Today's Work
| I'm going to post some pictures of whatever I'm working on each day. This doesn't exactly show how to make a quilt top, but it will show a quilt top being "born." Hopefully, it will be a little like a quilting blog. I think the most important thing to know about how to make a quilt, is that there are as many right ways to make a quilt as there are people who are happy with the quilt they've made. I'll just do one page and then delete from the bottom as the page fills so you may not see each quilt top's complete process. I do jump around a lot!! These tops aren't for sale yet, but will show up on the New Tops page on the first of some month. If you'd like to be on my mailing list and receive a reminder on the first of the month, when I put new tops on my site, please Email me If you click on these pictures, you can get a real close-up shot, where you can see mistakes, dust and all kinds of fun things! |
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| I think I'll like this zig-zag design. It's a little unusual because you have to have two rows before you can see the design. Now, I'm anxious to make more blocks so I can see how it looks. |
| It's coming along. At this point, I'm not sure, but I may need to put a spacer row between every two-row unit to separate the design a bit. Or, maybe run the zig-zags horizontally. We'll see. |
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
| The rows are sewn together in groups of two and now it's time to decide if I should set them close, as at the top of the picture, or with a spacer like at the bottom. Now that I see the picture, I do know I'll move that blue maverick block to some location other than the bottom row :) |
| I chose no spacer row. I'm going to add one more row of something on the top and bottom. |
| I tried a couple of things for an extra row on the top and bottom but didn't like them. I decided that, since I liked it the way it was, I should just stop and just add two borders! The binding will either be in the red or the focus fabric. |
| I'm auditioning some fabrics to go with these pink/green hexagons. For a while, I was really into making the stacks and not setting them. How fortunate for me that I now like setting them! |
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
| I'm ready to try a setting idea. I really hated not picking the brown with green dots, but there will be seams in the background where the fabric meets itself. I think the dots are too big to hide those seams. I need to stack and then make some hexagons from the pink paisley to see if that will work with these hexagons. The name will be "Mod Flower Garden", so that gives an idea of where this is going. |
| Love these huge flowers :) I'm deciding on the flower centers....batik on the top left, stacked fabric on the bottom or just using the background fabric, as on the right. The stacked fabric pieces aren't the right size, but I have the fabric stacked and could easily cut the right size. I'll look at these while I make more "flowers." |
Thursday, February 25, 2010
| I am going with the yellow stacks --no big surprise that I would choose stacks! I'm looking forward to filling in some of the background so I can tell if I can leave the three flowers at the bottom close or if I need to separate them. |
| What a fun top! Of course, since I love this idea, I'll be looking through my already stacked fabrics to see if I can make one of these with all different flowers :) I was afraid that, if I set the flowers next to each other the partial star that forms with the background fabric would show up more than the flowers, but it doesn't. I can see the partial stars but I see the flowers more. I sewed most of the yellow triangles on before I started moving things around because they're directional and I didn't want to get them all mixed up. |
| Still fooling around with the background. This is a lot more background than I'm used to and I wanted to add something that would break it up a little bit, but not be too visible. Keeping with the whimsical theme, I decided on stylized purple butterflies. So what we have here are three of the seldom seen, but always majestic, Purple Grape Octagonal Butterflies. I believe they are only native to my sewing room:) They did do the job of breaking up the background. I think I'm finished adding things, so I'll start working on the edges. |
Friday, February 26, 2010
| All ready for borders and binding, both of which will be in the background fabric. I really want those flowers to be the whole quilt top. |
| I took this picture of the back because the front looks so simple that it's hard to believe there are this many pieces! I could have done the background with longer pieces across the rows, but I think the seams tend to keep the top straight. |
| The Mod Flower Garden is done. I'm sure that one reason I like this one so much is that it's totally different any other top I've made. The second reason is that the finished top looks pretty much like it looked in my head on Wednesday, when I started laying out the first set of hexagons :) |
| The next top may be a different type of hexagon flower, using this great tropical print. Maybe I can even get to use the green dots that I like so much! |
| WOW, not sure about this. I really like the look but these little critters are hard to place. You can't just place the same sides on the hexagons toward the center (as I had been thinking in my head) because you need to keep them in rows. The picture on the right shows an incorrect placement of the piece on the bottom left but it took me several minutes to see that. Then there is the problem of the setting triangles being only two inches. Not even mentioning that there is a good bit of bias in all kinds of directions caused when you turn the hexagons. That being said, I think I'll try it anyway. Maybe a teeny-tiny top :) Off to pick fabrics to go with these. Both the center of each "wreath" and the area between will form a star. I'll need to decide if they should be two different colors. The whole thing on white would be pretty or on black would be really great - I do love black! Or maybe I should just come up with an easier design! Lots to think about :) |
Saturday, February 27, 2010
| Most of the things that I thought would be problematic, weren't :) The only difficult thing remains getting the focus fabric hexagons in the right position. Hopefully, that will become easier as I do some more. I do like the deep purple and the pink fabrics combined with the tropical print. When these are sewn together enough, they will all be turned vertically. It's just easier for me to work with hexagons in this direction. |
| Now that I've figured out how to put these together, they're going much better! Rearranging them will be easy since the star sections are sewn together. Since I'm making more than I had planned, I will keep them in this direction. |
Sunday, February 28, 2010
| I think this design makes really great stars. Hope the rows go together well! This has been an interesting design, which I'm sure I'll do again, maybe right away :) |
Monday, March 1, 2010
| This did go together well, probably because the bias was on such small pieces and you get lots of opportunity to match seams with the hexagons. On to the borders. These pictures really do look like a dark blue instead of the deep purple that the background really is. |
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
| All done and I love it! I'm sorry that the purple fabric is all gone. I wanted to get some of the focus fabric out to the sides, but not a full border of it, or even a total row of hexagons, so I spaced them with the purple. Binding in the red shown at the tbottom. |
| This one is the next up to finish. I think this would make a great baby quilt. |
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
| I think the light and dark stripe fabrics combined well with the three different colors of pin dots on white. The binding will be in the orange on white pin dots shown at the bottom. |
| I'm going to work on putting this one together next. Great bright colors! |
| This looks just like the last picture, however, now it's sewn together. I'm thinking about the border. I could do the red border but, I have some of the Russian Fairy tale focus fabric left and I could do some more octagons......... |
Thursday, March 4, 2010
| Decided on the narrow black border and I'll use black binding. I think this makes the octagons show better than the red did. I'll use the rest of the focus fabric in a different top:) |
Friday, March 5, 2010
| I still have some of the Russian Fairy Tale fabric, so I'm going to make some stacked stars. The turquoise and chartreuse will be accents. |
| I do love the stacked stars, especially a print with a black background set on black. My favorite stars are the ones where there is just a bit of color in the star tips, like the two in the center row. |
Saturday, March 6, 2010
| The stars are turning out to be so wonderfully diverse :) I'm going to make some of the setting squares before I go back to finish the stars. |
| Coming along. The accent colors are much more brilliant than this picture shows! |
Sunday, March 7, 2010
| Setting squares are done. Strip piecing is very deceptive for me. It's so easy to do, that, in the designing stage, I kind of think of it as being almost done. However, in reality, you actually have to cut the fabric, sew it together and do a lot of pressing before it's done :) That always takes me longer than I had anticipated. |
Monday, March 8, 2010
Time to sew them together :)
| Ready for borders. I think I want to continue the turquoise and chartreuse out into the border in just a few places - not really sure yet. |
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
| I decided that this one had enough going on, so instead of bringing any piecing into the borders, I went with two plain borders. The binding will be in black. |
| I'm going to see how I like making Storm at Sea blocks. Since I'm using yellow and orange, it will be a Heat Wave instead of a Storm at Sea. I may need to add more variety to the fabric mix as I go. |
| This is the first time I've used the Fast 2 Cut Trim Plates by Wendy Mathson. OK, they aren't fast and there is quite a pile of trimmings from just four diamond units, however, look at those tidy units! Both the time spent and the scraps made are well worth it to me to get such a great result. We'll see if I still feel so chipper after making a bunch of these :) |
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
| I do think I need to add some variety to the oranges. Some pattern and even some color, moving to reds and pinks. This group of similar oranges just lacks motion. |
| I like the little bit of pattern and color variation. The only consistent placement of the oranges so far, is in the last row of the Big Square in a Square blocks, where I'm keeping the four corners the same. I have decided about the Little Square in a Square blocks yet - scrappy or the same corners. |
| Loving this one :) The blocks are really small - the little square in a square will finish at three inches! Hope the rows go together as well as the blocks have. |
| I actually dumped today's trash on the cutting table to demonstrate how much trimming is involved in the blocks done by this method. This pile is all from the blocks in the previous picture and the scraps are really too small to be trimmed for scrap tops. While I would normally think this is too much waste, I wouldn't consider making that diamond block any other way. I've tried that block before and it's really nasty to do without trimming. Now, the square in a square, yes, I can do that, but I think I'd rather do it this way. So, for me, the result makes it worth my while to do the trimming and use some extra fabric:) |
Thursday, March 11, 2010
| Since the border on this one will be another round of blocks with the coloring rearranged, I'll stop making the central blocks now. I think I will sew these together into rows before I do the outside blocks, so I don't mess these up! |
| The blocks are sewn together vertically but the rows still need to be sewn horizontally. You can begin to see the waves in the design. The book shown is the one that gives patterns for the ruler set. The border fabric looks white but it's actually a pale yellow with a white design on it. I think this border is going to be great looking :) |
Friday, March 12, 2010
| It's really fun to watch this design grow! I'd love to try this one scrappy, with no regard for color but only using value. Wonder if I could do that...... |
| This is turning into such a great border! |
Saturday, March 13, 2010
| Finally, the pieces are all done and it's ready for me to begin sewing it together :) This morning, as I was finishing the blocks, my tiny brain was bemoaning the fact that I have limited space to lay things out. Suddenly, my Singer 319W began to deposit huge quantities of thread on the bottom on the sewing. After two hours of fooling with the tension and cleaning every part of the machine, I decided that probably a piece of invisible thread is caught in some area that's inaccessible to me. So, after muscling the 319 out of the cabinet, I packed it up and planned on a trip to the repair shop next week. I got out the Singer 206 and muscled it into the cabinet, oiled and cleaned it, and could finally get back to sewing. Strangely, I was no longer annoyed about my lack of space, but rather, I was grateful to have a working sewing machine! Proof that frame of mind is all relative :) |
Sunday, March 14, 2010
| This seems to be moving very slowly and that's because it really is moving very slowly! However, I don't really mind because I love the way it looks. I do think though, that even with the templates and block trimming, this pattern is a challenge. |
| Just a narrow, pale yellow border yet and Heat Wave will be finished. |
| You can sure see the waves illusion when the top is on point! Even though I'm the one who cut and sewed all of those pieces, I can hardly believe that there are no curved pieces in this top. Amazing pattern - no wonder it's been around for so long :) |
| The binding will be in the red/orange floral fabric at the bottom. I'm excited about this top and still would like to try one in just values, however, I'm also wondering if it wouldn't be nice to do a top with no points next! |