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.

Studio Tour, 2010!! (Part 2)

Earlier this month, I gave you a tour of my proposed studio space . . . the place was a wreck!!  Well, slow but sure, I've been working on the room:  moving boxes into the closet (mostly); and, setting up my worktable, sewing table, and ironing table (finally!!).  Here's what the room looks like from the stairs coming up from the 2nd floor:

Now, here's standing at the top of the stairs (my latest quilt top, "Winter Blues," is on my worktable):

Turning to the left you see my sewing area.  I've placed two long tables at a 90 degree angle; the table to the left is good for holding the quilt I'm feeding through the sewing machine.

To the left of the sewing area is my ironing table.  I made this table from a 3 ft. by 6 ft. sheet of plywood, covered with batting and that silverish ironing board cover material, stapled down.  The ironing table is supported by a pair of sawhorses at  waist height.  Of course, you can't see any of this because of the quilts stacked on top of it, LOL!!  These quilts are for an upcoming exhibit at a local gallery.  I want the quilts to lay as flat as possible (to ease out "folding wrinkles").

Here are a couple of shots of what's on my worktable.  I love this worktable because it's large (4 ft. by 8 ft.) and stands about 36 in. tall (waist height).  I can comfortable stand and work at the table without bending over (which can be murder on the back!!).

Here's a closer view of my pinning, marking, and stitching on this quilt.  Because I used foundation piecing, I only back the quilt with a layer of flannel.  I pin the top to the back with safety pins at the four corners and at the center of each square.  I am quilting a grid at a 45-degree angle, dividing the squares into thirds.  To mark the quilting lines, I lay my acrylic ruler where I want the line, then run the dull, back edge of a regular table knife along the ruler several times.  This leaves a depression on the fabric and a shiny line (kinda like a suit that's been pressed one too many times).  I pin across the line the distance of the width of my palm.  Then, I stitch.  The stitching lines never come close to the safety pins, which I'll remove once the entire quilt is done.

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"Winter Blues" part 4.999 . . .

Yes, at long last, the quilt top is complete!! . . . I've stapled the quilt to the wall in my office, so I can look at it every day. One of my New Year's resolutions is to learn free-motion quilting . . . this quilt will be one of the first ones (after I've had plenty of practice, that is)!!

Here's a detail picture of a single pinwheel . . .

I used two different blacks in this quilt: one with gold stars and spots for the background, and one with dark gray spots for the border . . . this pic shows how the border extends into the body of the quilt, mimicking the arms of the pinwheels, which extend into the border of the quilt. I'd like to think of this as an "integrated border," the border is an integral component of the design, and not just four strips of fabric slapped on . . .

I still have plenty of leftover blue fabrics already cut out . . . except for the dark and light blue fabrics I bought to supplement the supply, there aren't enough pieces in any given color to make complete pinwheels. I'm thinking of "mixing it up" with the fabrics, maintaining the light/dark contrast between the pinwheels, but giving the pinwheels more of a "scrappy" look. I'm thinking of changing the background/border to yellow/orange/red instead of black (which I'll use to make a couple of dark pinwheels in the body of the quilt. What do you think of that??

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"Winter Blues" part 4.66

I took a vacation day yesterday to take our car to the shop . . . we'd gotten snow overnight, and the highways taking Ed to work weren't in the best condition. The worst weather day of the year, and I'm out in it to get our car repaired!! (The weather was bad enough that the courts closed for the day, which meant I took a vacation day for nothing!!)

I spent the day, sewing . . . this is as deep as the quilt will get. From here on out, it'll only get wider (three more columns of pinwheels, plus border.

Hopefully, I can finish it over the weekend . . . start on a new project next week!!

"Winter Blues," part 4.45

Yesterday, I called in sick (actually, I told the office manager Monday afternoon that I wouldn't be in) . . . I had an entire day of Nyquil, megadoses of vitamin C, echinacea, liquids, and a little quilting. I added another column on the right and another row on the bottom. I have 3.5 columns and 1.5 rows to go!!

"Winter Blues," part 4.26

After I finished sewing the squares for the "Winter Blues" quilt, I was eager to start assembling the blocks . . .

This is as far as I got, this weekend . . .

This represents 26% of the entire quilt . . . there's more to come.

"Winter Blues" part 3.5

When I last posted about this project, I left you with a pic of the piles of cut fabric on my worktable . . .

There are two reasons why this turned out to be a good thing: the final quilt will have alternating pinwheels in light and dark blue. Arranging the piles like this let me see what's next to what.

The second reason I liked this arrangement of piles is that each pinwheel block has elements of the surrounding pinwheels within it. Having alternating piles of pieces on the table helped when it came to piecing the squares. I could easily see what fabrics appear above, below, and to the sides of any given pinwheel.

Of course, that was the middle of November . . . then, "life got in the way" and I did nothing with the pieces.

On Christmas Day, I started piecing the squares. I needed 140 of 'em for the body of the quilt. With only a week left in the old year, I pieced up a storm . . . I managed to sew 60 squares over that weekend.

During the week, I continued to sew squares. I pushed to finish sewing the squares before year's end, if possible. About two-thirds of the way, I discovered a piecing mistake I'd consistently made. Now, there was no way I was gonna rip out all that stitching, so I changed the design "on the fly" as it were (twice, even). I'm eager (and curious) to see what the changes will bring. I'm not even gonna tell ya what they are . . . when I'm finished with the quilt, we'll see 'em together. The changes may be too subtle to be noticed, but we'll see.

Now, after a week of hard sewing, I'm pleased to say that I finished sewing all the squares for the body of the quilt . . . 140 squares, in all. I'll need another 52 squares for the pieced border, but for the moment, I'm not gonna worry about the border (though there are gonna be changes there, as well).

When I cut the fabric, I cut ALL the fabric, knowing that I'd have some leftovers . . . not enough to make full pinwheels, though. These are the leftover pieces. The dark and light blue fabrics in the upper row were the fabrics I bought to supplement the fabrics in the swap; there's more than enough of those pieces to make complete one-color pinwheels. The dark and light blue fabrics in the lower row are "fabric swap" leftovers. There are not enough pieces to make complete pinwheels. What I have in mind is to arrange them by value and use them to make "scrappy" pinwheels, alternating with solid pinwheels (as well as alternating light/dark). But, I have other plans in mind for THAT quilt (like a yellow/orange/red background).

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"Winter Blues" part 3.0

Well, the pieces of my "Winter Blues" quilt sat on my worktable for too long . . . for far too long.

On Christmas Day, I started sewing . . . I decided I'd prefer to have this last project of 2009 done this year (what's left of it).

I need 168 squares for the quilt (and border) . . . as of this moment, I have 80 squares completed.

I WILL finish the top by the end of the week, and the end of the year (at least, that's my intention).

(Pics to come . . .)

"Winter Blues" part 2.5

Below are pictures of my proposed layout of the pinwheels in "Winter Blues." I will alternate light and dark blues. In the foreground of the first pic are the additional fabrics for the stars, squares, and border (and extra light and dark blue pinwheel fabric). Laying out the cut pieces like this allows me to keep track of which pinwheels touch (and, aids in piecing).

Now, to clean and oil my sewing machine . . . I should start sewing this weekend.

My next post will give a step-by-step tutorial on the foundation piecing method I use.




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"Winter Blues" part 2

It took me a week, but I managed to cut all the pieces of my new quilt from about 21 yards of fabric (29 fat quarters, 3.5 yds. light blue, 3.5 yds. dark blue, 3.5 yds. black with gold stars, and 3.5 yds. black with gray spots), but who's counting??

Here's where I would have inserted pics of the piles of cut fabric if my !@#$%^&*!!! camera hadn't crapped out on me!! I can see 'em just fine on the display screen; I can see 'em to download to my computer; but, I just can't open any of the files to edit, etc., etc., etc. . . . no doubt, you've seen pics of cut fabrics before (but, I wanted to show you MINE!!). Crap or no, the images uploaded just fine, GRRRRR (and, not in a good way).

These are the dark blues (though some seem more blue-green) . . .

These are most of the fabrics cut . . .

I even have pics of the two fabrics I decided NOT to use in this quilt (they didn't say "winter" to me, and they were most definitely NOT blue). They were among the fabrics of the swap, but why should someone else's fabric choices be reflected in MY quilt?? If it'll make those persons feel better, they can choose to not use my fabric in their quilts (but, my fabric IS most definitely blue, and they'll be hard-pressed to know which one is mine).

These are the two blacks I'm using (believe me they're black, even though they look more navy in this pic) . . .

These are the light blues, prior to cutting . . .

These are stacks of cut dark blues. Each of these stacks were cut from a single fat quarter, except for the group in the upper left corner of the pic . . . that's about 3.5 yrds. of fabric I bought to "fill in." Each fat quarter stack will make 1.5 pinwheels (though I'm only using complete pinwheels in this quilt). I have a total of 28 different fabrics to make 35 pinwheels, so I bought extra dark and light fabric to make up the difference. I may go for a "scrappy" look with whatever's left.

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"Winter Blues" part 1.5

I've been busy cutting fabric for the new quilt . . . while cutting, I've been busy thinking, too. I decided to make a change (or two) to the design.

I generally don't add borders to my quilts. Somewhere along the way, I read one should add borders to a quilt "to set it apart from the wall." Well, with my quilts, I think if you can't tell where the quilt ends and the wall begins, why do you need my quilt on your wall anyway?? LOL!!

This time, I decided to add a black border around the quilt for the sole purpose of extending the pinwheel arms into it. I didn't like the "chopped off" quality of the outer pinwheels; I wanted complete pinwheels throughout. This is what I came up with.



I liked the look . . . what do you think of it??

A little later, I thought "if my quilt extends into the border, why can't the border extend into the quilt"?? I tried something else . . . in the drawing below, I used gray for the border to show how it mimics the pinwheel arms, extending into the body of the quilt. It also helps to define the shape of the stars.



Actually, this may be more subtle than the drawing shows: my actual fabric for the stars and squares is a black with gold stars and dots printed on it . . . I bought black fabric with mulberry spots printed on it for the border. We'll have to wait and see how it turns out.

Either way, I DO like the idea of a border that incorporates elements of the overall design in it. I think I'll call this an "integrated" border because of its mimicry as well as outlining shapes in the pattern. Cool idea, huh??

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"Winter Blues" part 1

Below is my initial drawing for my "Winter Blues" quilt. There are two other drawings: one has white for the background instead of black (but, I've already bought the black fabric); the other has orange for the background (but, it looked more Fall than Winter). I've made this quilt several times before: once in shades of purple; and, once in shades of brown (both are on my website under "Gallery."


This is an easy quilt to make . . . it only requires the same same square colored two different ways as shown below. I believe the number of colorways is the key to the level of difficulty for my patterns: many of my patterns require the same square colored four different ways, while my "Mardi Gras Men" quilt required NINE different colorways!!

Now, I have fifteen light blue fat quarters and thirteen dark blue fat quarters for this quilt from the fabric swap. I bought an additional 3.5 yards of light and dark blue fabric and a black fabric with gold stars for the background (pics to come). I know I can get 1.5 pinwheel from each fat quarter (and a lot more from the additional yardage).

I'm thinking about cutting the fabric into strips wide enough to accommodate my templates; then, cut the fabric into my desired shapes; then, shuffle the stacks so I don't use two of the same fabrics in any given square. Then, with muslin foundations at the ready, I'll sew the fabric to the foundations (reshuffling the stacks of pieces as needed). After I've sewn all the squares, I'll sort 'em by colorway. Since the pattern has a light/dark contrast going on, I'm not gonna be too concerned if the pinwheels aren't entirely the same fabric (there will be more pinwheels from the additional yardage, anyway). There are several fabrics that don't match my perception of "blue" but I'm gonna use 'em anyway; I hope to diffuse their lack of "blueness" by spreading 'em out.

Next up: the fabrics.

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Time to make something pretty . . . Winter Blues

I'm a member of the Yahoo! QuiltGuy group . . . recently, I participated in a fabric swap with the theme of "Winter Blues," but with the Chicago '09 tour and writing and all, I haven't had a chance to do any sewing.

That's gonna change . . .

I've decided on an original pattern, with an eye toward self-publishing (I just can't get away from writing, can I??). I've also decided to post the project as a "work-in-progress" here on my blog, from initial drawing to cutting fabric to constructing the foundation squares to assembling the top to quilting to binding.

Keep your eyes peeled . . . better yet, leave your eyes alone and peel me a grape!!

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