Home Sweet Home

My quilts arrived back home yesterday.

After an extended stay in Memphis with Julie, the sampler quilt, Letters From Home, is back on the wall for which it was designed. I've missed it.

The Black Box, Nine x Nine and Magic Happens are all back where they belong. (Note the space bags on the floor at the right.)

I had to unpack the two giant boxes that came back from Memphis because today is trash day, and I wanted to get the boxes into the recycle bin.  I'll tell you about the goodies Julie and Larry included later. Last night was the Project Runway finale, and I had to watch that.

I also received the fabrics I ordered for the Chicken quilt. Chris gave me a few scraps of good stuff too. I've been washing and ironing all that. I'll show you later.

I changed my mind about the backing of the Sunburst Rainbow quilt. I've selected something else, and I've also chosen the binding. You'll see.  I'll be using that gray and white zig-zag for the back of the Sliced quilt, and I think that one will have a red binding. I know where both these quilts are going.

I have to finish the Rainbow Baby quilt, and the Spools quilt. Both need binding.

And I have to clean the house. Oh well.

And I bought myself the new Kindle Paperwhite, which I love. I sent my old Kindle to Kidbean, the oldest of my "fairy nephews." His Mom reports I may hear the sonic boom of joy when it arrives at their house later today.

:-)

Rainbow Baby, Quilted

The rainbow baby quilt is back from being quilted. As soon as I spread it out on the bed, Millie lay on it.

She is enjoying entirely too much.


I asked my Mom if she saw the photos of the Sunburst Rainbow quilt.

"Are you KIDDING?" she said, "I have been watching that every day. It's GORGEOUS. That quilt HAS to come to me. I'M the only person who can really appreciate that quilt..."

She did allow that she wasn't quite sure about the backing. "Well," I said, "I didn't want it to be TOO bright. I mean, I have an all-red quilt, and there aren't many people who can handle that..."

"I'M one of them," my Mom said, "I love that red quilt.  I can take a bright quilt like that..."



I love my Mother. Really and truly. She so totally rocks. If you're an oddball, and you've known you're an oddball your whole live through, it's so wonderful to have somebody like that in your corner. If Mom wants the quilt, Mom is gonna get the quilt.

With a bright backing.

Sunburst Rainbow Flimsy

It's a flimsy!

And The Winner Is...

After I hit "Publish" on yesterday's post, in which I asked readers which they preferred, the  "Sunburst" or the "Wave" design, I thought to myself "I ask my readers' opinions a lot, but I never listen to them..."

At lunch, I brought both photos up on my monitor, and leaned back to see which I liked better.

It was an easy decision. Which did I choose?

There are only two seams left and the top will be complete.

Thank you Ladies!

So Far

I sewed another long row together last night, and almost sewed it to it's neighbor upside down. I sewed about 12 inches before I caught my mistake. A purple block was about to be sewn to a green one.  Eeeeek! Purple is adjacent to only blue and red, so I pulled it out of the machine and ripped that seam, reversed the row, and sewed it. 

I set the first five-row section aside as it was getting a bit unwieldy. I figured I'd make the next four rows and sew them together, then sew the five-row to the four-row to put the top together.  If I had sewn those two rows together wrong, I would have had to take them apart.  They are the two left-most vertical rows in the photo above.  But once I got them on the wall, I had to stop. The design has great appeal, and I have to give it serious thought. I really like that off-center sunburst, and have to decide if I want to keep it, or continue on with my original plan.

 

This was the original plan, btw. The finished quilt, if I keep according to my plan, will be a mirror image of this one. 

What do you think? The original? Or the Sunburst?

Two-Thirds of a Rainbow

 I've sewn six of the nine vertical rows together so far, and I am really happy with this. I selected a very unusual fabric for the backing.

What I like about it is that it's neutral. There's so much going on on the front, and while I could have used ANY of the colors on the front as a backing, the quilt would have been "too much," and I didn't want that. The other thing I like about it is that it moves the way the design on the front does. Back and forth.

What will I do for the binding? Jeez, I dunno. I might even change my mind about the backing when it comes time, but I'm not worried. There are a lot of options (and a lot of right answers) for a quilt like this. 

This fabric hit me, and I generally go with what hits me. I have learned to trust my gut instincts. 

More Rainbow...

I've been sewing rows to the Rainbow Quilt, and putting them up on the wall to get them out of the way. 

Today I put them up and when I stepped back I saw this.

Well!  That was unexpected!

Oops.

I goofed.

The column with the RED block at the top was supposed to be on the left, and the one with the purple on top was supposed to be on the RIGHT.

It was getting late last night, I was watching Top Chef Masters, and I wanted to sew the two rows together before I went to bed.

At first I thought, "Oh hell, I have to rip out a 60-inch seam."

Then I looked at it and thought... What am I freaking out about? All I have to do is continue adding the rows in the correct color sequence. The quilt will be a mirror image of my original concept, but so what? Instead of looking like an S it will look like a Z. Big whoop.

So I'm just going to keep going.  Adapt. Improvise. Overcome.

It Seams To Me...

(You all know how much I love a good pun)

When I started this quilt, I knew how the blocks would be joined together, so I pressed all the seams to one side. This allows me to alternate them so the seams lie flat.

I'm making one long row at a time and sewing the rows together each time I complete one. It won't take long to put this top together.

Rainbow in Fabric

I figured out how many of what size blocks I needed and then started throwing blocks up on the design wall.  This thing will be about 56" wide by 68" tall. I may do some rearranging of fabrics, but by and large I am ready to start sewing it together. I plan to sew the long columns together first.

One thing I discovered is that this quilt really needs blocks of predominantly one color. Blocks that were made of large prints with other colors didn't work.

See? Those butterflies had to go.

The Little Grey Cells

A few years ago this question popped up on a discussion board of a group I was a part of.

"What's the one tool in your sewing studio you couldn't live without?"

I confess that I snickered when I read the various answers. Considering I do not view my studio as a play room, and do not view my tools as "toys," I was less than impressed with the answers.

Rotary cutters got a lot of votes, as did rulers, irons and other gizmos and doodads. As far as I was concerned, nobody got the only truly correct answer.

My decidedly biased answer: "My brain."

Because, if you haven't got a "magical" tool, you can use your noodle, your little grey cells, your thinking cap, your brain, to solve any problem. Very versatile tool, that. And we all have one!

So when I got home tonight and looked at the blocks on my design wall and considered how I might rearrange them to get the effect I wanted with the least amount of effort, (translation: how could I play with the blocks without climbing up and down the ladder to move 117 blocks), in the end I decided not to touch them at all.

Did I "settle?" Certainly not.  This is the design that's up there now, with the colors rearranged slightly (without the contrasting strip in the center of each block):

That yellow 6x8 block is in the center, where I wanted it. But what if I made the colors change direction a bit?

This is quite nice, if a bit predictable.  But what happens if I insert those contrasting strips?

This isn't to scale, and I've got the color of the contrasting strips wrong (the yellow has a green strip, not an orange one; the orange has a yellow strip, and so on down the line), but damn, this is looking interesting.

So how did I do all this while sitting on the couch?

Have you ever heard of Excel?

Now I am fairly sure that a lot of you have one of those fussy quilt design programs, but I do not, because I don't make quilts that use a lot of the same block over and over again. Years ago one of my readers commented "You have the best fabrics."

"No," I replied. "But I know how to get the most out of the fabrics that I do have."  It's the same thing with tools. You don't need lots of gizmos and gadgets (and trust me, I have a lot of them), but you can get a lot of proverbial "bang" for your "buck" if you can make them do what you want.

Even if the number one computer spreadsheet software on the planet wasn't created to design quilts.

Heh.

The little grey cells...

(I love each and every one of them.)

Bright Rainbow Redux

So OK, I have too much fabric, and want to make some quilts that aren't overly fussy.  What else to start with than the bright rainbow blocks I started a few weeks ago.

I had an idea so I decided to throw some pieces up on the design wall to see what it looked like. I thought I would line up pieces of the same size across one row and then let the blocks grow in size both above and below.

Here's the first one:

I just put colors up there, I wasn't worried about the fabric placement. I figured I could play with that later if I got something I liked.

I thought it needed to be wider, so I added another column on the right.

I decided to keep going.

 This was about 42"wide by 62" tall.  It needed to be wider.

Now it's 56" wide, and I really like it.  Except.

Except the top and bottom rows can't be the narrowest blocks. I have to rearrange this so wider blocks are on the top and bottom edges.

My problem is when I made the blocks I was just guessing about what sizes I needed, so I don't have enough to carry this idea along.


BUT! Because I am a "free piecer" I am NOT going to make more. I'm simply going to combine some pieces I already have throughout the quilt and make this a bit more unexpected.

Heh.

Rainbow Ready

I'm getting the Rainbow baby quilt ready for the trip to Chris for quilting.

Next I'll prepare my Letters class at Quilted Threads on Saturday. It really is the letters class and it really is this coming Saturday. (Ahem!)

It's settling down at work. We've had three weeks of intense craziness, and now it'll be setting down. For the next several weeks each member of my team at work will be taking vacation time. We back each other up, but we don't do any unusual projects at times like this, so it will be a lot easier.

I will be working on my speech for St Louis, and I'm going to make some "easy-ish" quilts to try to winnow down my fabric stash.  I'm also going out to the city of Angels to visit the sunshine of my life in a few weeks and I can't wait.

Really? I mean, REALLY?

Honestly. I turn my back for one minute...

Rainbow Baby Backing Selection

I was all set to go shopping at QT to find the backing for the Rainbow Baby quilt. However, as I was cleaning my studio (I have WAY too much fabric...) I found the perfect fabric.

The colors of the birds are right, the colors are gender-neutral, and it continues the feeling of movement the quilt has.  I was delighted with how well it worked.  I bought it for another quilt, but it suits this one so much better. 

Rainbow Baby...

I've got the pieces sewn together for the Rainbow Baby quilt.

I really like this. I considered adding a thin inner border, and then a larger darker border, but the baby isn't due until February and the parents to be do not know the baby's gender, and the borders could make the quilt read either "girly" or "boyish" and I wanted to avoid that.

When I tried this dark blue and white swirl, I thought it looked great, so I cut some wider strips to try.

I really liked it, so that's what I used. Now I'll select a backing and get this out to Chris for quilting. What will I use for binding? I don't know, but I might just use the same fabric as the border so the colors just float.

Rainbow Checks!

I've been working on the revised Rainbow Baby quilt. Here is what it looks like so far.

There will be 18 rows in all, so this is about half of it. The squares are 2-1/2" finished.

If At First You Don't Succeed

If at first you don't succeed...try something else. But above all, try something.

I really liked the bright rainbow blocks, but they were SO bright, and when I asked my coworker about possible colors, he said, "...gender neutral... maybe yellow?"  That's been on my mind a lot.

My friend Julie made this stunner, which I adore.

and it really got me to thinking. I could keep the bright colors and lower the intensity by spreading them apart a bit. I asked Julie if she'd mind if I stole her idea.





so that is where I am headed now.

I am feeling much better about it.

My crazy work fortnight is coming to a close, and after this weekend it should be a lot calmer. And OH! I shall have photos of another finish next week!

Rainbow Baby in Daylight

This is the same layout as the one in yesterday's post, but with much better lighting. I will be playing with this more, but I wanted you all to see what it really looked like.

Chopped!

It has been a week from hell at work, and I've got another week just like it coming up. So Saturday I did whatever I wanted, and what I wanted was to finish cutting the blocks for the Rainbow Baby Quilt.

I just threw some blocks up on the design wall to get an idea of what it might look like.  This is by no means the final design. It is just enough to give me some ideas. I'll definitely be pushing this around.

Stay tuned!