It's Christmas Time!

Okay, so, BBW was driving me crazy, and not in a good way. I realized that one of the things I like about quilting was the repetition and ease of it. It's not that it doesn't engage the brain,  but there is a rather soothing quality to the clear destination a quilt can provide. BBW was too much work, so I just wasn't working on it, which was no fun. I have a lot of ideas I want try out, and spending time not working on something fun was no good. 

So I started my Christmas Placemat plan.

And I got Quilt Pro 5, which doesn't seem as cool as Electric Quilt, but what can you do? I ran into a few pitfalls. I looked up placemat sizes online, and made the above pattern at 12 x 18. More on that later.

I also got the Alto Quilt-Cut system, which takes a part of quilting that I'm not to good at and made it a lot easier. All of my cut pieces came out uniform, and it took less than half the time. It's not perfect, but it's a lot better than what I was doing before.


And here is one "placemat" finished. I found out some things along the way, the first being that the initial double square I had planned for the middle wasn't really the best thought out. I took a pre-planned block from the Quilt-Pro, and stuck it into my layout. I checked the yardage requirements and thought I was good to go. Turned out that the middle square bits didn't fall into 1/8th inch increments. That was no good, as I couldn't really get a consistent cut between the pieces. I settled for just a plain square, after I cut out the bits for the more complicated middle square. The second issue was that I still am not getting a good consistent 1/4 inch seam.

I'm going to blame my sewing machine. :) Oh, it's probably me, but this machine isn't exactly top of the line. It's something my mom bought, so I have no idea when or where it came from. I taped a piece of paper to mark where the 1/4 inch seam is, but sometimes I make and sometimes I don't. I would like to get a new machine, but the Internet isn't being very helpful. I'm wary of going to a sewing machine shop, because I don't know which machines are rated well (there isn't a clear consensus online as to how brands compare) and I don't want to get some salesman who is working on commission. Consumer Reports is coming out with sewing machine ratings in February, but I don't know if I can wait that long! My friend Leslie has a Janome, so maybe I'll test hers out.


Oooh, another problem. 12x18 really isn't big enough for a placemat! I should have just looked at one I already had! This photo is my "placemat" on top of a correctly sized placemat. I was feeling pretty sorry for myself at this point, with all the cut out pieces I didn't use due to poor planning, and a wrong final size, due to poor planning. It was almost enough to make me give the whole thing up. But when the goings get tough, the tough make table runners! I used my original design idea, and sewed them together for a table runner. Which may or may not be how table runners were invented in the first place.

Here was another issue I should have thought of. I've made sawtooth blocks before, for my first quilt, and they involve flying geese. I didn't really think about it when I was cutting out the triangles in the photo. It was what Quilt-Pro recommended to cut out, so cut I did! I forgot that last time I made these, you use rectangles, and cut them down to the triangle part. It seemed like a lot of extra work at the time, but making them with the triangles already cut was more frustrating. The points were very flimsy and harder to pin and get through machine than if I had done them correctly.

This would make any long-time quilter laugh, and it's for posterity, but here's my stash. That's all I've got so far. If I'm still doing this in 20 years, I'll look back at this photo and laugh.

The Process

I got a lot of work done on BBW during the election coverage. I didn't realize how stressed out the entire process made me, until CNN called the election and I burst into tears. I was standing at the ironing board, trying to keep ironing and just crying. I couldn't stop! It was such an epic moment.

This is work I did tonight, in a step by step fashion. Here I've laid the elements I want to sew together. See that white slab above the cutting mat? I've been using that as a long ruler to cut long strips of fabric. Maybe I should get a real ruler for that...

And there are all the individual blocks waiting to be sewn together, and the layout they need to be on the computer screen. I've sewn them together the wrong way more than once, so I'm double checking now. 

I think it's starting to get pretty cool. And I'm over half way done! Surprisingly, after yellow and white, gray is the most used color. If you had asked me what colors where in this painting before I started this project, I don't think I would have even remembered that gray was a color in it. 

Slow Goings

Well, here's the next layer of BBW. This project can feel really tedious at times, as every piece of it is unique. I think there is something soothing in repetition, and this project doesn't exactly have it. I do enjoy seeing segments finished though, so it's not a total wash. I would like to revisit this theme someday, and see if I can't get some sort of "inspired by" quilt pattern created. Something with the same color scheme, but with more repeated elements, and actual blocks! I might need some distance from this particular imagery for a little bit, assuming I ever get it finished. I'm pretty sure my next project is going to be something small and Christmasy, like placemats. I think that would be pretty fun.

I don't have much family background in quilting, or really any sort of crafty activities. I do have, however, two antique quilts in the house, made by someone in the family. I know they are from my mom's side, and I wish she was here to tell me who made them, and how they are significant! I'll ask my one of my aunts, I hope they will know. This first one is an applique, and I like a lot of the fabrics used.

Look at those pretty red flowers!

And look at those misshapen circles! 


More interesting fabrics.
This quilt is amazing. Everything is perfect, and stitched so nicely. The fabrics are gorgeous as well.



I love the blue and orange flowers.


The quilt above has been sitting in my linen closet for years. My mom would never let us use it because it was too special. This is the first time I've ever actually looked at it, which is a shame because it is so pretty. I'll have to figure out some way to display it. Someone put a lot of work into it, and it deserves better than hiding on the bottom shelf of a closet no one ever looks in.

Inspiration in Unlikely Places

As an unemployed person, I've got a lot of time on my hands. This being the case, I decided to replay one of my favorite games, Final Fantasy XII. I've been rolling through the game, and what's this I see on the wall?

That looks like a quilt pattern on the wall. Who can care about manufacted nethicite when there is patterning to be done?
I scoured the internet for screencaps of the scene that showed the pattern, and captured the photo below from a youtube video.
Then I sat down with Illlustrator and tried to recreate the pattern. It took me awhile, and it's not exactly the same, but I think it would make a pretty nice looking quilt. I didn't get the small triangles on the outer triangle (that doesn't make any sense to anyone else I bet) and maybe when I'm more restful I'll see about adding them.
I think this will be my next project. I like the planning stage, but I know better than to stop work on BBW, no matter how frustrating I'm finding that particular quilt at the moment. I'm also going to need a few days to figure out yardage and piece sizes for what I'm going to call Fantasy, in honor of the game. Illustrator is not the best for creating quilts, and I really wish they made Electric Quilt for the Mac. I'll have to figure something better than Illustrator out. At least for Fantasy I'll only need to figure out two squares, instead of with BBW where there are no real repeating elements.

Quilting, A young woman's game?

These poorly shot things are the strips I have been using to create the BBW quilt. When all the edges are joined, the finished size vertically is 1 inch, so I've been working with a grid and using these pieces as building blocks. It's more complicated than it needs to be, and it's definitely been a labor of love. If I really didn't want to create this (which I'm not sure why I do!) I would have pooped out on this project. 

I stand by the choice to have a quilted element, rather than a straight copy, but if I had it to start again, I might not choose the strip element, just because it's a fussy way to do it. I don't mind the way it looks though, put together. These photos don't really show the detail well, but I'll take better close-ups when I'm closer to finishing.

I've been going back and forth to Portland to try and keep up the moving effort, and I stopped in Aurora on my way up when I saw a sign saying they had an antique store. I've been trying to furnish my new place with antiques, so I've hit almost every store between Salem and Portland, and all down 99. 

Aurora has more than an antique store, it has many. And they all have good stuff, and lots of furniture, which is what I've been mainly looking for. But the most exciting thing, was that there was also a Quilt Show going on. I'm kicking myself for not taking my camera. There weren't that many quilts, but there were some very impressive ones. I was there on a Friday, so there weren't that many people there but the average age was 40+. It seems like this is the case with a lot of the blog I've been reading as well. Married with, or with out kids is common too. 

It feels a little isolating. I've been entering baked good in the fair as well, and these aren't young people's hobbies. Granted, I haven't looked everywhere on the internet or around town, but it would be nice to have people more my own age involved in this.

Quilting Like a Sailor

I've got a new project. 

When I was a kid, I had a book of Western art history. I used to pour over the pages looking at the various painting from the 15th century to modern art, and it fascinated me. My mother asked me my favorite piece, and I always said it was Broadway Boogie Woogie by Piet Mondrian, pictured below.

I'm very sure I wouldn't claim it as my favorite painting now (not that I could name a favorite right this second), but it's always held a special place in my heart. 

It is however, made of squares! And what's better for quilting? So I decided I wanted to recreate it in quilt form.

The debate in my mind then becomes, should I try and recreate this exactly with fabric instead of paint, or use the template of the painting and use quilting methods to make it art in a quilt form?

When it's phrased like that, it should be obvious that I am aiming for the latter. HOWEVER, this  project so far has been an exercise in frustration! The first quilt was easy! Someone else figured out the yardage, the pattern, how to cut, how much to do, but in this project I'm on my own, which has lead to a lot of swearing on my part. I'm building a template matching the original proportions in illustrator, and using that and a grid to figure out how to put it together but it's been frustration and long process.

I had originally thought to make the squares into 9-patches of solid color, unlike the one below. I figured that would add to the quilt like quality.

The scale of the project makes that difficult. The nine patch above would have a finished size of 3x3. The squares in my quilt would be 1x1, and I just can't wrap my mind around that. It's sort of hard to see, but the squares on the nine-patch are made up of three strips sewn together. It's my compromise between a pure copy and a quilted touch.

Sewing together all the strips (at 1.5 inch width when all three pieces are sew together), and making the illustrator guide have been really time consuming.

Each of the strips took a day.

I've also been focusing a lot more on matching the seams, as it's a really geometric design, and the iron has seen a lot more use.

Here is two more days of work, mostly due to my own miscalculations, and a computer crash. I've sworn more in genuine frustration doing this project than any other time in my life!  The rest of the row I'm working on should go pretty quickly, as there are larger white spaces, and I pre-cut 1 inch finished size squares.

A lot of quilters name their quilts, so the tentative title for this one is BBW, which unfortunately is also an acronym women sometimes put in dating ads meaning Big Beautiful Woman. I'll keep thinking about it.