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!