Bits of Free Time for Fiber Therapy

I really shouldn’t complain, but my job for most of this year has been doing house projects and I’m pretty tired of it. I haven’t sewn or quilted on the machines for weeks and at night I have been too tired to do more than stare at the T.V. Before we went away, I thought I had a few days to myself, so I pulled out the half square triangles and started sewing blocks. The feeling of fabric running through my fingers and the hum of the machine made me so happy. As you can see, I got two blocks done and then the realtor called to schedule a showing and so I cleaned up. My sewing machines are being serviced now, so I won’t be able to work on this for a while.

In another bit of spare time, I pulled out a crochet UFO to complete. I took some crochet lessons a few years ago and made a cute hat. I do not have a photo of that hat, because I left it in a restaurant in Dubuque Iowa! This was the second crochet project that I did. It just seemed like a really fun thing to do and so 3D. This is how it begins…..looks like nothing, right?

It’s called a potato chip or ruffle scarf and I have seen a lot of them in yarn stores and boutiques recently. To make it look ruffly, you crochet  2 stitches in one loop and one in the next and so on. It was amusing to watch that noodle-y foundation row of plain crochet plan become spiral and ruffly in shape as I worked. I plan to wear it with my wool Winter coat and thought it would be fun to add in a sparkly yarn for the last row. I also made it much longer than the pattern suggested as I wanted to be able to wrap it many times around my neck, like a boa!

While we were in our cabin in Hendersonville, I sewed on the Halloween Grandmother’s Flower Garden quilt squares. As I pulled them out of their bag, I realized that I had quite a stack. When I spread them out – - – lookee here – - – it’s starting to look like a quilt.

I sew a middle and then the “petals” row first. When that part is done, I audition the “leaves” or outer row. You can see above and below, how I try out several possibilities.

This morning I pulled out a purple tone on tone dot that I have. It’s what I have been envisioning for the background or connector fabric. I think it will be good and I so love purple that it will be fun to sew. This is going to be a very busy little quilt!

Now I have to collect and pack projects that I can work on in a rental apartment. We will drive to Greenville in two cars….just how many boxes and suitcases and bikes and cats will fit? More importantly, how many sewing machines and fabric will ?

A Weekly Dose of Triangles: border ideas

It occurred to me, as I was editing these photographs of border layouts that these would make great striped designs as well. I’m not sure that I’ve seen a striped half triangle quilt. Sounds like a great idea for a “modern” quilt, with plenty of room for wonderful quilting. These strips could divide a quilt top into areas, like lattice does, or just be stripes. With most of the borders, I made sure to create a corner as well. Sometimes it’s hard to decide how to end one border and begin the next one.

These three designs are just one square wide. There are lots of ways to flip these single squares to make an attractive border design. In this group, the third design appeals to me the most. I love the wonky feel of the triangles flipping back and forth.

This pair is pretty great! The top one is a flying geese design. It’s edge made a box or square on point, which lead me to the next design. Piecing these borders would take some time, but they have a lot of appeal.

Of course in this set, I love the zig zag design and the way it forms such a tidy corner. The bottom border would be quite an intricate one to do and couldn’t be sewn to just any  sort of quilt top. I am not sure what I would do in the corner, obviously! That would take a bit of fiddling.

This is the last of my half square triangle posts. I hope you enjoyed them! I make a blog book at the end of each year and so I must admit that I did these for my reference. As I piece and piece half square triangles as leader-ender pieces, I will have lots of ideas to refer back to when I need inspiration.

In between working on house projects, Peter has been building our ark. Honestly – I don’t think short of several hurricanes we’ve lived through that I have endured so much rain. I neglected to take a picture when the rain was pounding on the roof and all the back yards were filling up. It looked like a model of the great lakes! Happily our house is on a little rise, but Peter had a back-up sump pump system put in a few years ago, and we’re so glad for it now. The sound of it emptying every half hour or so is very comforting! There are some daffodils in the front garden waiting for the slightest bit of sun to come out. The ones in the backyard are submerged. It’s been seriously nasty.

A Weekly Dose of Triangles: making squares

And the design ideas continue! In the last two posts I showed you a myriad of ideas using simply the half square triangle for all over quilt designs. Many, many, many quilt squares are made up of half square triangles. When I took a beginning class with Karen Buckley, and when I teach one, the first lesson is all about triangles. So here’s what I came up with!

This pattern is a sort of simple bow tie design. It also looks like an hour-glass.

I’m calling this four square, for lack of a better name. Using half square triangles makes it so much more interesting than four solid squares would be.

This square has the look of the overall quilt pattern I plan to make. The corner squares could be twisted any which way to make an interesting secondary design when pieced together.

And this one flips just the center blocks for an almost inside out look of the previous block. A lot of squares like this are simply called Mosaic. In The Quilters’ Album of Blocks and Borders , my favorite reference book, it is named Mosaic No. 16!

Dutchman’s Puzzle is a favorite pattern of mine and I think I have it in every sampler quilt I’ve made. It has great movement.

Double Z is quite an interesting design. As you can see, it depends a great deal on light and dark values for it to show up well.

You can see that as well as twisting and turning the half square triangles around, there’s also color happening. Lights, darks, color families are all playing together – it’s so much fun!

A Weekly Dose of Triangles: more design possibilities

Today you will see the rest of the overall design possibilities for the half square triangles that I did. Really, I could go on and on but you get the idea!

This pin wheels pattern is a quilter’s favorite. For this design I think I would need more darks to make the pattern pop, or I could put a plain square in between each pin wheel. The movement is really great!

Here is another favorite quilt pattern design – flying geese. Though this design works, it might be nice to add a plain strip between each “formation” to give your eye a rest.

The geese don’t always have to fly in a straight line, do they? As I was taking the triangles off the wall at the end of the weekend, I “noticed” this design. I had taken many of the triangles down, so it’s not the same size as the other photographs.This one works well with my colors; perhaps it’s the relief of the light values between the darker ones.

This design radiating out from a square is really impressive. I guess it might be a Trip Around the World in all half square triangles. It could be fun to piece or applique a medallion for the middle.

I found many beautiful versions of this when I Googled half square triangle designs. The many colors make such lovely shadowy designs, and soften the edges of the squares. I’m calling it a square within a square.

These last three designs use another shape to make the design, but I wanted to audition them. This first one is called Ocean Waves, I think, and is a pattern that’s long been on my want-to-make list. I tried out several middle fabrics and Peter and I like this dark one best. Though I wouldn’t use a fabric quite this dark, it makes the candy colored fabrics really sing.

I saw a quilt top with this huge flying geese design at a little quilt show that I recently attended. Making a triangle out of triangles is quite striking, though sewing the big non pieced triangles might be a bit tricky.

This is a pattern that I have long admired. I am a great lover of stars and I’d like to do this one. Since I am without a design board, this one will have to stay on the want-to-make list.

Which design will I be sewing? I had a comment from Jo, from a family of quilters, and she asked which one I was planning to make, so she was paying attention. ;-D Peter checked out all the designs as I arranged them on the wall and then we looked over the photographs. He likes the square within a square one and I do too. Although I will have to arrange and plan this quilt, I can manage without a design wall. Meanwhile I have a great pile of triangles to continue to sew – you can see that what I have done is not enough for a quilt!

Look at last week’s designs as well as this week’s and tell me – which one you would choose to sew?

Next week – quilt squares made from just triangles.

A Weekly Dose of Triangles: totally triangles

After sewing, pressing and cutting a lot of triangles, now we get to the seriously fun part, making patterns. Peter said that this could also be called tiling or creating a regular tessellation. I had never heard of regular tessellations and had to look that up !

There are many sorts of triangles, but the two you mostly see in quilts are the two you see below. On the left is a half square triangle; a square divided equally in half. On the right is a quarter square triangle; a square divided into four parts. Though these triangles look like they might do the same things, in quilting, the way the fabrics are cut is important, but that’s another lesson; let’s play with design. Charm quilts rely on light and dark values for their design versatility so let’s see what they can do.

For the purposes of these exercises, I made myself place the squares randomly on the design wall. You can imagine that if you wanted to take the time, you could play a lot – grouping the colors together in sub shapes, moving them across the quilt… endlessly changing your mind! (Please notice that in this page of patterns, I twisted the squares around in place; I didn’t take the pieces off of the design wall.) Here is the classic and most simple design; a sea of right angle triangles with lights and darks aligned in the same direction.

Turn every other square 180 degrees and here’s a scrappy diagonal stripe. The triangles I have completed so far are more in the light to medium range, so this design is not as bold as it might be.

Here are some little zigs, or perhaps chevrons. I like this tidy design very much.

And here are some big zags. I think if I chose this pattern to sew, I’d make sure to have more darks, for a bolder design. I made this stripe even, but it could become more erratic, like an EKG, or bargello pillow.

This is the kind of designing where a design wall is critical. I could have arranged these squares on the floor, but I’d really need to stand on a step stool because it would be very hard to see what was happening. My design wall is made of the stuff we grew up with as a bulletin board (homosote) covered in flannel and screwed to the wall. These small fabric pieces stick to the flannel and so I don’t need to use pins. In Asia, where we couldn’t make holes in the wall, I stapled flannel to foam core and hung it. It wasn’t great, because of the lightness of it, but it did the trick.

I hope you’ll check back next week - there are more designs for you to see!

A Weekly Dose of Triangles: just the beginning

I have stacks of the leader/ender triangles done. Last weekend, I pressed and cut them to size, and finally it was time to play. (Now that I have finished playing with the triangles, the design wall has to come down. The painters are coming…)

I know that many of you who read my blog are not quilters, so I though a little lesson was in order, and if you are new to quilting, perhaps you will enjoy this as well. If I make a quilt using just one shape, it will be called a charm or one block quilt. Many quilters pooh-pooh this sort of simplicity, but wait until you see what these simple shapes can do. Let’s look at some common charm or one square patterns.

These pieces are made up of equilateral triangles. Remember Sophomore Year geometry with Miss Detweiler? If so, then you know that these triangles measure the same on each side.

Back to geometry class, can you see that these shapes are 60 degree triangles? This pattern is called tumbling blocks or baby blocks. They are such fun to play with; to form a block you sew a light a medium and a dark piece together and you get this 3D illusion.

I call this shape swirling stars and it’s the curvaceous relative of a baby block. Look at the baby block above – can you see where six 60 degree pieces intersect? So these pieces can make the same shapes as their straight-laced cousin.

Here is my favorite shape – a hexagon. Not only does its six-sided shape make many, many lovely designs, it can be divided in half, in thirds and even in sixths, if you want to do some really nasty piecing.

If you are interested in starting a charm quilt, Pat Yamin has loads of templates for all of these fun shapes and more.

Please stop by next Friday to see some of what the humble half square triangles can do! It’s quite amazing.

WIP Wednesday 1/30

Slowly, but surely, I’m making progress with my WIP’s. When Peter is on the road, which he has been for most of the month, I seem to have an extra hour or two in the late afternoon. In these hours I get restless and want to snack or get into some other trouble, so I make myself sit down and sew. I have been diligently working on the livingroom rug quilt (and the leader/ender half square triangles project). I am happy to say that I have made progress!

Here is Toby Lischko’s quilt so you can see her design; I am not duplicating her quilt. Can you see the corner detail? She changed colors in the squares and also hand appliquéd some geese flying in the border. She was making a show quilt and I am making one to cuddle under, so I have decided to keep mine simple. I need to get this particular piecing project done and soon – it is very messy. I am not going to show you pictures of it, but I have a very large pile of fabrics that I cut pieces of for the red flying geese and the green Lady Liberty’s. When I paper piece, it always looks like a hurricane has been whirling around my sewing machine!

I continue to practise quilting with my Bernina stitch regulator. I have filled 12″ squares with designs and am trying to relax and move smoothly. It’s interesting; the BSR does regulate the stitch but I can still make long jump stitches and unpleasant looking designs. It certainly doesn’t “do” the work for me!

At night, when I am watching a show that doesn’t need my full attention, I am hooking on the Vermont Shells rug. I have made some good progress since I finished dyeing the new wools.

Here’s a cautionary tale for my fellow bloggers. I printed a book of my 2012 posts with blog2print. It’s really fun to have a book with everything you’ve written for a year. As I was looking through it with Peter, I noticed a problem. On the last 10 pages of the book, all the photos had been replaced with my blog header. I had a bad feeling but I did call customer service. Of course I was supposed to look through all 200 pages online and then approve the book and pay for it. I did not. It is my fault, but I do think there might be something they could do. I’m certainly not going to pay to have it reprinted. Next year I will be more diligent…

Variations on a Pattern

I sew facing the design wall where the livingroom quilt pieces are pinned and I started seeing pattern variations the other day. Diagonal stripes appeared! I have a bunch of completed squares, so I laid them out and here are some ideas for another quilt….

This design would be amazing but it would require the most piecing. Perhaps for more interest, each stripe could vary? Hand dyed gradations could be used???

This one with the squares between looks good. Would I use a contrasting fabric as I laid it out or have the same background as the pieced square?

Rectangles between the squares is interesting, and not a shape common to quilts. I should audition this one again with the same background so I can see what it looks like.

I do have some of the discarded squares from the color trials that I could start with… I really like this idea!

I have a good friend who subscribes to my blog and is kind enough to say she enjoys reading it! Periodically she asks me why I enjoy blogging so much. This post is a good example of one reason – blogging is a way of saving an idea. This design is great but I cannot start something so involved at this point in time. Now it’s headed off in the blogosphere (and The Cloud) where it will be saved for when I need a new idea. Some of  you might comment and give me more ideas. And just one more thing – I really hope that it might inspire someone.

Project: Leader/Ender Quilt Design Ideas

The last post was about what I hope not to do; now I am working on to-dos! I am one of those people who love The New Year and the notion of a fresh start. I did enjoy the Christmas and New Year’s holidays. Peter and I worked on a jigsaw puzzle, tackled some word games, took long walks in the crisp cold air and ate too much. But, every year, come January 2, I am so anxious to get back to my work. Doing things with my hands is visceral for me – I crave it. But whoa – we are selling the house, so I have to really consider what to projects should be on the list!

The last time we moved, I really “thinned” the studio area and packed up lots of boxes of fabric which we put into a storage area. And then the house was on the market for months and months and suddenly I needed some of those fabrics for more projects to keep crazy me busy. Did I dare ask Peter to help me root around the storage room going through taped and cataloged boxes???? Oh, nooooooooo. So I had to buy some more fabric. This time I am trying to be a bit smarter about this process.

I have some ideas for projects to keep me busy, and here’s a quilt that’s underway. On Thursday, I spent the night looking at my Pinterest quilting ideas page and going through my quilting ideas folder and playing on EQ7. By bedtime, I had chosen a pattern that I have been dying to piece. The next morning, eating a biscuit at Mc Donalds, I decided that I was crazy to pick something at all complicated and re-thought the choices. Simple. That is the idea.

So – I have decided to sew many, many half square triangles and then choose a pattern. My beginning sampler quilt class with Karen Buckley began with half square triangles and I remember making a lot of different squares because it was fun to play with the design possibilities. Of course I do need a color plan……

I love my black/multicolored section. The problem with blacks is that they fade very quickly with washing and exposure to the sun. This will be a bed quilt for somewhere and so black doesn’t seem like a good idea.

For the light side, shall I use beiges and off whites? White with multi-colors? Whites with blacks?

Pale batiks with brighter ones? I am always drawn to the two batik shelves (which need to be expanded because a lot is on the floor!)

The blue and green print shelves appeal as well.

After consideration, reds, dark blues and dark greens are out and pales, and bright colors are in. Yet to be determined is whether I will add prints on the “dark” side.

Leader/ender quilts are hard to explain to a non quilter. Here is a link to Bonnie Hunter’s website;  she has written a whole book about the topic. Frankly, I don’t think this saves time, but sewing the paper pieced livingroom quilt is really boring now, so this new quilt is a carrot for me. I did sew and press and trim just a few squares to preview them.  ;-D

I don’t feel like doing teeny, tiny triangles, so I will be mass producing 2.5″ squares (2″ finished). 2″ will show off fabrics in a nice way, and I feel like scrap quilts are “scrapbooks” of one’s fabric collection.

Merry Christmas Grandmother’s Flower Garden Quilt

Ta dah! Here is my latest Grandmother’s Flower Garden quilt top, the result of several years of hand sewing in hotel rooms, on vacations and at odd moments at home when I needed hand work. And to be clear, it’s hand pieced; I only do English paper piecing on tiny hexes. Each side of these hexes measures 1.5″.

This was a lot of fun to piece.

I try to avoid buying Christmas fabric (and Halloween too!) but it calls to me in fabric stores!

What’s great about a Grandmother’s Flower Garden sort of design is that it combines lots of fabrics that would not look good right next to each other.

I plan to piece the backing as well, with some of the bigger Christmas prints, which will reduce the stash a bit… I would have liked to get it quilted for Christmas this year, but because of its size, it’s low on the machine quilting list.