Something Fishy

I have several kid/baby quilts I want to do, and most are at least partly designed. This one uses a couple of colorful fish prints, with a berry solid. The solid is reading too dark and wide, but I think with some all-over quilting in a variegated thread it will be all right.

Linking to Patchwork Times, with other design walls.

Design Wall 4/8

Every once in a while, I feel the need to start something new, even though I still have plenty of unfinished projects. I gathered a selection of solid fabrics, some of which are quite old and others are recently purchased Kona cottons, and then started cutting, and cutting, and cutting. This pattern requires an awful lot of cutting before you get to start piecing anything. But finally I have a few components pieced and on my design wall.

Linking up to Patchwork Times, to see what others are working on.

Design Wall 2/25

The design wall has seen a lot of action the past week, mainly in trying out different fabrics for a new Ocean Wave quilt. I had decided on the focus and complementary fabrics earlier in the month, but was having a difficult time deciding on the background, and then the borders.

This background had the right colors, but ultimately I felt it was too busy and also made the other fabrics seem a little dull.

This mottled teal made the other fabrics pop, and it will make a nice space to feature a quilting design.

This border fabric was a good match for the cornerstones color-wise, and I liked it's linearity, but I didn't realize until I cut a couple strips how plaid it looked. Plaid is fine, but not what I was going for here.

I ended up with a dense, dark ferny teal print. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to photograph very well and looks kind of blotchy. 

Linking to Patchwork Times Design Wall Monday.

Evolving a Quilt

When my niece Emily and Seb announced their wedding date, I knew I wanted to make them a quilt. I just didn't know what kind. I did know it would be nice to have signatures of their wedding guests, so I got yards of Kona Snow and researched some of the fabric pens available. After doing some testing, including running some test swatches through the laundry, Pentel's Gel Roller for Fabric in blue got the call.

At the wedding party, I set the fabric and pens out on a table. Jill had made a nice sign, and Seb's brothers Samuel and Simon made several announcements encouraging people to contribute. I'm not sure what all they said, but there was much more than just names: congratulations (in several languages), poems, jokes, drawings...

I brought it home and thought long and hard about what to do. The differing sizes of the patches, plus the different densities of writing within them, made me really struggle with what to do. I had some early ideas of doing a more or less traditional design, but I was starting to see more and more modern quilts on blogs and thought I should do a modern quilt for a modern couple. I came up with a rough design I really liked, but couldn’t figure out how to translate it into fabric. Plus when I cut apart the patches, it became apparent that they were too big and too varied for that design concept. (Maybe I’ll make it some day…)

I usually use Electric Quilt for playing with quilt designs, but it isn't all that useful in improvisational designs. Maybe some people don’t need to design an improvisational quilt at all, but I felt like I needed some structure before just sewing random pieces together. So I went back to graph paper, and roughed out the bones of the design. I also used it to estimate the finished size, and sketch in potential quilting designs. Once I had column sizes, I could start cutting the background fabric (Kona Olive) to go with the sig patches.

I wanted staggered rows to look like stacks of cards, arranging the patches to get a good distribution by how much writing was on each. I didn't want all the drawings clustered together, for example.

Here I'm getting the rows sewn together with olive background between them. It's looking a little blah though. I had several patches reserved for each background swath, and decided to border those in blues for a little extra punch.

Design Wall 1/14

I wasn't too happy with the layout of blocks on this last week. So I did a quick block in EQ7 and played with some layouts there. First with all the blocks oriented in the same direction, and then with the center blocks oriented one way, and the border blocks going the opposite way. I liked both of those variations, but decided to make the centers horizontal and the borders vertical.

I still have to piece the top and bottom rows and add them. And figure out how to photograph the whole thing, as well as any other larger quilts. Not only is the design wall a little small, but it's in the hallway opposite the bathroom, so there is a limit to how far I can back away from it and get a picture.

Linking to Patchwork Times' Monday Design Wall post, where there is lots of inspiration as usual. 

Design Wall 1/7

First post of 2013, first design wall - but same old quilt. As I thought, not much got done on this over the holidays. A few more blocks completed. It looks a little washed out in this photo, which is partly due to the lighting, but also due to only having the lighter blocks up there. I hope it will be more interesting once the darker blocks are around the outside!

Linking to Patchwork Times, where people have been busy!

Design Wall 12/17

Six blocks done, 36 to go. That's not an entirely accurate picture of how much work remains: these blocks still need 2 more pieces each to make them square. And I have all 42 block centers done, plus all the rectangles for the next round cut. But progress, progress! Probably the last substantial progress until New Year's.

Linking to Patchwork Times.

Design Wall 12/10

More gray, foggy all day. Time to lift the spirits by being immersed in color. I fell in love with Lida Enche's September Light collection when it came out last fall. I bought several pieces, then bought more, then just a few more. It all sat together, waiting for time and inspiration to become the starting point for a new quilt. 

I'm going to do a scrappy design from Cozy Modern Quilts, so I had to expand the range in each color by adding more prints, a couple from the newer Lida Enche collection, Painted Summer, and the rest from stash. 

I made some of the centers today, the yellow-green surrounded by red frames. Even with a range of prints, the values in each group are very similar. But I started to realize that the darkest blue-greens are too different in value to work with the lighter blue-greens. I'm going to have to decide between medium-to-dark and medium-to-light. There are more in the starting collection on the light side, but that may not work best for the quilt. As I get more center sections done, I can evaluate the backgrounds that work the best. Blues and blue-greens are the biggest components of my stash, so it shouldn't be a problem finding more fabrics to fill in.

Design Wall 11/5

What I really need to be doing is finishing some older projects, but instead I started something new. Sort of new, anyway. I've thought about doing a Christmas tree skirt for many years, but usually don't start doing anything about it until the middle of December. And then, after a few days of rummaging through Christmas fabrics and trying to make a decision, I decide there's not enough time and put it all away again. With more time on my hands, this should be the year. It turned out that last year, I had gotten so far as to sew some strips of red and white fabric together, and I used that as a starting point. This string-pieced Dresden block was my inspiration.

I'm hoping it will make a full circle once the wedges are sewn together. If not, I'll just add some fabric to one edge. Linking up to Judy's Patchwork Times.

Design Wall 10/8

I've wanted to try making letters in fabric for a long time. I've got patterns, a book (Word Play Quilts), but it always seemed a little daunting. I got the book out again last week, and just played with it. I have some trouble being completely wonky and improvisational, but then again, I'm not that precise either. It was fun to see recognizable letters emerge! This took about an hour.

Design Wall 9/10

Clowns and circuses! While making the recent baby/children's quilts, I pulled out this cute fabric and combined it with light peach and violet solids. It struck me as not quite right for boys, but I decided to piece the top anyway rather than putting the fabrics back on the shelf. It will be a good practice piece for quilting, or just to have on hand in case I need another gift.

I had a scant quarter yard of the circus fabric. After squaring it up, I cut these 5 pieces that used the entire length. Then framed them, and cut the peach fabric WOF at sizes to match. Once the long seams are sewn and pressed, it will need to be trimmed on the left side. The ease of this method makes up for any waste of fabric, although solid scraps are always useful.

See what others are working on at Judy's Patchwork Times.

Design Wall 8/27

This was on my design wall most of last week, while I quilted the baby quilt before it. Now it's off the wall and getting some quilting itself. Then I have to bind both of them, but it looks like that won't get done before my trip.

I think the selection of prints in this should be entertaining for a youngster. I had fun picking them out of my stash! There are 10 prints, each used twice. Linking to Patchwork Times, to see other works in progress. 

Design Wall 8/20

After a very hot week, it started to cool off on the weekend, and I got much more done. Halfway through quilting the baby quilt, and started 2 more. That's crazy, I know, but since I had dug out all these old kid and conversation prints, I started getting more ideas. A couple of baby quilts in the UFO pile will not hurt, and I'll have something to play with when between bigger quilts. Or if I need a present in a hurry.

Linking to Design Wall Monday on Judy's Patchwork Times.

Design Wall 8/13

I've been working lately on a project I'm not ready to share - not quite a secret, just private for a while.  But I put that aside last week to whip up a quick baby quilt for my next door neighbors. Their second child is due in a week and a half, but could come any time. So I needed something fairly quick. I rummaged through my stash of baby and children's fabrics, veered off into all solids, and then settled on a combination. This was inspired by a baby quilt in the book, Modern Minimal. I changed the center boxes to a print, changed the sizes and construction (making it improvisationally). I hope to get it quilted this week, if I can finish the Sassy Star currently on the frame, or get it to a point where I can take it off.

See what others are working on at Patchwork Times.

Design Wall 7/9

My Carpenter's Square top is finished at last. Now it will go on the to-be-quilted pile. It might move up in line, because of having Judy's feather quilting lessons for a guide. I'll have to practice drawing the feathers for awhile though.

Design Wall 7/2

A little more progress on this. The center star is sewn together, as are the top and bottom panels. (It's easier to pin them to the sides on the design wall.) Next step, borders!

See what others are working on at Patchwork Times.

Design Wall 6/18

I didn't intend to work on this during the week, but it was growing on me as I passed the wall each day. So I added a few more pieces here and there. Maybe I'll get around to sewing some of them together later this week. Now to get some inspiration from the links at Patchwork Times.

Design Wall 6/11

So, it looks like I didn't get much done last week, and on this top, that's true. However, I did finish (and deliver) the Basket Case (skull) quilt for my buddy Ostin who was recuperating from knee surgery. And I finished quilting the Marcia Derse squares quilt and made the binding, picked something from my UFO list to quilt next, and dealt with a sick dog. I'm hoping to make more progress this week, but this Carpenter's Star is not a high priority right now.

See what others are up to at Patchwork Times.

Design Wall 6/4

I haven't put much up on the design wall lately; I've mostly been busy finishing up a couple of earlier quilts. I wanted to do the Carpenter Star feather lessons that Judy is posting this month, but this is as far as I've gotten.

See what others are working on at Judy's Patchwork Times.

Design Wall 5/21

I had these left over blocks, and I had this fabric I was considering for a back (but not enough of it), and I piled them together and thought they looked pretty good. I'll have to play with this a little bit, maybe add some solid between the blocks and the dotted, striped print, but there's potential for a quick little top.

I went to the movies Friday afternoon with a friend and saw The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel at Lincoln Square in Bellevue. Not a great movie, but entertaining and picturesque. The real excitement came 3/4s through, when the movie stopped, the lights came on, and there was an announcement that there was an emergency in the building and everyone should evacuate. There were no loud alarms, which I think kept everyone calmer. We all sort of looked around and then went to the nearest exit. In my case, that was an exit door next to the screen. It went directly outside but onto a narrow walkway several stories above an alley. We made our way along the walkway until it rounded a corner and came to a stairwell door. Then we had to climb down all these flights of stairs until we finally came out in the alley by the parking garage. Everyone from the theaters as well as the restaurants and other stores waited out on the sidewalks while fire engines came and checked it out. Never did hear what caused the alarm, but we were eventually allowed back in and the movies restarted where they left off. I think I'll stick to ground-floor theaters from now on!

Check out other design walls at Patchwork Times.