Curious

Joelle asked for word blocks this month.  I chose the word "curious."  After Kris was nice enough to write about her challenge with keeping her block within the size parameters that Joelle desired, I knew I needed to pay attention to that.

Rather than carefully plot and plan, I chose to make letters and figure out later whether I was making an 18.5" or a 12.5" block.  18.5" won.

The block currently is a bit larger than it needs to be but figured that Joelle could complete the final trim.  She has about a half inch from top to bottom and a few inches on either side.  The "s" slightly irritates me, but it also looks fine as is.  And I tested this with the resident 6 year old to make sure she could read what it said.  No hesitation for her to read what it said so I count that as successful.

Balance block

For my quilt guild, Melissa and I are planning a block of the month with a variety of techniques represented.

Since Kathy of Eagle Nest Designs presented her Balance quilt pattern at last month's show and tell, I've wanted to try using crazy piecing for the sections.  Originally my plan was to have two lines going through the block, but a couple of math errors made me annoyed and unwilling to put together more small pieces.  The guild has representatives from all skill levels so I think only one bar going vertically will be a better choice anyway.

I still need to finish the measurements, try a new version with those measurements and write the tutorial, but here is the finished mini-quilt.  When I quilted it, I marked the second, left out line and densely quilted it as well.  I wish I would have just quilted waves throughout the rest of the white space so the second line stood out more.  Next time.

A quilt, quilting and binding

Not too long ago, I started cleaning up my sewing mess and decided to make Ribbon Stars with the assorted HST that were leftover from previous projects.  It was intended to be a long term scrap project and the way I would use my leftover HST until I had enough to make a quilt.  

I did start pulling out white scraps and scraps from the bins to make more HST and have more completed stars.  It was starting to no longer be a long term project.  Then came last Sunday when my mom found out that she was going to go visit her sister and nephews today.  She's been working on quilts for the grandnieces and nephews but hadn't finished 3 of the 4.  I offered the stars as an option for one nephew.  So here is Bry's quilt.  

It is a colorful mix of hourglass blocks (the blues are leftover from a failed attempt at Bizzy Kid by Cluck, Cluck, Sew when the fabrics were just too dark), Ribbon Stars, stars made of hourglass blocks and Friendship Stars.  I wasn't going to use Friendship Stars but quickly decided that 8 HST for the two blocks sounded a lot better than 24 HST for 2 Ribbon Star blocks.  The blocks are 2.5, 3.5, 4.5, 6.5, 8.5, 12.5 and 18.5 unfinished.  

The backing consists of a car and truck print by Jenn Ski that my mom had, some random and unlabeled solid blues, and a blue print from Flats.  

I based the layout design on Starfall II by Faith of Fresh Lemon Quilts.  Unless you make the exact same size quilt as the design you are basing it on, it really doesn't work to attempt to use the same measurements as the original quilt.  After a few minutes of staring at her design, I just went for it on my own graph paper.  I plan on taking a picture of my diagram and posting it as I think it is safer for record keeping than on a loose piece of paper in my house.  

It is quilted all over with a meandering stitch and bound with Asterisk in Black from Constellations by Lizzy House.  Unwashed size is approximately 48 x 60". I failed to measure it after it was washed and it is now 1000+ miles away.  

In preparation for my mom's trip, I quilted her Eva quilt with loops.  She makes jam for me, I quilt her quilts.

And the big difference between my mom and me as it pertains to sewing is her precision.  I'm ok with imperfections.  Looking at the picture of the backing she pieced, can you see where the seam line is?  I would have just lined up the edges as is and thought it was good enough.  She figured out where to match the pattern.  

 Finishing the three quilts in less than a week made her consent to machine binding all three quilts.  All I did on this last one was to finish the machine binding for her.  But I'm including both of her quilts so we have a record of what she made after she gives them to my cousins.  Three more WIP for her to complete and then she might have a guilt free clean slate.

And now back to quilting without deadlines...

Boston Streets finish

 I finished quilting my Boston Streets quilt the other day.  Perhaps I should have been more intentional with my placements of the orange shades, but I'm content.   I'm happy enough with the wishbone quilting in the gray but I decided to try something new in the focal strip.  I looked through Angela Walters' book and decided on wonky triangles (I don't think that's the right name and I can't find the book at the moment.).  Each column in the focal strip was what I used to guide the quilting.  Because it isn't marked or measured and isn't meant to meet up with the next row, it looks to me like I did a horrible job of attempting to quilt a diamond pattern.  Note to self, use the pattern only on one row.  Leave spaces between rows of this quilting pattern.

Up close on the back the pattern looks fine because you can see the different columns of quilting.  These are not pictures meant to show this.  When it was washed, I didn't notice it as much.  When it is 2500 miles away soon, I really won't notice it at all.  

The backing is made with leftover Kona from the front, Kona Coal, Moda Bella Gray (108"), blue scraps from the bin and some random HST leftovers that didn't make the cut for my sister's orange zig zag quilt.  The gray print strips were to separate the Bella and Kona gray pieces because they definitely are different shades.  I didn't want it to look like I messed it up and thought it matched.  

I do really like that I picked the block pattern out in the book, figured out all my own proportions for the final layout, drew the mock up in Word, and I like the outcome.  And, it is all done more than a month before the recipient's birthday.  Hopefully he doesn't change his favorite color to something else.

Block Pattern:  Boston Streets by Nancy Cabot as shown in the Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns

Dimensions:  61x68" washed

Fabrics: Kona Iron, Steel, White and either Bahama Blue, Robin's Egg or Aqua, a FreeSpirit aqua blue, Simply Color Ombre Tangerine

Binding: Kona Steel

Quilted by me with wishbones and wonky triangles

Boston Streets quilt top

    There is one more nephew on my husband's side that needed a quilt made by me.   While looking through the Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns again, I found Boston Streets. After making a sketch of the design using graph paper (and actually considering the possible purchase of EQ 7 or something else like it), I decided to use Microsoft Word for the first time to play with the layout.  Badskirt Amy had a tutorial for visualizing quilt tops.

    In Word, I drew a 5x7 block since this pattern repeats every 5 rows and I was going to use 7 columns.  I imported it into Publisher because I knew I could convert the document to a jpeg and highlight all of it and click a button to treat it all as one object (not 25 squares).  After making it all one object, I pasted it 3 times to make the layout.  Then, with a series of rectangles, I filled in the outer grays.   Mainly I did this to see if I liked the proportions of the quilt or if I needed to have only 6 columns instead.  I did not bother changing the tones of the oranges to match the fabric (orange ombre from Simply Color).

     The quilt top was finished today.  I did not stick to any set path for the different shades.  In the encyclopedia, not enough of the picture is shown to know that there are any paths that go through the quilt.  I figured I could pretend with the different shades of the ombre fabric after deciding not to use scrappy oranges.   

     Originally I wasn't sure if I was going to use the aqua or the gray for the squares.  I consulted my resident quilt color expert who thought that the darker gray was best and that blue squares were much better than gray squares.  She was not happy to be taken away from watching Magic School Bus at the time and quickly gave her opinion so she could go back to it.  Tomorrow I hope to finish piecing a back for it.

Modern house

Kris asked for a 15.5" modern house block of our own design or with one of these tutorials for inspiration or measurements.  I chose the more challenging route of drafting my own pattern.  Knowing that my brother in law's brother was an architect who seems to like a more modern style in his designs, I looked at his website to try to pick a design.  I chose the Lake Sammamish house that he designed.

Using freezer paper (although it was chosen simply because it was 18"), I drew an inspired design and left out some of the details.  I was a band kid for my fine arts credit and don't have formal drawing training.  Perspective is not a strong point.....

 Then I used the drawing to trace paper piecing patterns.  Here is how I ended up breaking up the drawing.

 I think some of my imperfections were because I needed to go back and trace the drawing again to get additional sections for paper piecing.  My pens were not working consistently and I traced at a different angle than the first time around.  Perhaps this is why my roof line is not absolutely straight.

Initially I just 2 paper piecing templates (1,4,&5 and 2,3,&6) until I started thinking how I would need to piece it to get the angles I wanted.  I realized that I had to piece the roof separately and 6 had to be its own separate piece as well because the roof line was at a different angle than the piece below it.  Lesson learned.

 Attempt #1 with the inspiration house:  It was correctly identified by a 2 year old and a 6 year old as a house but a 43 year old thought it looked a little bit too much like a shed and not a house.

 So then I pieced that section on the far left of the house that I left off before.  My seam ripper got plenty of practice with this block.

Silly partial seam and the bottom gray not lining up how I wanted it to.  I unpicked, sliced it off and hoped that the half inch in the seam allowance would line it up better.  It's better but still not perfect.

The final version missing some of the white at the top to make it a full 15.5 inches and a final trim to make it square.  It isn't perfect but I think it looks more like a house than the shed before.  It seemed odd without the gray at the bottom of the carport, but it also seems a bit odd with it.  I decided it would stay.

And yes, I learned that I should have traced the pattern backward if I wanted the house to face the direction it does in my sketch or the picture.  I pieced one set of windows before I realized that it would be opposite and decided that all the angles should work just fine even it was oriented opposite.

Had I kept the same orange throughout rather than switching at the different sides of the house, I might have been able to eliminate piece 6.  Silly me trying to have different oranges...  Perhaps next time I might also add a window into the gray at the bottom like on the original design.

 It's imperfect, but hopefully unique and the first paper pieced pattern I've managed to design and sew that wasn't a simple square in square.  Hopefully the white will show up today and I can get this sent off tomorrow.

Flying X finished

From Barbara Brackman's encyclopedia, I took the Flying X design and made a baby quilt for a family friend.

My helpers were not so helpful that day.  After two quick hold the quilt shots, they promptly switched to kicking the ball around the yard and running over the quilt as many times as possible to annoy their mother.

 The backing is a teal leaf print from my mother's stash.

Pattern:  Flying X (based on the design but I chose to make more hourglass blocks and didn't make it as scrappy as it would be if I truly repeated only the blocks.)
Fabric:  An assortment of red, blue, yellow and teals with Kona White
Binding: Lizzy House Jewels and one small strip of Constellations
Dimensions:  48 x 40
Quilted by me with diagonal lines on both sides of the seam lines.