A New Bloom

About a year and a half ago I posted a photo of an "upcoming project."

Last Friday I was in the studio putting away some fabric yardage on the shelf and it occurred to me that of late I seem to be doing projects that either use scraps almost exclusively or are placemat sets that had been decided for me a while back. I don't feel like I've been taking advantage of my actual stash! And it's a sizable one, in dire need of being whittled down and put to good use!

I also realized that I've kind of veered away from some of the designs I've thought of doing over the last couple of years - things I played with in graph paper AND EQ7, like the project pictured above. Maybe it's time to revisit some of those older inspirations that got lost in the shuffle. Have any of you had that feeling - you've moved forward with things and have been making stuff that you're happy with, but looking back realized that there were projects you considered but hesitated on and then forgot to get back to??

So I pulled open my little wire basket with that same stack of fabric neatly folded together along with that same piece of graph paper, but as I looked at the pattern I was less inspired. Plus, I couldn't even remember which fabric I had envisioned in which position, which to me says it might be time to reconsider. I've been wanted to do another Blooming 9-Patch and these fabrics seemed to be a great starting point!

I started with those focus fabrics, Larkspur from Alexander Henry, plus the Kona Solid and Shot Cotton and an Australian print I had grouped with them originally. To those I added just 4 more fabrics to round out a nice progression for the alternating 9-patch and plain fabric blocks: another Alexander Henry blender from about a decade ago (one I've used in bits and pieces in MANY quilts over the years!), a batik I bought and used in a Trip Around the World variation I made for my father in 2005 or 2006, a coveted Joel Dewberry print from his Modern Meadow collection and a perfectly coordinating Anna Griffin print also from years ago. Did you notice that? Using fabric I've had for years and coveted fabric?? That's something to be proud of, yes?


I got all of these together at some point on Friday, with enough time to get everything except the setting triangles cut out, and began piecing the 9-patch blocks. When I left the studio, it was starting to look a little like this:

By Sunday I was rarin' to get going again on this puppy. My friend Maria came by the studio for a sewing day together, and while she was playing around with a stunning new quilt from Elizabeth Hartman's newest book Modern Patchwork, I continued on my 9-patch journey. By the end of the day I had all of my diagonal rows pieced together!

My next day in the studio is Thursday and I am holding myself to high standards to finish piecing this top by the end of the day. Will I be able to do it?? That's a fair number of corners to match up...

A Flannel Quilt - in time for Spring!

Okay, so my seasonal appropriateness might be a little off, but I just had to get started on that lovely stack of flannels!

Just going for a simple brick pattern throw, so I started by cutting the bricks.

And though they look gorgeous lined up like this, once I started playing with them on my design wall, I found that there was just WAY TOO MUCH going on. And for me to say that is something! I decided to edit out the blues, but then I was left with a pink quilt with accents of grey - and I am NOT a pink sort of gal. So then I took out the pink, and was left with, well, not much. And I feel like I've pretty much exhausted my flannel buying options in town (I refuse to go into the well-known large chain fabric store unless I'm looking for notions or something that my local quilt and sewing stores just don't carry). So I spent a bit more time arranging and rearranging the different combinations until I came up with something that made me happy:

As you can see there are still a few holes in there. I did manage to find something online that MIGHT work, so we'll have to wait until those 2 half-yards arrive to go further, but I think I'm onto something. Plus, I now have the start of another simple flannel quilt in the cooler tones to play with! Goody, this will be ready just in time for the season when I wish I had A/C in my house!

Return to the bee blocks

November and December ended up being a kind of break for me from the online bees. And I have to admit, a rather welcome one... and I'm sure I'm not alone in that opinion! But, that break is over and I'm ready to get back to it! Thankfully the new bee I'm going to be doing with a great selection of women, with Jennifer at the helm again, got started a little early.

Jennifer directed us to this tutorial from Aneela Hoey, which she calls "Crazy Scrappy Block." She's planning to do this color box style, so we each got to choose a color for our blocks.

I chose to go with black - a great way to use up some of these B/W prints I've collected over the years (mostly several years ago, to be honest!) and a fun challenge.

Happy January (almost)!

Lots of Little Pebbles

So, the saga of the blue place mats continues, though it's coming together with positive results. As you all may recall, once I finally came up with a solution for the piecework, after quite a journey, the next step was to figure out how I would quilt these guys. I drew a few sketches in my notebook, and decided to try slightly wonky, echoed circles mimicking the print on the border, but at a much larger scale.

Not only did I have trouble doing freehand circles at that scale (especially working at my machine on my dining table, so I only had the throat of the machine as a working surface), but I felt that the motif felt a little too juvenile for the design of the place mats at this stage. Back to the drawing board (quite literally). I still liked the idea of circles, and decided to try my hand at pebble quilting. And how effective it is!!

However, it is also extremely intense on both one's concentration and the muscles from the neck, shoulders and down to the fingers. I find I need to take a break just about every 15 minutes or so, otherwise I start getting sloppy, and it shows! This also requires a LOT of thread! I love how the variegated thread looks with these place mats - I went with Sulky Blendables and am very happy with the outcome. However, these come in 500m spools, and I am about to start on my 3rd spool after quilting just 5 of the 8 mats. Each one is using up about 3 bobbins! I've quilted whole crib quilts with under 2 bobbins' worth of thread!! But darn it, it's going to be worth it when they're done, right??

Sampling of Stars

For my second block for August's Seams Perfect Scrap Bee I decided to play around with a star sampler within the 12" finished block.



The larger star on the lefthand side is from a pattern in an older Alex Anderson book, Simply Stars - Quilts that Sparkle. I used the 6" Variable Star pattern, found on page 48.

In addition to that I decided I wanted to try a 6 point star, a cross between a Star of David and a Seven Sisters. I started with a sketch in my sketchbook and went from there. I had no finished size worked out, just aiming for smaller than 9".

I began with a hexagon for the center of the block. I was lazy and used a template I had cut a couple of months back to make these blocks for Cruz (knitla), for the same bee. With seam allowances, the hexagon measures approximately 1.75" on each side. I estimated that the equilateral triangle star points should be about 2.25" on each edge, and so I cut (2) 60 degree triangles each from 3 different fabrics. It took me a while to figure out a way to piece this block WITHOUT any inset or Y seams, but doggonit, I figured it out! Again, there is little that is precise about these instructions, but I got to where I needed to be.

After cutting my 6 itty-bitty triangles, I cut background pieces from the Bella Solid fabric that Theresa supplied. I cut (4) each at 2.5" x 4" for the top and bottom "corners" of the block, and (2) each at 2.5" x 3.5" for the side settings.

I began the piece work making a top and a bottom row using the 4 corner background pieces and a pair of matching triangles. I began by placing one of the triangles face down on one side of the 2.5" x 4" rectangle, making sure the triangle corners overlap the edges of the rectangle at a 60 degree angle. Stitch along the triangle edge using a 1/4" seam allowance and trim off the excess on the background piece.


Flip the triangle open and press seams toward the background.


Now, take this unit and place it face down over another of the background rectangles, matching the opposite edge of the triangle across the corner of the rectangle.


Press seam toward background piece. Repeat with matching units.

Next, piece a second pair of the little triangles directly to opposite sides of the hexagon. Press seams toward the triangles and trim. At this point you should have 7 total units, the triangles centered in background pieces, the hexagon with 2 triangles attached, the 2 remaining triangles, as shown below, plus the 2.5" x 3.5" background pieces for the side settings:


With that last pair of triangles, it's time to start the tricky stuff! Place the rectangles for the background side settings just alongside the hexagon and other pieces for the star. Take one of the last pair of triangles, place it face down across the corner of the background piece, along the edge of the hexagon still unoccupied be a triangle unit. As you did with the top and bottom rows, be sure to have your corners overlap by approx. 1/4" for seam allowance, with the seam at a 60 degree angle to the bottom edge. Stitch in place, flip open and press.


Place the hexagon unit face down over this last section, lining up the edge of the last triangle with the open edge of the hexagon, and extending the triangle already attached onto the background block. The seams on the respective triangles should overlap by 1/4".


Press open. Repeat for the opposite side. You see you will have tails of excess on the background pieces. Just trim those off to be even with the upper and lower edges of the center hexagon.




Now you are ready to add those original top and bottom rows, respectively.


From here, trim your block to your desired size, just keeping in mind you need at least 1/4" of background beyond the star points.


Mine ended up measuring about 4 7/8" x 5 1/4". Given the improvisational approach to this whole block, I was not too concerned with ending up with a perfect square - I just got to make up the difference in bits and pieces of the background later on...


And after working through the two main stars in this block, I decided to use the classic Friendship Star for the smaller sparklers. Based on a standard 9-patch construction, I worked with 1" units to get two different blocks that would finish at 3" and work as filler in the larger block. All in all I had a lot of fun playing around with this one! Don't know if I'll be rushing to do more like it, but I am certainly glad I tried my hand at something new! Thanks for the impetus, Theresa!

STARting with a star

This month in the Seams Perfect Scrap Bee on Flickr is Theresa's (terrikuns') month. Her theme is stars... any type of stars, wonky, whimsical, 12" or multiple smaller ones... AND, she set us up with some of her fabric choices: Sanae's Chrysalis by Moda and a Moda Bella Solid.

We were invited to use some or all of the fabrics she sent, as long as we used the solid at some point in each of the blocks, and were welcomed to supplement with a coordinating fabric as well. As luck would have it, I just bought some pieces from that collection a little over a week ago while visiting Pioneer Quilts in Happy Valley, OR.

So, my adventure began with an improv, wonky Ohio Star variation. Very easy to make, and rather flexible, so I thought I would share with you all:
*these measurements are for a 12" finished block*

I began by cutting a center square 2.5" x 2.5". I decided that the solid would be an inner border around the center square, so from that I cut (2) 2" x 2.5" and (2) 2" x 5.5". And from the background fabric (for which I used one of the small-scale prints from the Chrysalis collection) I cut (4) 4" x 4" squares for the corners and (4) 4" x 5.5" rectangles to be the backgrounds of the star points.


Start by attaching the solid 2" x 2.5" rectangles to opposite sides of the center square. Press seams toward the "borders." Next, add the 2" x 5.5" rectangles to the remaining sides, to make a 5.5" square.


For the next steps I took a somewhat improvisational approach to a stitch 'n' flip flying geese block, making 4 units measuring 4" x 5.5" each. By starting with the background piece at that size, I could use various scraps to make up the geese, or star points.

Place a rectangle at an angle face down on top of the background block. Be sure that when you press it open it covers as far as the bottom corner of the piece. Stitch down using a 1/4" seam allowance.


Trim the corner from the background piece, using the seam allowance as your guide.


Press open.


Trim the edges flush with the background piece, maintaining the original 4" x 5.5" dimensions.


Repeat the last 4 steps for the other corner on the same side of the rectangle. Try to alter the size of the scrap piece and the angle at which you place it, for more variety on the star points.




Repeat these steps on the other (3) 4" x 5.5" rectangles.


Now, arrange all of your block units in a 9-patch formation, as pictured below:


Piece in horizontal rows, pressing seams toward the square units.


Sew the 3 rows together, press seams open and VOILA!

new accessories!

So, with all of this prep work to get the sewing studio ready for actually moving in to, I've been thinking a lot about what I will be moving in to the space. I've already made two trips to IKEA just to check out table, shelving and office chair options, so that when I actually have the rental truck I know exactly what I'm going in for.

But, there will also be a couple of pieces of furniture I'll be moving from my house... my current sewing cabinet and cutting table, of course, but in addition I have an arm chair and coffee table that have outgrown my little craftsman bungalow. And what does an armchair need?? Maybe a throw pillow or two??






I'd been eyeing that Alexander Henry fabric for quite a while, and found that the Kaffe Shot Cottons work beautifully as accents. They will be excellent splashes of color in the studio space, and would just as easily work in my living room area at home if the time comes. Love the versatility!