Time for the third Frivols box to reveal its secrets, and to be made into a quilt.
I loved the reproduction/traditional fabrics as they appealed to another side of my fabric-loving self. I don’t usually buy these, but I enjoyed working with the rich colors and rich surface pattern.
More information is on the bottom of the tin, such as size and additional fabrics required.
Moda’s blog post about this indicates that a bunch of smaller blocks can be made, instead of these larger blocks. Okey-dokey, but no. The cards are inspirational (I blurred out the measurements for their bonus block for copyright reasons), and again include the directions for another block on the back. Okey-dokey, but no.
After cutting them according to the directions, I stacked them up, and put them back into their tin.
Now to report on the Painter’s Palette Solids Giveaway.
The Random Number Generator picked #21: Cathy C. Congratulations to Cathy–I’ve sent you an email letting you know. Thank you to all who entered my little giveaway!
I have finished Frivols #2, and maybe it was just because I was listening to another Maisie Hobbs mystery, but I had things go awry in a couple of places. Because of this I thought I’d lead off with where I went wrong.
So, this went right. I stitched together the four smaller HST to yield this little cornered square.
But now…those corner blocks! Was I supposed to do all navy blue in making these? Some red? All the red? The pattern doesn’t give you specific directions on this one. I had cut all the quarter-square triangles from the 4″ squares–cutting up blue, red and cream, sewed them together as they showed, and was now left with this quandary.
So I had my pile of trued-up HST made from the smaller squares, and now a pile of cut quarter square triangles. I didn’t catch this little bit: “make matched sets.” That means the same blue and the same cream will create a “set.” The same red and the same cream. I didn’t do that, so my corners are a lot more red and the quilt is a bit more scrappy.
I did the best I could. I chose to get the “set” with the lighter fabrics, and yet you can see there is that one wild-card darker fabric, lower left. It’s supposed to match the one on the other side.
The real quilt shown on the front of the card is slightly different than the drawing of the quilt, and that’s where I became stumped. My advice is to use a large table, or your ironing board, or something and lay out all the squares and their split corners.
Because I used more red in the making of the centers, I had less of that for the outer split (quarter-triangle) corners, as well as for the outer border. Oh well. Back to the philosophical part of the brain, realizing that I’ve had these Frivols tins for over a year and it won’t matter to anyone how they get sewn up.
Pressing on. First two split-corners are sewn on, and I’m now doing the other two, and trimming dog-ears.
When squaring up your blocks, pay attention to: 1) the diagonals, 2) where those little triangles on the sides and top point to. You want it to be visually fluid.
After 55 permutations on the design wall, I’m good to go. And that’s the end of the nighttime photo shots.
Border #1 attached.
Border #2, after figuring out all the version of the triangles and where they go (I wish I’d had a few more reds…). Yes, the border’s a bit long, and not perfect. (A truth: rotary cutters erase mistakes and never gossip.)
I found a backing I liked that was busy enough, layered it into a quilt sandwich and began my FMQ the way I always do: trying to figure out what to do. I didn’t want to do a million little stitch-in-the-ditch lines. So I went to my IG hashtag #fmq and found this idea: a ribbony frame for the center, and I added the small four-petal flower.
So I’m always trying to connect the dots between today’s patchwork and our fine history, and think this could be a connection: if you erase the middle of that block, and put in that square-in-a-square, you’ve got it. Nancy Cabot (from the 1930s) called that block a Cock’s Comb, but certainly it’s not the same.
But for my title of Windowpane, the repeated themes of squares and angles reminded me of a window I saw once in a Loire Valley chateau.
This is the story of the design of my quilt Annularity. It is also the story of Annularity II, which will hang at QuiltCon in Paintbrush Studios Booth.
Annularity II
Quilt Number 194
Designed and Pieced by Elizabeth Eastmond
Quilted by Natalia Bonner
59″ square
The story of this begins when I was contacted by the fine people at Paintbrush Studios, who make the ever-lovely Painter’s Palette Solids. I submitted one design for review, time passed, things changed; I thought the process was dead in the water.
But I had all these lovely fabrics, so we started the process again.
I played around in QuiltPro, my favorite quilt design program and came up with the above design messes.
I showed them to Simone, seeking advice, and she said, “Don’t forget the white.” Negative space is critical, but sometimes you get in the weeds of a thing and you can’t see your way clear.
Given that the Great American Eclipse was on my mind, I started calling my quilt Annularity:
I began building the quilt top, remembering the white. But when I got to the outer edges, something still wasn’t right. A designer can do all the designing they want to, but then the fabric takes over and slowly, the outer edges morphed from the planned design to what you see at the very top. Then there was the problem of the center.
I tried lots of combinations: yellow, aqua, violet, maroon but finally finished with periwinkle, one of my favorite colors in the Painter’s Palette Solids line-up. I finished it and when Paintbrush Studios told me that Natalia Bonner was going to quilt it, I was over the moon, because I quite admire her work. I bundled up the quilt, sent it off, and then waited. And waited. And waited. And I began to wonder, even though I’d tracked it to her address, if it had gotten lost. I worried, then did the next best thing:
I made another.
In the rush, I didn’t have all the correct fabrics, so some are pieced. But then I heard from Natalia that she had the quilt. Whew! Since it’s going to be hanging in the booth at QuiltCon 2018 in Pasadena, I gave the first one a new name, since now there were two in the world: Annularity II.
Pineapple Fabrics has the complete line of colors needed to make this design, and you can soon buy the quilt pattern from them. Come and see Annularity II in the Paintbrush Studios booth, #905.
But I’ll be quilting mine, Annularity, bit by bit, sharing that experience as I proceed. In the meantime, enjoy the photos of Natalia’s fine work:
For those of you who live in the United States, you may have seen this picture of this Florida high schooler, standing in front of a wall that reminds me of a log cabin quilt, and who died in our recent shooting in Florida on Valentine’s Day. For those of you who live outside the United States, you may wonder what is wrong with our country. I have no answers for that.
But I do hope to honor this young woman’s memory — and the memory of others who have died in yet another American mass shooting — by writing letters and calling my Congressman and my Senators, telling them how I feel about this.
I recognize it is a puny gesture, and I may yet find other ways to add my voice to join that of David Hogg, one young man who was caught in the middle of this, when he implored us to take action when he said: “We’re children. You guys are the adults.”
The backing is an oldie from the stash; I deliberated whether or not to use it as I was “saving it for just the right quilt” but am so glad I decided to use it. I love it with the wintery theme of this quilt — just the right colors.
My quilter did a great job, using one of my favorite edge-to-edge patterns: a swirling loop-de-loop.
I’m sewing the binding on another quilt that I’ve kept under wraps for nearly six months. It will hang in a booth at QuiltCon, so the time is getting closer to showing you all, but first I have to make the label and get that sewn on. Soon, very soon.
I finished the first Frivol and I finished it early — before the end of January, so I was pretty happy with THAT deadline. As I was making it, I was thinking about my friend Caitlin, who is having a girl after two boys. I decided she just needed this feminine quilt that isn’t so fussy, that it couldn’t be thrown down on the ground when the family has a picnic.
It’s my first finish in this year; 2017 saw sixteen finishes, but a lot of them were smaller quilts, so it’s nice to lead off with a good-sized quilt.
I used Carolyn Friedlander’s white-on-white cross-hatch design (from her Architextures line) for the sashing and accent, and then used another white-on-white heart print for the borders.
A lot of contemporary quilters are notorious for not owning up to the traditional name of the block, and this group was no exception. The block has several names, the most common being “Chimney Sweep,” and it was first published in 1929 by Ruth Finley (I get all my info from Barbara Brackman’s Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns). It’s also known as “Christian Cross” (from a book published by the Shelburne Museum that listed all their quilts).
This backing is from a fabric from about a decade ago.
I quilted it in an overall lazy large meander, and bound it with a fabric that was a nice companion to the Bonnie and Camille line, interspersed with bits of the fabric from the leftover squares, as I don’t plan to make an extra block for a sampler quilt (one feature of the Frivols tins).
My review: if you are a Bonnie and Camille fan, this box is for you. I haven’t ever sewn with their line, and part of why I’m doing this is to learn about other styles of fabrics. I found the repetitive blocks easy, once I learned about the misprint measurement. Resolved: I’m going to look up any errata (errors) first, before I start cutting. But overall, it didn’t hold my attention, nor was I fascinated with the fabrics or the block. I guess I’ve spent too much designing my own quilts as well as working in highly saturated colors and splashy patterns. But, like I said, good to have a change.
It will be perfect for Catlin’s little baby girl. On to Frivols #2 in February.
January 2018 • No. 1 – Hello Darling by Bonnie & CamilleDONE! February 2018 • No. 2 – Polka Dots & Paisleys by Minick & Simpson March 2018 • No. 3 – Eliza’s Indigo by Betsy Chutchian April 2018 • No. 4 – Windermere by Brenda Riddle May 2018 • No. 5 – Petite Prints Deux by French General June 2018 • No. 6 – Strawberry Fields Revisited by Fig Tree July 2018 • No. 7 – Songbird Gatherings by Primitive Gatherings August 2018 • No. 8 – Bread ‘n Butter by American Jane September 2018 • No. 9 – Little Miss Sunshine by Lella Boutique October 2018 • No. 10 – The Cookie Exchange by Sweetwater November 2018 • No. 11 – Sew & Sew by Chloe’s Closet December 2018 • No. 12 – Blue Barn by Laundry Basket Quilts
OccasionalPiece--Quilt! 