Discussion about the process

I was recently asked about my favorite part of the quilting process.  Given that I'm in the middle of planning a new quilt, planning was my first response.  The excitement about the plan, how to piece, what fabrics, colors, etc.  The question got me to thinking about the planning process and how I typically go about it, and how the plan grows and changes as the quilt is sewn.  It sounded like a blog post, so here we go.

The initial idea as I've mentioned before can come from almost anywhere.  This particular one came from Facebook, another quilter that I follow named QuiltMama.  She posted this picture of a customer quilt she had finished quilting.  I thought, hmm, that is a possibility for novelty fabrics.

 I recognized the pattern from Scrap Basket Surprise by Kim Bracket.

And gee, didn't this feel familiar.  I pulled out my scrapbook and yes, sure enough I had already done a novelty quilt using this pattern. But I had used Kim Bracket's piecing method, all pieced from 2.5" strips.

I hadn't really been all that pleased with  how it turned out.  I didn't like how chopped up the novelties were with this piecing method even though I had stuck to as many small scale scatter prints as I could.   And the colors seemed a little dull - probably because of those small scale novelties.  It was one of those quilts that just didn't excite me too much when completed.  So I got to thinking how I could modify it.  Definitely using a 4" square would give me a bigger selection of fabrics and help on the colors - look at that big square in the center.  And it's basically a friendship star.  Let's construct it like a normal friendship star with HST.

I then went to my EQ software and drew it up as a friendship star.  And how about using another color  in the little hourglass - Loving the secondary pattern in black & white.  And the background makes a friendship star too.   I have quite a few white novelties, let's try using them rather than a solid or TOT.  The resulting layout is alternating solid 4" squares and 4" square in a square blocks. The black & white hourglass is the center, surrounded by the points of the friendship stars.  I'm not a big fan of square in a square blocks - they tend to get wonky and uneven on me.  I'll just have to be careful when pressing and not stretch those diagonals.

Now I'm getting excited - the FUN part.  Let's play with some fabric.  I needed to make sure the white novelties really read as background and don't fight with the colors.  I want to avoid it getting muddy - I want this one to be sharp & bright.  And with the black & white hourglass, I didn't want to use any of the black novelties - the majority of my stash.  So there were my limitations.  Time to audition fabrics.  The whites were more of a struggle than anticipated.  Many of them had large pictures.  And many of them were decidedly yellow/beige.  I wanted crisp and white.  I also had to make sure I had all the letters of the alphabet- that's those little white tags you can see in the picture below.  Hmmm, the only Q's I have are on black fabric (quarters and question marks).  But I do have some playing cards that could read as white (queen).  It's a bit busy, but the alphabet requirement is more critical than the background requirement.  Let's see what it looks like on the design wall.

Here are the 4.5"squares on the design wall.   Sometimes I see things on the design wall that aren't as obvious looking at the table. The card fabric stands out more than I like, but I'll just put it next to some other saturated fabrics - the contrast will help.  Looking good so far.  Now to add some triangles, make sure I'm still happy with the fabrics.  Is the color mix balanced?  Still liking it.  Time to cut the rest of the triangles.

Sigh.  And here is the part  of quilting I like the least.  Refolding all the fabric.  The down side to fussy cutting and scrappy quilts.  Here is the pile about half way through refolding.

And now back to fun.  Time to sew. My favorite way to make HST is cutting over-sized triangles, then trim to EXACT size.  The down side is lots of trimming.  But it's worth having the HST all the right size.  It's just too easy for them to get too small or too large or distorted while sewing.  Trimming takes some time but I've decided it's better than the frustration when putting everything together.  I splurged on a handy set of rulers call Bloc-Loc - very nice for this process.  They have a diagonal groove to help with the placement of the seam when you cut.  Keeps that seam going right across the middle.  The right tools for the job as my grandpa would say.

 I discovered that I had to be very careful sewing the "square in a square" blocks.  If I didn't place the the corner fabrics exactly right, the stars didn't fit together.  Sewing on the wrong edge makes the star points turn the wrong way, and the rows alternated.  Hmmmm.  Lots of turning around to check the design wall.  Over and over.  Lots of walking over to the design wall to make sure it fits.  And yes a bit of ripping/resewing.  Here you can see the twirled center of those blocks.

And now I discover something about this pattern I don't like.  There isn't a good way to press the seams when sewing the rows together.  No matter what you either have to fold the corners of the hourglass blocks over - and they make a giant bump.  Or else twist the seams.   I ended up just pressing from the front and letting them twist as the wanted.  Not ideal but I didn't like forcing those thick points to fold over either.  Going to have to really steam this well before I quilt it.




I am really liking the secondary pattern of those little black & white triangles.  The rows all sewn and ready to go together.  But about this time I realized a problem.  It's too small!  Only about 36 x 42.  I've been making most of my I spy quilts at least toddler size - I figure babies really aren't going to enjoy them for long - the quilt need to be Nap size for a toddler so the child can enjoy the pictures.  45 x 54 at least.  But how to make it larger?  I can't just add another row/column due to the way the pattern works.  It would have to be 2 rows & 2 columns.  And some of those whites I put on the edge I only had 2.5" wide strips.  And my stash of whites is not as good as I thought - I am going to have to start repeating whites (oh no!  I can't repeat a fabric!)  Problems, problems.  The solution - make the half block around the outside into full blocks.  Seam ripper, let's spend some more time together...

 It was a bit of a struggle.  I had to use a few non-white backgrounds.  A couple of very pale blues and a very light cream.  Ah well.  Here are the additional white blocks all the way around.  But now another problem occurs to me.  How am I going to finish this - what will the border look like?  I didn't want to chop off the points on those last stars - I needed the width.  And it would look weird to just have the outside stars all missing the 4th point.  But what to put between those points?  I thought blue would work well - blue always plays well with novelties.  So I pulled some blue yardage from my blender stash but the only one I really liked I didn't have much of.  What else might work?

I didn't want to start cutting up yardage just to audition fabrics.  Then I remembered a jelly roll of rainbow fabrics in a box of 2.5" strips that I could use without cutting up any more fabric - at least to get idea of colors.  I pulled out the box and look at that, there were some bright strips left from other projects that would be perfect.  Viola!  Let's do Rainbow!    

Here is the border sewn.   And don't those colors make those center stars pop!  This is one of those moments where I just stand and smile at the design wall.  I'd pat myself on the back if I were flexible.  I had no original idea of a pieced border - but in the process of solving a problem (making the quilt larger) it turned out better than the original plan.   Much better than slab o' border.   I'm glad I didn't check the size when I drew it in EQ...serendipity.  I love quilting!

I still think it needs one last border just to finish it off - like a frame.  Should it be more color strips?  This looks kind of nice but somehow doesn't look "finished" to me.  Also it seems to pull some of the attention away from the color stars.

Or the black used in the hourglass blocks?  No, it looks too much like it's floating.

Or something new?

Well after polling my quilting forum friends (and some negotiations) I decided on the black & white check.  Here is a close up.  I really like how the spirit of the hand drawn checker board carries through the fun nature of the novelties.

However as I was pressing the border I discovered one more small problem.  Three of the hourglass blocks are turned 90 degrees, making the stars lopsided.   Sure glad I noticed BEFORE it was quilted.  It's not too late at this point and easy to fix.

A bit more ripping and resewing.  But now we are done!  I'm pleased with the colors and pattern, and love the interesting border with the colors and checkerboard.  A few of the "backgrounds" stand out more than I'd like but they don't detract from the pattern too much.  And 100% came from my stash.  Always some compromises but overall I've enjoyed this process.  I'll have to find someone extra special to "rehome" this quilt.  For now the top goes in the stack of "ready to be quilted".

Thanks to Judy Knox for her editing services!

A few of my favorite things

I've realized over the years that part of why I enjoy quilting so much is it feels like a jigsaw puzzle.  Sorting colors, finding the right pieces, solving a problem.  And when you are done, you don't have to take it apart and put it away in the closet.  I also love mazes. 

Looking at the stack of precuts I've been trying to use up, I noticed how many of them were white or beige.  Not fun colors for an I spy.  What could I do?  Then it hit me, a MAZE!  So I grabbed some graph paper and set to work, laying out a maze that minimized the black spaces while still being a legitimate maze (a few dead ends, etc).  I added a narrow multi-color sashing to emphasis the boundary of the puzzle.  I love how it turned out.  I may take this one to work with me.

And two more - busy busy busy

I think in the last couple of months I have made up for the last two years of limited novelty sewing.  These two tops are numbers 7 & 8 that I have made in the last 2 months.  Not quilted, but I do have a good stash of tops now.  Anyone need some baby shower gifts? 

Star Sashing

 I'm still using up those precuts.  And a stash of little left over triangles and odd scraps.  I saw the idea for this one on-line and thought I'd try it in an eye-spy.  I think I'd put this in the "eh" pile.  The stars in the sashing were sure a lot of work, and you can't really see them too well.  It's one of those times that a single color (TOT) would have worked better than the scrappy.  Ah well, lesson learned.  And those scrappy triangles are all gone now.  I found some new border fabric at Hobby Lobby in the "school teacher" section, I couldn't decide which one I liked better so used both.

X's & O's

 
One of the ladies at work recently showed me a picture of her now 8 year old daughter and the X's & O's quilt I made for her 4 years ago.  She took it to a slumber party and was very proud of it.  That got me to thinking it was a pretty fun pattern so here is another one.  I did have to pull just a few fabrics from my stash to fill out the colors, but most of this is still from those precuts.  There is still a good size stack left but most are now tans & whites which isn't too fun.  I will have to think of something else to do with them.  I spy quilts have to be colorful!

Oh and a confession.  I went to Hobby Lobby looking for border fabric, but of course there was a sale.... and yes I bought 8 other half yard cuts  -  4 great yellows, a couple of greens, some robots on black and look at these wonderful Llamas!  I can't resist llamas - my daughter loves them ever since the movie Emperor's New Groove.  So they came home with me.

I know I've said this before and done this before.  I resolve to use up some of my stash and I sew a bunch.  And then I'm feeling so good about what I've sewn that I then go shopping and restock more than I sewed.  But I've made 8 quilts in the last two months.  With only 4 additional yards of novelty I'm still ahead - or behind, which ever.  Ah well, I'm still having fun.

Time to use up precuts & scraps - or what I did over memorial day

Following my resolution to use more of my stash, I was looking at the box of 4.5" precuts.  Very few of my novelty quilts over the last few years have used these precuts.  I seem to be doing a lot more fussy cutting from my flat folds.  So I decided to see how many quilts I could make just from the box of 4.5" precuts, some of them from swaps year and years ago.

So I dumped out the box that had previously been organized by subject and sorted them instead by color.  Wow, there were A LOT of tans - I guess I haven't been using the tans as they aren't very colorful.  Gotta use some of those!.  I started putting squares on my design wall.  This first one is a Trip Around the World layout.  I haven't made this pattern in over 10 years, it was one of the first ones and one that got me started shopping for novelties by color, realizing how much of my purchases were blue or black.  I now have a very good stash of yellow, red, green, white, etc.  Anyway, in keeping with the desire to use up scraps, I used a piano key boarder made from the remnants of fussy cutting.  And 100% was from precuts, I didn't have to dive into my stash at all, even to get all the alphabet.

Trip Around the World

Gee, the stack was still huge, so let's do another.  This time I laid out the colors in a diagonal.  And the last border seemed a bit busy, so this time I used a stack of 2x2's I had left from another quilt.

Diagonal Scraps

I realized I had enough piano key borders to make a quilt entirely from them only.  I had made this pattern several years ago.  What a great way to use up all those little bits left from fussy cutting.  My friend who loves crumb quilts would love this one.

Some inspiration

The last two years I've gotten interested in projects that have taken all my time (new quilting machine, Empire Place, bags, t-shirt quilts, etc.  The result is I've been neglecting my novelty stash - 2 novelty quilts in 2 years and  of those only needed a border!  I am astounded and kind of ashamed.  One of the side benefits of this blog, I can see just how long it's been since I made the last quilt.  The scary part is it doesn't seem that long.  Time really does start going by faster as you get older.  So now I've resolved to sew up some of my stash.  I want to shared these fabrics, not hoard them in my baskets.  I'm pretty sure I have a SABLE - stash acquired beyond life expectancy.

So once again I went scanning through my old photos from quilt shows, old catalogs, pins on the internet for inspiration.  And here is the result.

This modified Friendship star was challenging.  The inspiration was from a FB post by Quilting Digest.  The piecing is easy, just HST and 4" blocks.  But figuring out how to lay it out was not easy.  I drew it out first on grid paper, to get the basic idea, then just starting putting the pieces on my wall.  I used my felt row/column tags and am proud to say I did not have to rip anything out.  This quilt was made entirely of the precut squares I had been keeping (except for the background).  I've realized I'm really not using the precut squares much any more.  Most of my quilts seem to have different sizes fussy cut from my stash so I'm going to use up those precuts.  These squares are actually 3.5" finished  - I cut the 4.5" diagonally to make the HST, then trimmed the HST down to 4".

Interlocking Friendship star - idea from Quilting Digest

 The inspiration for Radiant came from 2 places.  First the internet, which I then snipped and put in my OneNote idea notebook.  I later took a picture of one at the Dallas Quilt show and put it in my notebook.  I didn't realize I had double marked it until I was looking through my notebook for ideas.  There it was twice - how about that.  So I tried making one and it was pretty fun.  I did not want to use black for the small centers because so much of my novelty stash is dark fabric, so I decided to use yellow.  At first I was using novelty yellows, but that was too busy - the yellow got lost.  So I replaced the novelties with a small dotted yellow.  This block is made with 2 simple blocks which are then cut diagonally and sewn back to the other block - making matching pairs.  I love the optical illusion of the diamond.  I'd definitely be making this one again.

Radiant by Cozy Quilt Designs

This Kaleidoscope quilt is one of those that I give a qualified review.  It honestly would be a much prettier quilt without the novelties - they are distracting.  But it was an enjoyable quilt to make and pretty simple.  I may do another one using "regular" fabrics some time.  I'm also not completely thrilled with the piano key borders but I've discovered I'm running low on border fabrics.

Kaleidoscope by Leila Boutique

My next plan is to dump out all the precut squares and see what I can come up with - there are likely 4 or 5 quilts in that box.  Certainly I can do a few trip around the world quilts, maybe some color diagonals too.  I'll need to add a few just to keep all the ABC's plus some background fabric, but I bet I can whittle it down pretty easily. Stay tuned.

A busy year and only 2 I spy quilts?

Wow, it's been over a year since I posted on this blog.  I only have 2 I spy quilts to show for it, one of which was actually started a long time ago, I just added a border and quilted it this year.  Hmm.  what have I been doing?  Well there have been a LOT of T-shirt quilts this year (see my other blog -  Dee B Tee's).  And I got a new long arm machine - oh it is wonderful - HQ Amara!  I am so happy with it.  Oh and I made this paper pieced monster - and given how much I feel obligated to finish things I had to see it through to the end.  Not quilted, it may not ever be quilted, but the top is done.

The pattern is called Empire Place.  I know it is NOT an I spy, but I spent a year of my life on this silly thing and it's not even hand pieced.  I have to show it.

I had 2 "baby occasions" this year.  For the first I spy quilt, I grabbed one top hanging in the closet and added a simple pieced inner border with a black outer order & abc binding.  This one went to a co-worker's 2nd child  - big brother has one of my quilts too.  

 The 2nd quilt was made for a new baby at my church.  Mom is a school teacher and dad loves cars, so I put in everything related I could find in my stash.  I've made the pattern before (from Missouri Quilts) and really enjoyed doing it, so decided to do another.  I used some left over binding that I found in my scrap bin.  I like the colors with the black borders

Not sure what this year holds.  Work has been exceptionally busy, but I do love hiding in my sewing room.  It is definitely time to spend some quality hours with my novelty fabrics.  I've missed them this year.