Rainbow Crush Final Thoughts

 

I'm glad I made the Rainbow Crush quilt smaller. It would have been unusable that large.

This was the 3x3 version, and while I could have sewn that up, I'm glad I didn't. This was simply okay to me.

This is the final version. The blocks are smaller and the pattern that runs through the quilt is more complex. I love the irregular zigzags and the blocks blend into each other.

The take-away point is that any quilt you make only needs to satisfy YOU.

Rainbow Crush is a Flimsy!

 

I sewed the last of the Rainbow Crush blocks together yesterday, as I watched the coverage of the Kentucky Derby. In the end, it took me only 7-1/2 minutes to take apart a block.

On Sunday I assembled all the blocks into the flimsy.

Here it is, all 60" x 72" of it. A vast improvement over 80" x96".

I've had this quote pinned to the wall above my ironing table for the last fifteen years. The key, of course, is knowing you've gone down the wrong road.

Exciting Times (?)

 

I'm moving along at rebuilding the Spring Fling quilt, which one reader suggested I rename to Rainbow Crush, because I didn't want to rename this happy quilt something like "Kill, Crush, Destroy." I like that idea.

I think I'm a bit faster at taking the blocks apart. Here are last three blocks for the fourth row of the quilt. It's not exciting work, but I've got it down so it's pretty mechanical to do.

Last week in the Arthritis Swim class the instructor suggested a leg exercise I had not done before. My right knee did not appreciate it one bit. It swelled up so much I almost fell over when I put weight on it when I got out of bed the next morning. So I tried to rest it and take it easy. It took several days. 

Finally I decided to go back to swim class on Monday, hoping the 92F water would help it. It did. But I didn't go to my normal class at noon. I went to the one later in the afternoon. I must have had something else on my ming because when I got to the Y and parked, I forgot to display my handicapped parking tag.

When I got out of the swim class, and back into the car, I saw that I had a ticket. Because we all know it's illegal to park in a handicapped spot if you haven't got a handicapped permit. The fine is $250.00.

Needless to say I was a little bit freaked out. I had 36 hours to pay the fine or it would increase. There was no telephone number for me to call.

I woke up about 3:30 in the morning and tossed and turned worrying about it until I finally looked up the address for the police station, and then went back to sleep.

I went to the police station and explained my situation to the young lady who answered the buzzer. "I'll have to find a supervisor," she said.

A few minutes later I was explaining it to a police officer. I handed him my handicapped permit, and after examining it, he voided the ticket. I thanked him and told him how embarrassed I was, that I had been going to the Y at least four times a week for the last six or seven months and hadn't forgotten any of those times. "I can't imagine I am the first person who has ever done this," I told him.

He smiled, "It's happened a time or two before," he laughed, "and if it happens to you again, you just come to see me." All righty then!

I may have mentioned I play the Spelling Bee game on the New York Times. Some folks prefer Wordle, which I play also, but it doesn't really sing for me the way the Spelling Bee does. I used to play until I hit GENIUS, which is the end of the official game, but one day quite by accident I got my first Queen Bee, which is when you get all the words in that day's puzzle. Sometime later I discovered they had Hints, and then later I discovered the "Hive," which is a comments section for the game, and realized that several players got up at 3AM Eastern time (when the game is released) so they could not only solve the puzzle, but provide clues to each word. As soon as I figured THAT out, I was able to get to Queen Bee consistently, and that became my daily goal. Somewhere about 2023, the NYT started keeping track of the number of games you played, and how many QB's you got. Yesterday I hit my 1,000th Queen Bee. It was a good day.

The third great thing about the day happened at my hairdresser's, where I got my getting now shoulder length silver hair trimmed. My stylist, who has been cutting my hair for something like 40 years, complimented me on my pink glasses. They look so good with your silver hair, she commented.

A light bulb clicked in my head. "OH! You've just given me inspiration for my next quilt! Silver and Pink!"

Oh and the warm water did the trick for my knee. It's not "normal" but it's significantly better.

Re-Making

Here is the top row of the re-made Spring Fling quilt. The blocks are sewn together into the top row.

Gail, I can't just cut the larger blocks apart in rows and then sew them back together because the new blocks need to be 3-1/2" square. If I cut the rows down to 3-1/2" they would still be 4" wide, and that won't work.

It takes between eleven to twelve minutes to cut apart a big block into the smaller pieces.

One smaller block at a time.

Now I've finished ten of the thirty blocks. These blocks are sewn together into two rows.

Kill! Crush! Destroy!

So for those of you who haven't been following along, I made a quilt top that ended up just too damn big. I decided to re-make it so it ended up smaller.

I could have done it by unsewing the blocks, but that would have taken too damn long, and there was a faster way to do it. The blocks before I sewed them together the first time were 4-1/2" square. I wanted them to be 3-1/2". There was plenty of room to just cut them down.

The first step was to cut the big blocks out of the quilt, which I did but cutting along the seamline dividing two blocks, like you can see above.

Then I cut the blocks apart into rows, and trimmed away the seam allowance.

Then I cut the rows apart into blocks.

Next I trimmed each block down to 3-1/2" square. Having a ruler that was 3-1/2" wide was helpful.

I'm going to sew these together by webbing the components into larger blocks.

The block is now 12-1/2" square.

You can see the smaller block to the right.

You all know that I will do anything necessary to get the quilt I want. Yes, this is a lot of work, but that's OK. I know I am going to end up with a terrific quilt that will be the perfect size to use.

 

Coulda Shoulda Woulda

 

OK, It's a flimsy.

It's enormous.

Did I mention it's ENORMOUS! 

E-N-O-R-M-O-U-S

E-N-O-R-M-O-U-S  

It's gigantic.

It's WAY TOO FREAKING BIG.

I spread it over the bed and it hung down two feet over the end of the bed. I knew I'd never get it quilted because there would never be any place to put it.

And I knew I wasn't going to take it apart because I just don't have that kind of patience or motivation. I thought, I should have sewn it together to make it 60 x 72 inches. The blocks would have been 3 x 3, but I like the LOOK of the 4 x 4 blocks.

Well when something aggravates me that much, I know enough to know I have to put it away and do something else. I finished sewing it together after swim class, but I hadn't taken a shower yet, so I figured that's what I would do. Take a shower.

And somehow, taking my clothes off and getting ready to get into the shower, I figured out what I could do. 

I laughed.

It's EVIL! It's DEVIOUS! It's DANGEROUS and DESTRUCTIVE.

It's INSANE.

It's perfect.

I haven't done it yet, but I can't wait to get started. 

All Blocks Sewn

Here are all the blocks that fit on the design wall.

Here are the ones that belong in the far right column.

Here are the blocks laid out on the floor. And I have an answer. It's worse to work on the floor than on a design wall.

Now I have to sew all these together.

 

More Sewing

 

I'm sewing the blocks together. I do them in groups. 

Numbering the columns is what you do when you web a quilt together.

These are the blocks that form the right-most column of blocks that won't fit on the design wall.

Sewing, Finally!

Before I can sew anything together I have to finalize the placement of the component blocks.

I've decided to web the pieces of each block together.

It's a fairly quick, no-pin process.

I work in groups. Makes it easier for me. Then I"ll press them and sew them crosswise. You can do an internet search for webbing a quilt top together. I am using that technique to sew my blocks together.

So, one thing at a time!

Since the design wall is not wide enough to accommodate all five of the blocks, so I will have to set those aside. The blue one separate from the others is the block that should be at the top right of the quilt.

And Lynne Changes Her Mind...

 

I know I thought a quilt 80 x 96 (or whatever) inches was too big but I then I thought about having leftover blocks and that really annoyed me, so I decided to take the blocks off the design wall and see what it would look like if I made the 4 x 4 block and how the transitions would work.

While Dot (who commented the other day) isn't quite sure of this, I going to go with it. I have been moving some of the colors around so the transitions will be more pleasing (remember: limited fabric options and I AM NOT CUTTING MORE FABRIC, NOR AM I SHOPPING FOR ANY.)

I'm not sure which is more uncomfortable. Working on the stepladder or working on the floor.

At least I have finally determined the arrangement of the colors.

So it is time to start sewing.

Spring Fling Design is set!

Here are all the colors on the design wall. As you can see the design wall is still too small to show all the parts of the blocks on the far right. This is enough to see the color arrangement. As you all likely know, things look different in real life from the way they do in the camera. I will be doing some shifting around.

In this photo the 3x3 blocks are shown all together, which emphasizes the "separate-ness" of each block. I wanted to show you what this looks like so you can really see the effect of what shifting one small block does to the design.

Here is the final design. One component block of each set is bumped out into an adjacent block which allows the zigzag to appear continuous. 

The transitions from green to blue, blue to violet, violet to pink and pink to orange work best. The green to yellow doesn't work as well because of the value difference between the green and yellow. My next task is to see if I can shift the colors around to make those transitions more effective or at least minimize the contrast between them. I can't make the transition invisible because of the difference in the value of the two colors.

I may need to break one or two of my internal rules about this quilt.

Oh. Gee. Darn.

 

Digging Thru the Stash

 

I found some yellows. 

And here is a result of the stash search for more dark/light pairs of Green, Blue, Violet, Pink and Orange. (I'm not quite sure about that light for the pink, but we'll see once it's on the design wall.) 

Just filling in the blanks here, but the placement will surely change. At any rate, I have found my way into this quilt, which I will call Spring Fling.

(oops, This post should have preceded yesterday's)

Win Some, Lose Some

Making the blocks for this quilt is really time consuming and it isn't my favorite thing to do.

After I make the individual pieces for the block I put them up on the design wall where I have a space, but generally I decide to shift it to another spot. Oh what fun. In the photo above, the new pink pair directly below the watermark is too pale, and I'll have to replace it. (sigh)

Gotta do what you gotta do. Still though, I'm liking where this is going.

Size Matters

IF I inserted yellow blocks between the green and the orange, I'd have to shift things around, so here I did that, leaving space for the yellow blocks to go. (I still had to find yellow fabrics for those blocks, but let's leave that aside for the moment...)
 

The rail fence blocks I've been making from Sujata Shah's book, Cultural Fusion Quilts, (which is a really good book, by the way, and it's still in print, so go get one...) Anyway, the finished blocks measure sixteen inches square. A quilt four blocks by five is 64" x 80".  But for the design to work best, the quilt would have to be FIVE blocks by SIX. I'd need to make FIVE yellow blocks, and one extra block each of PINK, ORANGE, BLUE, PURPLE AND GREEN. That equals 30 blocks in total.

DETOUR AHEAD!

Now you may have noticed that in the previous posts I had four pairs each of Blue, Green, Purple, Pink and Orange. Each fabric is unique, so that means 40 unique fabrics. If I were to make 30 blocks, that would mean I'd need TWENTY more unique fabrics. And lemme tell ya, even with MY really terrific stash, that can be tricky. Not that I don't have the fabrics, but that I may or may not have sufficient YARDAGE to make really good pairs that meet the requirements I have already set for myself. Remember, I'm trying to DEPLETE the stash, not add to it by going fabric shopping. So stash hunting I will go. I'm a big believer that my best creative decisions come when my proverbial back is against the wall.

BACK TO THE SIZE...

If I add yellow blocks, which I am planning to do, then the size thing gets cuckoo. Thirty blocks arrange FIVE rows of SIX yields a quilt 80" x 96", which I think is way too freaking big. 

HOWEVER....

If I keep the blocks 3x3 (instead of 4x4) then the blocks are 12" square. And an arrangement of 5 rows of 6 yields a quilt.... 60" x 72" which I think is just peachy keen fine and dandy. That's within my comfort zone, but when I think about why I am making this quilt, and the overarching project, then clearly I don't want extra blocks left over. So a big quilt this shall eventually be. 

AND AS TO THE DESIGN...

I really like the idea that simply moving around a small block in each of the larger blocks, and then arranging the colors and prints just right will allow me to have my cake and eat it too. I can keep the zigzags of each color WHILE keeping the colors more or less in their own 3x3 block.  

In other words, I get to play with my viewer's heads, which is something I really like doing.

Yeah I know, I'm a bad woman.