So Do You Quilt?

This is SewGirl from California (and her husband.) Her real name is Nancy. I met Nancy several years ago when I was waiting at a gate in Boston's Logan Airport for my flight to LA. I was bringing my diamond ring to give to my son. I asked a lady if she could keep an eye on my suitcase while I went to the ladies' room. It was SewGirl. When I got back I pointed to the luggage tag she had on her bag. It was handmade. She was surprised as she said she didn't meet many quilters while traveling.

We got to chatting and I told her I made quilts and gave her my card. I also told the story of the "secret" I was carrying. I give my cards to a lot of people, but I'm pretty sure most get tossed. Nancy confesses she checked out my blog to see the kind of quilts I made, but mostly to see the end story of the ring.

That was in 2013, and SewGirl has been reading my blog ever since, and although she comments rarely, we are still in touch. I love hearing from her.

I love reading all comments and like it even better when I get to meet my readers in person.

A California Bird

 

This bird is from my friend Sewgirl, from California. I met Sewgirl at Logan Airport in Boston. We were to board the same flight to California. She was headed home and I was about to meet my son's then girlfriend. That was the trip when I was bringing the diamond ring.  I asked her about the patchwork luggage tag on her suitcase.

Sewgirl has followed my blog since then and this is the first bird she has ever made. She says "Yes, they are addictive, I can see more birds in my future!"

I am so enjoying seeing what everybody does with these, and getting the mail has never been more fun.

If you would like to join the fun, you can get my bird tutorial here at my Etsy shop. If you want to send me a bird, email me at PatcheryMenagerie AT Gmail DOT com to get my mailing address.

Lynne Answers Your Questions

I love reading your comments, both the ones at the bottom of my posts and those of you who email me privately. I welcome all your comments, and I thought you'd like to hear my reaction to some of the ones I have received while I made the Early Autumn quilt.

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On Sunday, Starr wrote: "I certainly did not mean to criticize your design or cause you any angst. I was just trying to understand more about your use of color, which is so wonderful!"

Dear Starr, don't apologize for your comment or your observation. You were absolutely correct. I had thought removing the white tree would fix the problem, but it didn't. The angst was all mine. I tell everybody all the time that we know when it's right, and we know when it's wrong, but when we're not sure, it helps to have another opinion. I had been on the fence about it, and your comment made me take a second look. Thank you.

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 Judy asked, "Can you make a block with 3 trees overlapping? Or trim both sides of 2 trees and stick a smaller one between them to give the depth of looking into the forest???"  

      

Hi Judy, CAN I? Sure I can make 3 overlapping trees, however in order to show one is in front of another, or that two are in front of a third, you have to use your fabrics and colors correctly. Remember this general rule: "Dark areas recede, bright areas come forward"

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Melanie made my day with this comment: "This is an out of the box layout for me. I'm very much an "ordered" layout person. I appreciate seeing things presented in different ways and this is going to be very nice. Also, thanks for using the word "comprise" correctly."

Dear Melanie, It's an out-of-the-box layout for me too, but I've come to learn that creativity isn't always neat, logical or ordered. Also, I've never received a compliment for my grammar, so thanks! I'm sure it's due to a lifelong love of reading.

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TEM Austin wrote: "This is very interesting... I love it that you show how your mind works and why you do what you do when. I do a lot of improv but I never seem to think it thru like you do."

 Dear TEM Austin, I never think of myself as an improv quilter. I never start without an idea and just see where my whimsy takes me. I always have an idea, and I follow where it leads, changing direction as necessary and as needed. I've said it before, "what the quilt wants, the quilt gets." Quilts, like any other kind of artwork, make demands of the artist as the work progresses and each decision depends on the ones that came before it, and limit and inform the ones that come after. Thinking these decisions through is vital. Nothing in my quilts, not the fabric, the shapes, the design or the colors, is willy-nilly. I think about, and plan, everything. Every. Single. Thing.

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SewGirl writes: "I was going to suggest you just make a bunch of table runners!! But you obviously know what you're doing... "

Dear SewGirl, Thanks for the vote of confidence, but until I found my way in this quilt, I didn't know what the hell I was doing at all! I was just blundering around. The difference is that after creating for over forty years, "blundering around" doesn't frighten or intimidate me in the least. After forty years of making art I have learned to trust my instincts and my process. I have always "figured it out" in the past, and I know I will again.

Along the same lines, Linda wrote: "I like the grouping of trees together, mixing the sizes and adding in more of the reds. What a difference from where you started. Not sure I have the same patience..."

Linda, as a quilter, I am sure you have heard people say, "How long did this quilt take to make?" and "How many pieces does it have in it?" Then they'll say, "Oh, you have so much patience." I don't care how long it took. I don't care how many pieces it has, and I don't think you need patience if you're doing something you love. I love solving creative problems, so for me "patience" is not a requirement." (Actually it's more of a "I am going to figure this damn thing out if it's the last thing I do kinda thing.")

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OK, That's it for tonight. I'll have more for you tomorrow!

Julie & Lynne: Inspiration Goes Back & Forth

At the end of 2011 I was making a sample quilt for a houses class I was planning. I was making my houses quilt into a quilt of the Four Seasons. Julie was following my work. "I like your houses," she wrote, "but I want to make some barns." I told her to go for it, that they were the same basic thing.

 I suggested she draw them out first so she'd know where she was going and how she could figure out how to build them.


Well, Julie took the idea and ran with it. She made a spectacular quilt, and you can read all about it here, among many other places. Julie not only shares her story about that fabulous quilt, she shared the occasionally painful process it took her to make the quilt as special as it is.

is is my Mom and the sock kitty Millie at the AQS show in Syracuse NY in 2015.

 The quilt won awards and traveled around the country on exhibit in many AQS shows. It's Julie's story, and you can read it on her blogs, here and here. I was thrilled to have been an inspiration to her.

Julie and many other quilters had made "Low Volume Quilts". I thought they were lovely and subtle, but for me they were boring as hell. I'm pretty sure I moaned about them to Julie with alarming regularity. I didn't want to make a typical low-volume quilt. I wanted to make a quilt that would thumb my nose at the concept. I wanted to make a word quilt, and when I found the right quote, I did it.

While this was happening, I had been asked to speak and teach at Quintessential Quilts in St Louis MO in the fall of 2013. It was a busy year for me.

I went to the Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington DC that spring.

I spent a few days in California in September with my son and his then girlfriend. This was the trip where I met SewGirl, and brought the four-letter word.

Julie put a countdown clock on her blog.

I was working on my speech, my class, and the logistics of getting to Missouri with a boxful of quilts. At one point, Julie said she would attend, and drive the five hours from her house to St Louis. Since I didn't want to send my quilts halfway across the country to just anybody, it was agreed I would send them to her. She and her husband Larry would photograph them, and then she'd drive to St Louis and I'd see her at the class.

I chewed on that for a bit, and then I wrote to Julie... "What if I flew to Memphis instead of St Louis? I could stay at a hotel that night, and then you and I could drive to St Louis together? I'd get to meet you in person, and we could get to know each other on the drive up there?" Julie agreed, and said I could stay her spare bedroom.

 So on Thursday October 3, 2013, after I got off a plane at the Memphis airport, I walked outside and toward a car that had this sign on it, waiting...

Look! I'm in Memphis!

It had been over five years, and I finally met my best friend in person.

Questions and Leftovers

You have questions, I finally have some answers. 

Earlier this summer I wrote about making some simple ice cream sandwiches. I used Cool Whip and some low fat strawberry yogurt. I mixed them together and spread them between two crispy chocolate cookies and put them in the freezer. The important thing is to find a variety of low-fat yogurt you think tastes good. Otherwise, why bother.

When I was making the backing for the Early Morning Quilt, SewGirl asked if I kept the extra bits of quilt backing that got trimmed off the final quilt. The answer is YES. I save everything, and often reuse it for just what I did for this quilt backing - I add it to the outer bits knowing it will be trimmed off later. Sometimes those extra pieces get added into quilts.

I had so many blocks for the Nightingale Quilts that I decided to join them together to make slabs and then cut them into triangles. I have another black scrap slab triangle quilt shaping up in my mind. Scrap Slab Triangles are a terrific way to use up scraps. You can get my tutorial here, at my Etsy shop.

First Steps With Pink

I sewed up the first step blocks for the pink Slashed Squares quilt. There are 9 busy blocks with calm insides and 9 calm blocks with calm outsides and busy insides. I only need 8 of each, but I love having extras because sometimes blocks don't play well together and it's nice to have options.

A careful perusal of the blocks above will reveal at least two that aren't as successful as I had hoped (hey, I made these all from my stash, and even MY stash has limits!)

This one isn't working. The low intensity dark pink center makes the striped outer fabric look duller.

 

This center square looks terrific, but it makes you wonder which of these two is the "busy" one. Fortunately, I know it's going to work no matter what.

Yes, I'll take this block apart and replace the center square.

There's another block that fails...

It looks sorta OK like this, but find it in the top photo and you'll see that it doesn't have as much contrast as it should.

We will look at some options to fix it tomorrow.

If you are interested in making your own Slashed Squares quilt, you can get my tutorial here.

Hey, Sewgirl, thank you for your always lovely comments. May I share the story of how we met?

The Second Bird

 

I made a Red Christmas bird. If you look closely you will see part of an amaryllis flower, which was made into a box and is shown in yesterday's post. Also check out the legs, they are mini Christmas packages. The beak is as big as it is because I wanted that swoop.

Before I figure out how I want to arrange the blocks, I have to decide where the birds go. Once I know whey they (or one of them) will go, I will rearrange the boxes. So for the next few pictures, ignore the boxes and the prints and just look at the birds. This one, above, is way too symmetrical for me.

I like this better, where the birds aren't in the same row.

Trying to get the birds closer to each other, I stuck in a really tall narrow box. I had originally made this box for my HAPPY HOLIDAYS quilt, but here it just looks like a wall separating the two birds.

Getting rid of that box doesn't make this better. There is too much space surrounding the birds.

When I arrange the birds like this, they look like they are getting ready to duel. Not exactly Holiday-friendly.

I will figure out where I want to place the birds, and then I will rearrange the boxes. Stay tuned. I might just turn this thing on it's head!!!

I heard from my friend SewGirl.  This is her quilt, above. Hers is big enough for a king sized bed - 7 rows of 10 blocks each! And she quilted it herself on her Bernina 830. Yowsa!

If you want to make your own birds, like mine, you can get my tutorial here, at my Etsy shop. 

If you want to make free pieced letters like in my Happy Holidays quilt, I have a tutorial for making letters without paper piecing. You can get that here.

Blushing Zebras

I'm almost finished sewing the blocks together, but I simply had to slice a couple of them and resew them to see what they'd look like.

CLEARLY this is going to be really cool.

I sent the photo above to my granddaughter and my son said not only did she think it was pretty but she "squeeked really high pitched." They all love it and my DIL loves the name I have chosen, Blushing Zebras.

Thank you Starsthatblaze! Haven't heard from you in a long time. Nice to know you're still around. Also hello Sewgirl!

I should finish sewing the blocks together later today (Friday) and then over the weekend I'll start slicing the blocks apart, matching pairs and resewing them together. REALLY looking forward to this next part. 

 

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.