If He Can Do It...

you can do it!

This is my son, and the free-pieced name panel he made. It was the result of a discussion.

We had been talking about the best way to introduce free-pieced letters to students. I felt that having students make their own name was a powerful motivator to get started. My son felt students should start with the easiest letter - the upper case "L", and then gradually move to the harder letters. I didn't want students to create any self-imposed barriers by describing any letter as "hard". He disagreed.

"OK," I pointed to the sewing room. "Let's find out. I'm going to show YOU how to make the letters."

This was not without small amounts of angst. My son had never used a rotary cutter, never operated a sewing machine, and didn't know the first thing about ironing, but he insisted on doing everything himself. He cut the strips, sewed the pieces together, and pressed them. He added the spacers and decided how to join the letters together.

Whose theory was correct? I could tell by the smile on his face and how he took a picture of the panel when he was finished. "Would you be so proud if you had made the letters L, O, T and U?" I asked.

"Probably not," he admitted, "but I did -start- with the letter L."

So what was the hardest part of the process for him?

Pinning two pieces of fabric together. "How the hell do you get the pin to come back up?"

It's Here!

My copy of Tonya's book has finally arrived! Millie got to check it out first...When she was finished, I looked it over, very carefully and very s-l-o-w-l-y, savoring each word, every illustration and picture; until I got to the page I had been dreaming about for months...
wow!

A dream come true! I am so happy. Thank you Tonya!

A New "Q"

Of all the letters, I dislike making an uppercase "Q" the most. A tiny "X" in the corner of an "O" --- argh! Just agonizing!

So I came up with this version. Step one, make a sideways "C"
Slice it apart diagonally (or even almost crosswise)
Pull it apart, and insert...
the tail of the "Q"
Sew it up.
(I have a confession - I had to trim the lower right corner before I sewed it to the top piece with the tail. If you make one, you'll figure it out.)

Daft Zebras at Home

My quilt Daft Zebras has taken up its permanent home in my sewing room. Woo hoo!

Daft Jumping Zebras

The phrase "how quickly daft jumping zebras vex" got stuck in my head. I liked the idea of the black and white zebras. How, I wondered, could I use only black-and-white fabrics for the letters, yet not lose them against a background?

Completely clueless, I visited various quilting blogs, more out of numbness than conscious thought. And Jackie provided me with an answer. See her blog post here. Black and white fabrics with one middle-value color.

Thanks Jackie!

THIS letter quilt will be small. The finished letters will be only 3" tall, and it will be only words. No daft jumping zebras. None.

Before And After

BeforeAfter
Yup, my Letters From Home quilt is stuffed in that little box (actually it's a large flat rate box from the USPS) and on Tuesday it will be flying its way across the US to a publisher. If it passes muster, and fits into an editorial need, it may be included in Tonya's book about the free-pieced letters I love making so much.

Bon Voyage!


Now I gotta finish The Quick Brown Fox... I need something to put up in that empty space!

over

I think the final layout will look like this. Now I just have to fill in the empty space.

Jumps

I've almost got the words sewn together for "the quick brown fox..."

I'm really happy with them. The small a's are about 2-1/2" square, and the small m is 3" wide. The o in "dog" is upside down from the way I originally planned it, but I like it better this way.
One other funny note, the d in "dog" was actually a p but the two letters looked better when I switched them.

quick brown fox, part 2

The reason you could see the "W" in the photos yesterday was because of the flash. If you looked at the letters in natural light, the dark hues disappear on the black, so I remade several of them, specifically the "b," "f," one of the "t's," the "w" and the "y."

I have also started sewing some of the words together. This is going to get interesting, since I do not have enough of the backing fabric to finish it off the way I would like.

The other thing I find interesting is that although these are simply lower case letters, I think I like these better than Friday's "Blue Moon Alphabet"

the quick brown fox

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

I typed this phrase over and over in typing class when I was 14. The phrase uses every letter in the alphabet at least once. I don't know if it is still used.

These are the lower case letters on black backgrounds I made in October 2008. I had to make a few more letters. (There are four o's and three e's...) Although they are easy to see in this photo, in reality, the w and f are very hard to see, so I will make new ones.

Blue Moon Alphabet

I made this small quilt top (19.5" x 25.5") from the letters with the black backgrounds I made in October 2008 at the same time I made the letters I used in "Letters From Home."

So why is it called "Blue Moon Alphabet?" Because the full moon on New Year's Eve was a Blue Moon, and I was assembling the top while watching the New Year's Eve celebrations on TV.

Happy New Year!

S-s

Tonya's method of free piecing the letter "S" is awesome. I love the way it looks. Very bold, very graphic. I like making the bottom part very thick, making the lower curve almost a triangle, and raising that curve up, almost snakelike.One thing it isn't, however, is blissful. So I have to make my two S's softer, slimmer and a bit more graceful.
I'm getting there.

My friend the Selvage Fairy wants a tutorial on how I made the B. Will do, SF, but you will have to wait until the weekend when I have a bit more time.




Those of you with eagle eyes will notice something the B and S have in common. They are made of the same fabric. They were supposed to be different.

Oops.

B - Fini!

It's about 12" square.

...and it's WAY past my bedtime, so more about it later.

To Be

As you may (or may not) know, I love a good pun, hence the title of today's post.*
At any rate, here is my plan for the letter B in my "Follow Your Bliss" banner, and here it is in progress.



* Just say it out loud

Test Line-Up

I've sewn the o-u-r together. The two words aren't sewn together yet, I set them on the floor to get an idea of how they were looking. I decided I liked the U the way it was.
Shelly, who is also in New Hampshire (we gotta get together!) commented yesterday that the letters almost looked cursive. YAY! If you look at the page in my notebook, and the page with my "Follow Your Bliss" writing over and over, you -might- be able to see why I have sewn the letters the way I did.

Yes, I am trying to mimic my handwriting somewhat. I want to keep the fresh feeling of my writing. I don't want the phrase to seem like a command, and I want the letters to flow as if they were written by hand. Looks like I have to tilt the Y a bit more, and move the first word so it tips up a little at the end.

As usual, I'm using a lot of the WOW background. I'm going to have to call my friends at Quilted Threads (the most awesome quilt shop in the area) and see if they can send me more!

Your

I'm still working on the second word in my quote, "Your." I think the negative space in the U is too big, and I will likely redo it. But I really, really like this R.Peggi figured out what the quote is. It's
"Follow your bliss"

from Joseph Campbell, from The Power of Myth. Clicking the links will bring you to all kinds of information about the quote, its context, Joseph Campbell himself and the series of conversations he had with Bill Moyers 25 years ago that became a PBS television series.

More to Follow

The "Follow" block is finished. This panel measures 13-1/4" tall by 32" wide.

Nobody has come close to guessing the quote. My sister knew right off, but then, she's my sister!

On to the next word.

Merry Christmas

Here's the first word of my quote. The smaller letters are about six or so inches tall.

It isn't from the Wizard of Oz.

Have a great day! Merry Christmas to All!

Oh!

Yes, it's an "o" and yes, it's crooked. It's also the next letter in the sequence.

Making SLITHER for Tonya's Slither Eek Boo quilt taught me that a free pieced word can look like more than just letters all lined up in a row. I've been really thinking about how I want these letters to look and...

well, you'll see. (if they turn out they I want them to, that is!)


Merry Christmas to all my wonderful readers and friends!

Whatzit Wednesday

I haven't spent any time in the sewing studio in the last month. This fact is annoying in and of itself. Sewing is my stress relief. Without it I get overwrought, agitated and cranky. Most of all, I feel adrift and aimless. Sure, I have a few things I -should- be doing, but right now they seem a lot like -work- which doesn't really make me WANT to get in there and get going.

So I decided to give myself a little project. Something smallish, something fun, something just for me. I thought, "what do I love to do?" and the answer was make letters. Then, "what shall I say?" A phrase I love popped into my head.

After dinner, leaving a kitchen full of dirty dishes (whee!) I went into the sewing room and started pulling fabrics.I don't usually do the rainbow thing, because I think it's corny, and overdone, but for this (when you see it) I think it fits.

Here's where it begins, and that's all I'm saying for now.
Have fun guessing...