No. 11 Part 3

No. 11

78.5" x 53.5"

Part 3

Taking a negative and turning it into a positive. This was made from the outtakes of No. 9, and has been turned into the central theme of No. 11. Working on this project was so very helpful. I firmly believe that art heals. Gardening also heals and helps manage my depression and anxiety. So when it is too early in the season to work in the garden, this project was a perfect distraction!

Note, while this quilt does not technically have any half square triangles, it was the next in this new series of work. And it was made from parts from a quilt that does have a lot of half square triangles. It feels like it belongs, and so I am keeping it here.

After the background was quilted, I appliqued the flowers and stems by hand, and then I needed to quilt the flowers. I used a cutout freezer paper template (pressed into place), to help design the quilting lines for the flowers. The 1/4" masking tape is a bit difficult to turn such tight curves smoothly, but it gets easier as the curves get bigger. 

Ready to free motion quilt now! (and then repeat the process for the other 3 flowers!).

To finish the edges, I saved the very last color at the ends of the gradients for the binding. My binding was going to be 1/4", so it blends seamlessly with the color strips. 

I also opted to extend the flowers into the binding. I don't know why, it just looked right to me.

Last is the hanging tube, label on the back, and photographing the completed work. We took it up to the top of Mount Bonnell for a "quilts in the wild" photo! I didn't realize it was so windy that day, which made it a big challenging! For your viewing pleasure!

No. 11 Part 2

No. 11

78.5 x 53.5

part 2

Once I inserted the first set of strips, I opted to rotate the entire piece by 90 degrees. Notice how subtle the effect of the gradation is now with the 1/4" strips sewn into place.

Then I began slicing for the next step, the insertion of the other colorway of tiny strips of warm colored fabrics. 

Here is the obvious reason for turning the piece sideways.  Once the cuts above have been made, I can now pin the color strips in position, and with gravity, they hang down with a single pin.  Also note that my fabric stash did not always have pieces that were long enough for a single strip, so some of these had to be pieced together before inserting.

My hand for scale to show how narrow those little strips are!

Nearly there, approaching the last seams to sew for the background.

Next up, I decided to quilt the background before appliqueing the large foreground design. The advantage is that I will not have to do a lot of starts and stops while quilting, and no ensuing threads to tuck. It is an edge to edge quilting design without the applique. The disadvantage is that appliqueing to a quilt top is easier than appliqueing to a quilted quilt because there is less bulk to hold in your hand, and especially true for a large piece. Nonetheless, that was my choice this time.

First, the basting, then the quilting. 

Note that I have my quilting guide attached to my machine! Love that little tool. 

It is amazing to me how much work is involved in making a piece that will read so simplistically!

Trying out the placement of a flower before quilting.

For my next post, the big reveal, some additional shots of quilting and the specialized binding.

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. 10

No. 10

50.5 x 32

I like to imagine hoards of little liberal blues marching right up and over the evil felon rapist lying dark hump of our new president/administration. Yeah, that guy.
I made this one so quickly that I did not take a lot of process shots. It is a whole cloth with one black hump pieced into it. And then I pieced all the HST blocks, turned their edges under, and appliqued to the surface. 

Here is the whole cloth with the white paper template for the hump. I have arrange some blue construction paper squares around it so that I will know how many HST blocks to make. This is design work at full scale!

Here is a closeup of the appliqued blocks.

The quilting took a while, but not too bad. I was worried that starting the vertical lines in the center of the quilt might mean that small errors repeated over time would add up to distorted lines at the edges of the quilt. So, I used my rotary ruler to check my accuracy after quilting every 4 or 5 lines. And, I was right, I was getting increasingly off. However, this allowed me to make small corrections and keep the lines mostly parallel through the body of the piece. YAY!!

No. 9 Part 3

No. 9

Part 3: the quilting

I wanted to quilt the background in 1/2" lines. I don't remember if I have shown you this cool gadget. It attaches to the walking foot and guides your quilting lines with almost any spacing that you want. And you can attach it to the left or right side of the walking foot. It is very helpful and very versatile.

The only down side is that it is hard to change a bobbin with it attached.  After stitching the sample, I was satisfied that it would work!

I did some edge stitching on the stripes, and then completed the stitching in 1/2" intervals. If you remember all the humps, you will quickly realize that it meant a lot of starts and stops. I prefer doing the starts and stops vs. a continuous back and forth because the tension looks better. 

The next section that I wanted to do were the arcs. I did this with a free motion foot. And, I was worried about spacing the narrow lines because the arcs have varying widths along the length. It was harrowing!! But, once completed, it looked really good and I sighed a big sigh of relief!

Last, I quilted the half square triangle blocks inside the humps. The little blocks got a diagonal cross hatch. I LOVE how the texture looks in this lighting!

The slightly larger blocks got all 1/4" parallel lines (again with lots of starts and stops).

And, one last photo of the quilting from the back side:

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. 9

No. 9

79" x 39"

As I work my way through my grief by quilting, it seems natural that prominent themes and events of my life invade the work that was only going to be about abstract sewing. The HST series was a distraction, a way to work without thinking too much. Or so I thought. Now the emotions are creeping in.

This piece is about my first Thanksgiving without my mother who died last year. My family size continues to shrink with her death, and with people emotionally drifting away. The empty chairs are evidence of the unexpected reality of shifting family dynamics.

The process of making:

I began by selecting a color palette and cutting out strips of colors for the background. All the colors are different and I tried to make it a gradient. I really struggle with gradients because I tend to get more interested in the tint of the color than the value of the color. Maybe it needs both to be a successful gradient? I sewed the background in sections because the smaller parts were easier to handle until the last seam was sewn.

Slicing and inserting the color strips. 

The completed top for the background. This is before I cut out the shapes for the arcs and humps. 

This work was sketched first onto some heavy weight paper for the pattern.

Here it is on my dining table, using a few "weights" from the kitchen.  Ha ha!

Here are the shapes cut out and placed on the background.This is the back side of the background piece. I traced the shapes with colored pencils onto the back side fabric. The slightly thick paper made it easy to trace the shapes. Then I cut on the inside of each pencil line by 1/4" for the seam allowance. Note: I only cut one at a time and then inserted the HST hump before trying the next one. I was worried that the seams would start coming unsewn before the piecing was complete, so I stay-stitched each line that I cut out. 

The construction of this work felt like making two different quilts, and then combining them. I will show the rest of the process on the next post.