No. 16

No. 16

50.5" x 40"

This one is another quilt addressing the issue of privacy. Literally, this quilt is about windows, specifically, the extensive use of floor to ceiling glass windows in many new modern houses. If you can see out, then others can see in. I love the idea of being able to see out, and bringing nature into a building (which was the original intent of this style of architecture). But I also really value my privacy. This would not be an ideal house for me. Also, because guns, when I see a house like this, all I can think of is, where do you hide from the bullets? I will leave you to imagine the metaphorical meaning of this work, because it is not obvious. (HINT: Think of the word 'windows' and privacy, and you'll be there!). 

I have been dreaming of this one for a long time, like YEARS, but I couldn't see the whole picture. I wanted fish swimming in a house of floor to ceiling glass windows. Then about 9 months ago, I found a commercially printed paper with koi fish. I KNEW that these would be the fish for the quilt. Except that, they were paper, and I wasn't sure how this was going to work??

I got the courage to go ahead and try moving forward on the project by trying to sketch the house. None of my efforts were working. I drove around Austin looking for the perfect 'model' house to sketch. I did not find it, though I suspect it is out there somewhere. Then I decided to look online for some ideas. I found these 3. 

None were perfect, or had the right angles, so I just jumped in and tried making a perspective drawing of a house in my sketchbook. I have never done a perspective drawing before, though I had seen one on social media. I was surprised how easily it all came together. Then I had to upscale the drawings for each room to make a pattern. 

Here is the sketch of the kitchen:

After sketching, I had to decide how to cut this apart and make it into a pattern, and which pieces would be sewn together first? I wanted to minimize the Y seams because those are more challenging. I used colored pencils to outline the shapes that would be sewn together as a group. Then I cut the sketch apart...labeled the pieces, and selected the fabrics for each piece.

This part feels a little daunting. However, a friend reminded me that I have done projects with more pieces, and that helped!

The next step is to trace each piece onto the back of the fabric and then cut them out with a seam allowance. And, it is a little challenging because some of the pieces are small and hard to hold still while tracing around them onto the fabric. One by one, they are stitched together. It would probably have been easier to paper piece this and definitely more accurate, but I find this method to be mentally easier.

After getting the house pieced, and the background, it was time to consider the fish. So, I cut them out and freed them from their backgrounds.

I wasn't sure how many I would need, so I just keep cutting and placing them on the design wall. Ultimately, I decided that this was too many fish!

You can see from this photo that the fish are swimming in FRONT of the house. However, I wanted them placed IN the house, which means they would need to be swimming behind some of the house walls. So, I cut open the seam allowances in the house, where the fish would be, and inserted them in through the new slots. Then I hand stitched the seams to match the size needed for the fish opening. I also needed the fish to stay in place before I got to the quilting part, so I used Mistyfuse on the back side of the fish. Did you know it works great on paper too? Cool! Note: This was a sequence error. It is easier to put Mistyfuse on the fish before cutting them out than afterwards, so trimming the Mistyfuse to the fish body was a bit tedious.

If you look closely, you can see the fish behind the just barely transparent fabric of the door!

Then I started the machine quilting. I was very concerned that the needle holes from the quilting would rip the paper the fish were on. Fortunately it was such a heavy weight of paper that I had no problems! Whew! I did have a very clear vision of how I wanted the quilting lines to look, and it required a lot of stops and starts, which in turn meant a lot of thread tucking.

The other minor parts of the project included some hand applique for the lights in the kitchen, and a bit of satin stitch to define some of the shapes better. This put me on hold for a couple of weeks because I thought I needed some shiny black thread. I did get the thread, but the delivery was SO slow, and my patience for finishing the project was wearing thin. And then the new thread did not perform well in my sample testing, and I ended up using something I already had (which I can not remember now what it was...). That is the way it goes sometimes!

The last little part was the scariest! The fish took a bit of a beating with all the machine quilting from pushing the quilt through the machine so much. I decided to 'fortify' them with a couple of coats of high gloss medium, applied by hand with a small paint brush. I thought about doing it first, but the fish were ironed in place with the Mistyfuse, and I didn't want to try to iron a fish that had medium on the surface. So maybe it all worked out okay? 

I am overall very happy with the way this turned out! It is so satisfying to see an idea become actualized! I entered this quilt into Quilts=Art=Quilts, but it did not get accepted. As happy as it would have been to have my little quilt go out into the world, I am comforted when they get rejected because then I get to look at them a bit longer, and I don't have a lot of shipping expenses. Possibly a warped perspective here, but I am okay with that. I hope you like this one! Thanks for stopping by! 

No. 11 Part 1

No. 11

78.5 x 53.5

The idea for this one stemmed from some outtakes of No. 9.  I had cut out these humps and started playing with them on the design wall, and then decided to go for it, and make a quilt that included them. (PS, I still have two of the humps left for yet another quilt that will come later).

I placed them on my IKEA rug so that I could get a sense of scale and how much space I would need to make the design work. The rug is printed in a grid, so it was easy to use the tape measure to get the approximate dimensions. 

And as my next quilt in the HST series, I was not looking forward to having to make another largish quilt.  But, the colors SING! And, it was still cold outside when I started. And, all I really wanted to do was to go outside and work in the garden and prepare for spring. So it was an excellent distraction.

The color palette for the background:

I pulled all of these from my stash. I did have the yellow too, but not nearly enough of it, so I had to order more, and then wait for it to arrive. I hate waiting...

You may notice a lot of yellow in this room now? I didn't. It wasn't until one of my kids came by and said "I see you are still in to yellow." that I noticed, and then had to laugh at myself. I actually see color as a transitory thing. There is yellow there now, but this is my studio and the colors are changing all the time. 

The yellow on the design wall will be cut into narrow strips and then joined together with an even thinner strip of the colors. This is a lot of rotary ruler work with the cutting, and keeping track of which strip goes where.

I always feel so grateful to have a design wall that is big enough to accommodate my big ideas!

Next is to cut the 3/4" wide strips of color! These browns will slowly transition to greens (just like my garden).

I like the scale of the raw strips of fabric here, though I know they will be minimized later after sewing them together.  Here's a view of how much the scale changes after stitching.

It definitely makes the color strips a minor player in the design, but it is a nice effect and just what I wanted for this one. 

More to come!

No. 9 part 2

No. 9

Part 2, the piecing

The next part was making all the HSTs. I used the paper cut out of the humps on my design wall, and then made half square triangle blocks until the template was completely covered.  To be fair, I also did some measuring because the size of the blocks shrink after sewing them together.

Here are the blocks for one of the humps, cut, marked and ready to stitch. These are for one of the humps that used multiple colors and tiny 1" blocks. 

I think the step of trimming the blocks to their correct size with the rotary cutter is the least fun of all the steps. However, it makes the joining of the blocks really easy and precise.

I love looking at them once they are arranged on the design wall!

Next is to stitch the blocks together. I pin once through the matching seams, and then pin on both sides of the seam and remove the first pin. So, for each matching seam, there are two pins. It makes for a lot of pins, but also it seems to work well for me, so I do it.

Once the entire section is pieced, I turn it wrong side up, trace the shape of the paper template on it, and then cut with scissors 1/4" out from the marked line (for the seam allowance). 

Since I am working with curves, I also use a good number of registration marks to match the point on the hump with it's corresponding spot on the background piece. And, once again, I use a LOT of pins. However, pins on a curve are a bit more unwieldy and I tend to get accidentally poked by those pins, which is not at all fun. 

Here are some details photos of the top with the humps pieced in. I was really pleased with how well the process worked!

In case you are wondering, I used the same system with the arcs, of tracing the paper templates, and using registration marks. I was worried about the narrow arcs stretching out of shape, so I stay-stitched near the edges before cutting them. It worked reasonably well!

Stay tuned for the next post. I will share some photos of the quilting! 

No. 8

No. 8

40" x 34"

Grief comes in waves. I made the quilt top for this one was in December, my first Christmas without my mom, compounded by the realization that Kamala was really not going to be president.

I had a shape, but decided to math it out...which is NOT my forte'.  So, I enlisted the help of my adult kid, who freakin' LOVES math. He derived the equation to plot my curve:  x^2  +  x^4 all divided by 2. And the equation was scaled to fit the size of the work I wanted to make.  Tossing in some values to the equation made it easy to plot some points and then draw the curve between them. I am sure it would have been fine without the math, and just a freehand curve, but this was fun too!

The curve was easy to piece once the pieces were cut out.

Then I made the blocks, and turned under the edges and appliqued them on. 

Yes, the corners were bulky. Sigh....

One of the fastest pieces I have ever made, but was also quite fun and satisfying! 

Then the quilting. You can see a big grid on the quilt. I had planned to put in more dividing lines between the big squares, but after I completed the big squares, it looked finished to me. And it does reference graph paper, which is the look I was going for. It was so hard just to let it be finished. I kept wanting to add more and more. So, the growth with making this piece was letting it be simple and minimalist. Very hard!!

My artist statement: It is nice not to be alone, but I would prefer not to be in the steep walled pit of grief and despair. How to get out of here?

Which reminds me of other things I have learned. The intensity of grief is temporary. It is not always this bad. Having others around me helps. Work helps. Gardening helps. And cats definitely help. And, in this first year, the grief still returns, and I just feel it, until it passes. I don't know if the grief has lessened or if my coping with the grief has gotten better. My acceptance of it's presence is definitely better. 

No. 3

No. 3

25" x 25"

I had several ideas about how to make this one. I opted for drawing a template for each block that had a curve to see how well that works. It worked great! I made the shapes exactly how I was hoping! Sadly, it was so tedious and not fun, that it is unlikely I will want to do this again. That's the way it goes sometimes. However, I LOVE this little quilt. It is so pretty and simple, and it brings me joy!

First step was to draft it on paper. I was worried about getting confused with color on the blocks, so I used some colored pencils to color in the pattern. I also numbered the blocks in hopes it would help reconstruct the pattern, and that did help.

Then I cut the blocks apart. Many of the blocks have no curves, so I could easy construct those with a simple HST method. There were some aqua and black, and some yellow and black. And, the blocks that had a curve were cut along the curve with hatch marks for matching back up during the piecing process. For each little piece, I traced onto a piece of fabric with a pencil. And then I cut each piece out by hand, with scissors, making sure to add 1/4" seam allowance.

These were pinned and pieced, as you might expect...

And after making a set of two, I would place them on a black square block to sew them into HST's. 

The black piece is still one piece of fabric, so it stabilized the stitching while sewing along the diagonal edges. After cutting down the middle, I had two blocks ready to trim and put back on the design wall.

I worked one or two blocks at a time, so that I didn't get confused about their placements. I also anticipated that the paper templates for one quadrant would be able to be used for other quadrants if I flipped or rotated them. Unfortunately, that did not work at all. Only one set of templates was able to be used twice. This meant that I had to finish and cut out the paper templates for the other two quadrants of the overall square composition. The other problem I had, is that when working with solids, and tracing pencil marks on them, it is important to put the pencil marks on the backs of the fabric. And since they are solids, there is no obvious 'back'. I usually just experiment, and either do it wrong first, or get it right. Either way, it requires some thought, and some ....what do you call it? ....remembering.... Ha ha!

I also made changes to the composition after I finished the quilt top. I had planned to make a big circle, like this:

And, I did. But the more I looked at it, the more I wanted to rip it apart in the middle and reposition the halves. So I did that too. And I like it better, thus, the finished piece at the top.

The last part was the quilting. I have an irritation fear of quilting. I never believe that I can actually do it, and have it look good...which makes it hard to start. Regardless of my successes and years of practice, this fear is my nemesis. I confess that I was eventually able to start, and it was challenging, but it all worked out. I love the circular lines in the yellow section, and the contrast of the straight lines in the blue section. I also frequently annoy myself with the quilting design by coming up with something that requires a lot of stops and starts and thread tucking. But it all works out! And it was nice to try this on a small quilt because it was so much easier to push through the machine. It was also fun to finish something so quickly after years of making big pieces that take a lot longer.