ~ ~

HOWEVER, my comments and yours about BIAS have got me thinking. I will definitely be devoting a blog post to the topic of the BIAS in quiltmaking. Just don't hold your breath waiting...

What's In, What's Out?

 Remember this photo when I got started? These are the 21 fabrics I bought for the pink quilt.

If you look at them, there are six fabrics I did not use.

I didn't use five of these creams from my stash. I didn't use six of the pinks on the left.

What didn't make the cut? Fabrics that were more coral (light red orange) than pink (which is really a light red-violet.) Pink is generally a little cooler in color temperature. What we call HOT PINK is simply a very intense (brighter), darker pink. It's a synthetic color, usually a variation of a Quinacridone. (Images here.) Of the lights that didn't make the cut, I used whites instead of fabrics with a cream background. This was more in keeping with the idea of the quilt as a cool tone.

To the commenter yesterday who asked how I would sew this together - in horizontal or diagonal rows, the answer is shown above. Why? Because each diagonal here is on the bias, (which means it can get stretched out of shape very easily), so my #1 rule in sewing things together is this: Always stabilize the bias edge. Sew it to something. Since sewing two triangles together here forms a rectangle, and since I am always careful to cut my triangles so two sides are on the straight of the grain*, all four sides of the rectangle are stable. 

Ask me how I know this. I've made enough quilts with diamond shapes to know this to be true. 

(Oh, oh, Snark Attack coming: I believe that anybody who knows how to sew clothes won't have any trouble making a quilt because they know how fabric behaves and how to handle it properly. That means they understand the bias. Folks who don't know anything about sewing clothes with have a tougher time learning to make a quilt. And I think that's because there is so much emphasis on making the quilt top and running a sewing machine, that nobody bothers to tell beginning quiltmakers the importance of the bias in fabric. To wit: If you overstretch it, (like if you press the bejesus out of it and now you have something looking like a potato chip) NO, there is No Way you can fix that. You have to start over.)

*In this quilt only two triangles are fussy cut with no regard to the grain of the fabric.

Improvising

 If you've been reading this blog for any length of time you know I don't make assumptions about what will go with what - that I wait to see what happens on the design wall.

I filled in all the light areas with the white and colored prints I had chosen, and some from my stash. decided to make pairs and use those consistently throughout the quilt. I didn't have enough of some, so I had to break my own rules from time to time, but that's just the way things shake out.

Here are some of the pairs:

These two seemed to fit perfectly together.

Butterflies and dragonflies - of course!

Big flowers - Little flowers. Works for me.

 

I used this Mad Hatter fabric to fill in a lot of empty spaces at the end.

You KNOW I had to use the bras again! That is only my most favorite fabric EVER! 😂😂

When I first started laying out this quilt, I removed this light fabric - the thread with the needles. I thought it was too dark.

So I used this very light pink fabric instead.  It is in the final quilt. At first I thought it was too light, so changed it to this:

It didn't seem quite right, though. So I changed it back to the first photo at the top of this post. Now it is time to sew it all together.