"Shaking the Winter Blues" (in more ways than one) . . .

Yesterday morning, I awoke around 6:00 a.m. (yeah, on a Saturday, when I could just as easily sleep in).  I went to my studio to work on "Shaking the Winter Blues."  I had finished the top Wednesday night, and it was spread out on my worktable.

I prepared the flannel backing, and spent over an hour pressing the seams flat on the top.

I safety-pinned the two layers together, and started marking and quilting . . . I'm about one-quarter done.  I'm listening to an audio book, "Dexter by Design," and I'm halfway done.


In other news, yesterday was "a Christmas day deferred."  Ed and I went shopping for gifts:  I bought him French Rosetta Stone; he bought me Electric Quilt 7 (I've been using EQ4 for years).  The store had to order the Rosetta Stone I wanted (it will be delivered to my office in about a week).

Reading the EQ7 manual was exciting; I could see the possibilities stretching ahead of me.  I didn't attempt to load the EQ7 software until late last night (a mistake) . . . no matter what I tried, it wouldn't load.  And the Electric Quilt Company only answers questions and handles technical problems during business hours, Monday through Friday.  Now, THAT'S a load, LOL!!

Guess I'll go back to quilting . . .


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Shaking the Winter Blues, top 64% complete . . .

Here's a look at "Shaking the Winter Blues" so far . . . I hope to finish the top over the weekend.  If so, I'll start quilting it next week.

"Shaking the Winter Blues," Part Two

The last time I posted about this quilt was June 1, 2010 . . . How did the time get away from me??  That was before we moved, and what I'd worked on got packed in a box.  Now that my studio is "up and running" as it were, I ready to tackle this quilt again.

In case you may have missed my earlier post, this is a drawing of the proposed quilt:

The pattern is a 3-shape tessellation:  alternating, interlocking light/dark blue pinwheels on a background of orange stars and yellow on-point squares.  This pattern features what I call an Integrated Border:  the red border mimics the arms of the blue pinwheels, extending into the body of the quilt to frame the orange stars and yellow squares.  The light and dark blue fabrics are left over from my "Winter Blues" quilt.  In that quilt, each pinwheel was consistently one color.  This time around, I'm "mixing it up."
This past week, I've been sewing squares for this quilt.  The pattern requires thirteen different colorations of the same square!!

Here's the square for the four corners:

Here's the two squares for when a dark pinwheel extends into the border:

Here's the two squares for when a light pinwheel extends into the border:

Here are the four squares for a dark blue pinwheel.  Three of the four squares are for use along the outside of the quilt body, hence the red border pinwheel arms.  Only the lower left square is used throughout the interior of the quilt body to make dark blue pinwheels.

Here are the four squares for a light blue pinwheel.  Three of the four squares are for use along the outside of the quilt body, hence the red border pinwheel arms.  Only the lower right square is used throughout the interior of the quilt body to make light blue pinwheels.

I'm currently laying out these squares on my worktable to see the pattern emerge, and to gimme ideas for square placement.  I'm also sewing more squares as I go; I only started with eight each of the twelve colorations, but I know I'll need more in order to use up as many squares as possible.

I'm thinking of safety-pinning the squares together, so I can easily move the piece around the worktable as it grows.  I'll post pictures of THAT when I get there.


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"Shaking the Winter Blues," revised . . .

A couple of weekends ago, I started sewing squares for my "Shaking the Winter Blues" quilt. I started with stacks of cut fabric like this . . .

I sewed the first two pieces to my muslin foundations to see how far they'd go. I sewed two different squares . . . I sewed eighty light blue and orange pieces (until I ran out of light blue), then I sewed 100 dark blue and orange pieces (until I ran out of orange).

I calculate that I can make twenty 4-patch blocks of light blue, and twenty-five 4-patch blocks of dark blue, for a total of 45 4-patch blocks. Knowing how many blocks I have to work with, I drew the quilt again.

I sewed red pieces to a limited number of squares for the border blocks.

Now, I'm sewing blue pieces to the remaining squares.

(I'll be at this for a while . . .)

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Has it really been two weeks since I've posted??

I could say, "my, how time flies when you're having fun," but I'd be lying . . .

It's been pretty much "business as usual" (until recently) . . .

Saturday, I started working on "Shaking the Winter Blues." I sewed the first two pieces to eighty foundations for one colorway, and started sewing the first two pieces to foundations for the alternating colorway (I just don't know how many, yet). Once I have an accurate count, then I can determine how big this piece will be (I'm determined to use up ALL that leftover fabric).

I hope to post some pics, soon . . .


Today, a friend on Facebook told me I'm on page 35 of the latest issue of Quilter's Home . . . now, I've got to find a local shop that sells the magazine.


Next weekend (Memorial Day weekend), I'll be attending the first International Society of African-American Quilters conference, here in St. Louis . . . I'll even be presenting design workshops. I'm pretty excited about that.


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Shaking the Winter Blues . . .

Last week I mentioned I had a lot of leftover fabric from my Winter Blues quilt . . . well, I've come up with a way to get rid of it. Granted, I'm limited to the same pattern as before, since all the blue fabric has already been cut in only three shapes. What I need is a different background (instead of the black I used before).

I decided to use warm colors for the stars, squares, and border: yellow for the squares; orange for the stars; and, dark red for the border.


What do you think of it?? This is just my preliminary drawing of the final quilt (the actual colors may vary, depending on what catches my eye at the fabric store). I may even "mix it up" a bit with several shades of the different colors (three different yellows, oranges, and reds).


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