Quilts

My Small World, June 2015 edition

June 17, 2015June 17, 2015 Elizabeth E.22 Comments

I don’t often jump on the Latest and Greatest Thing in QuiltLand, but this one called my name. It’s Jen Kingwell’s My Small World and was printed in the oh-so-elusive QuiltMania Spring issue 2015 (picture above is from the QuiltMania website). I don’t know why you are making it (there is a My Small World QAL on Instagram and other places), but I know why I am making it.

It’s because in the 1960s, when wearing white socks with your loafers was considered cool and women always wore pantyhose with their bare legs, I came here. Our family was on our way home from living for two years in Lima, Peru. It was in the days of Disneyland with tickets, and we seemed to have enough for our family of seven children to go on this ride. Since I had a broken leg, I went on it more than once.

The ride, first fabricated for the 1964 New York World’s Fair, was installed in California’s Disneyworld in 1966, which will make it fifty years old next year. I live about an hour from the original Disneyland, so it’s my patriotic duty to honor this institution, right? Of course we all know THAT song:

“Children of the World” was the working title of the attraction. Its tentative soundtrack, which can be heard on the album, featured the national anthems of each country represented throughout the ride all playing all at once, which resulted in disharmonic cacophony. Walt conducted a walk through of the attraction scale model with his staff songwriters Robert B. Sherman and Richard M. Sherman, saying, “I need one song that can be easily translated into many languages and be played as a round.” The Sherman Brothers then wrote “It’s a Small World (after all)” in the wake of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, which influenced the song’s message of peace and brotherhood. When they first presented it to Walt, they played it as a slow ballad. Walt requested something more cheerful, so they sped up the tempo and sang in counterpoint. Walt was so delighted with the final result that he renamed the attraction “It’s a Small World” after the Sherman Brothers’ song.” (Wikipedia)

While I have no idea if Jen Kingwell was influenced by the smart geometrics, towers and shapes (Tokyo Disney, above), to me there is a clear connection.

Judging by the photos on Instagram, we all start here: cutting sky pieces. I did neutrals for a while, then started adding in whispy blues, just to make it more interesting, as I’d seen others do it. It’s that idea of collaboration, as expressed in my last blog post.

Section One’s Sky. I was listening to a book on Audible, that I finally had to turn up to 2x speed just to get through it. I’m not recommending it.

Now I’m back to Inspector Gamache, written by Louise Penny. I’m going to hate it when I get through reading this series!

Buildings and some sky. Now to start on the details. I found reading Susan’s entries on her PatchworknPlay blog was helpful, too.

I used some leftover leaves from the Pineapples and Crowns quilt to make this square.

Susan’s idea to start the tiny pinwheels by cutting two inch squares, then making HSTs, then on to the pinwheel was a good idea. I threw in some of my New York City fabric, with the words Radio City Hall to liven up this section.

It took me forever to figure out what text thing to put at the top of the building, but I went for this one, since Betsy is a childhood name. I also had fun fussy cutting a hot air balloon in the Sky Section for Section 2. You can see the bits of blue sky in the neutrals now. Here is the progress I’ve made so far:

And here’s my contribution to the Errata: In section 2, the center square for the churn dash is incorrect. It should measure 1 1/2″ no 2 1/2″. Having said that, I have enormous appreciation to Jen Kingwell for this pattern–it has a LOT of moving parts and to even get some sort of pattern down on paper is amazing.

In my real small world, I’ve taken a couple of trips since the semester finished.

The first one was to Phoenix to see my daughter’s husband graduate from Dental School. I think he had the oldest children of any of his fellow graduates there! They have happily moved to their new city, and he has started work already. But this week, they are on a trip to Disneyland to celebrate their achievement.

And to start the summer off with a bang, I also took a couple of trips through these two machines as a spot on my lungs showed up in my yearly X-ray. It is because of *this* that my oncologist checks everything. Twice. The diagnosis from these humming machines revealed it was nothing to worry about, although for three weeks I did — a lot. I couldn’t really talk about it at the time, so I’m glad it’s behind me.

However going through all that certainly made me feel like a basket case. No, I didn’t know about this when I started this quilt, but it certainly is appropriate! Now I should really get to the closets that need cleaning out, the papers that needs tossing. It’s nice to think about regular life again.

I’ve also been busy sewing up more Circles Blocks as I want to finish that quilt and get it quilted. I have one more to go, then I’ll have sixteen total. Block #13 will be up on the blog in a couple of weeks. Here they are stacked together:

What’s been going on in Your Small World?

Next block is coming on July 1st!

Quilts

Traveling Threads Bee Block: Peaceful Hours, a Few Thoughts on Collaboration

June 14, 2015June 12, 2015 Elizabeth E.1 Comment

This the second block I made for my recent turn at the Traveling Threads Bee. This was was found while trolling the web for new bee blocks, but the templates I found had the finished block measuring at 11″ which led to some very strange measurements. I think it was probably geared for metric users, so my apologies to them for this block, which finishes at 10″ square.

Here is a PDF of the templates for the block. I am happy to provide them to you as a free downloadable file, but please don’t distribute these blocks to your mother or your friends. Send them here to get their own, please. Thanks. Click to download: Peaceful Hours 10inch

I always like to simplify my cutting, so I tape together the triangles, then measure them, as shown here:

Cut one large 5 1/2″ center square. I used Lisa’s signature fabric of a bright floral.
Cut four smaller 1 3/4″ blocks to snowball onto the corners. When you tape these together, remember to cut off that diagonal seam allowance.
Cut two 3 3/8″ squares (orange), and two 3 3/8″ squares (green). You can either cut them apart diagonally, make them as a two-color half-square triangle (HST), which is what I did. Trim them to measure 3″ inches square (you won’t have a lot of extra fabric, so be careful).

Cut two 2 1/8″ squares (green), then slice in half diagonally.

Cut the other pieces using the templates, remembering to have all the right sides of the fabric facing UP if you are going to cut them in a layer, as there is a left-orientation and a right-orientation to the F and H templates. Ditto for the narrow wedge G and I triangles.

Snowball the corner on your large center square, trim and press, then lay everything out. This is where you briefly lose your mind on those F and H pieces. The trick is to find the right angle corner and then let that help you figure out how it goes together. You’ll always be trying to make those two short sides be that inner corner, but it won’t work. Look for the right angle: one short side and one long side.

Stitch on the longer wedgier triangle, press. Then stitch on the regular triangle. You’ll have four sets that are mirrors of each other.

True them up to 3″ square. That tip should fall right about at the 1 and 1/2″ mark, if possible. While in my early quilting days, I used to just wait to square up the whole block, now I square up the units as I go, especially on these!

I stitched together the two mirror-units of each of those angular blocks. While I am NOT a fan of pressing open these tiny 1/4″ seams, in this case, that is the best way to get them to lay flat. I pressed the rest of the seams to the side.

Stitch as shown.

And now here it is! Give it a good steamy press on a well-padded ironing board, let it cool, then true it up.

Look what happens when you put Peaceful Hours into a block set of five by five. I love the secondary circle-type pattern that forms inside.

Another coloration. I’m playing around in QuiltPro software, which I love because it runs well on a Macintosh. I also have Electric Quilt, which is also good (I use it to draw all my circles EPP blocks), but since I’m more familiar with QuiltPro, I tend to turn to it as it is more frequently. And no, I don’t get it for free. I bought it, just like you do. I don’t hear about it as much as EQ7, so I thought I’d mention how much I like it.

This is what I sent on to the next member of our Traveling Threads Bee: whatever came to me, plus these two blocks, and a slew of Flying Geese blocks for the last person, who puts together the quilt top.

I’ve also finished this block for my bee mate Rene’ for the Mid-Century Modern Bee. It’s from a pattern by Aylin-Nilya, and this one took some time with the weensy little logs in the center.

Being in a bee, or a group is a collaboration of sorts. While the generally agreed upon conventions for a bee are pretty standard, we are feeling our way with the Traveling Threads Bee. The biggest obstacle in both seems to be mailing dates, but beyond that, it’s an interesting experience to climb inside someone’s head for a while, use their colors, (and in some cases) their fabrics, their ideas. Brian Eno noted that “When you sing with a group of people, you learn how to subsume yourself into a group consciousness… That’s one of the great feelings – to stop being me for a little while and to become us. That way lies empathy, the great social virtue.”

And maybe that’s why this digital world of quilting has used bees and groups to engender understanding, which leads to curiosity about our friends’ lives, which leads to friendships that exist beyond the screen and the blog. I think it is more than just Pen Pals on Steroids.

Amy Poehler, who spent three years in Chicago with The Second City, an improv group (and later famously collaborated with Tina Fey on SNL) had a good insight when she said to “. . . be open to collaboration. Other people and other people’s ideas are often better than your own. Find a group of people who challenge and inspire you, spend a lot of time with them, and it will change your life.”

I find that has happened to me more than once, and I notice it also in QuiltLand’s redundancy as I read blogs, watch the latest fad blossom (yes, My Small World is coming along–more later) and bloom. But when someone has a pop of inspiration, works with it, shares it, that collaboration of sorts changes us all.

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Occasionally my blogging software will place videos and ads at the end of my posts. It’s a tacit agreement we have: they bootleg onto my posts so I can use their software for free. I do not control the content, nor the frequency of their ads.

Quilts

Traveling Threads Bee Block: Woven Star

June 12, 2015April 10, 2025 Elizabeth E.3 Comments

I recently made two blocks for the Traveling Threads Bee I’m in, and while we don’t show the completed sections as we go, I thought I’d share the blocks I made here. The first one is Woven Star, which finishes at 10 inches (trimmed, it will measure 10.5″).

Lisa loves bright colors and sent along that floral as her signature fabric, including some of the solids. I added the polka dot for a punch of light in the set of blocks I was sent to work with.

I always like to simplify my cutting, so I tape together the triangles, then measure them, as shown here:

I always then tape them back onto the first sheet, as it shows the diagram. While this is shown in black and white, I also take colored pencils and color in the diagram so I know what goes where. My quilt software is made by QuiltPro. It’s a native application for the Apple (they also have PC versions) so it runs very smoothly.

Track which color of what you need. For me, it was like this:
Cut one 3 3/8″ square of yellow (then cut in half diagonally)
Cut one 3 3/8″ square of bright pink (then cut in half diagonally)
Cut one 3 3/8″ square of floral (then cut in half diagonally)
Cut one 3 3/8″ square of bright green (then cut in half diagonally)

Cut one 2 5/8″ square of yellow (then cut in half diagonally)
Cut one 2 5/8″ square of bright pink (then cut in half diagonally)
Cut one 2 5/8″ square of floral (then cut in half diagonally)
Cut one 2 5/8″ square of bright green (then cut in half diagonally)

Then it was one 2 1/4″ square of each color.

Background:
Cut four 3″ squares of background color, and two large 4 3/8″ squares of background color (cut in half diagonally).

All the parts. Lay them out, as shown below.

I started by making the four square in the center. Stitch two squares together, pressing the seam allowances to the side, then stitch those two units together, making sure the seam allowances are “opposite”–one falls one way and one falls the other, so they nestle together. To get the nifty little square shown above, pop open the stitching (a little tug will do it), then press those in a swirl around the center, each seam allowance going a different direction. The block center lays pretty flat if you do it that way.

Fail. Make sure when you are stitching those corner triangles together you do it correctly, and don’t flip them. In this duo, needed the yellow-green to be on the right, not the left.

Better now (I restitched it, obviously). Make your flying geese units at the top, bottom and sides. Stitch your corner triangle units onto your center square, matching seams.

Stitch the two side 3″ blocks onto the top and bottom flying geese unit. Stitch the two side flying geese units onto the center block, then stitch the three sections together. Give it a good steamy press on a well-padded ironing board (if you don’t have a well-padded ironing board, press it face down on a towel, unless you are one of those who believes that the flatter a block is, the better. In that case, go ahead and press the life out of this thing.) Let it cool, then true up your block to 10 1/2″ square.

Next post: Peaceful Hours Bee Block

Quilts

Sentimental Journey: Bee Blocks for the Mid-Century Modern Bee, part II

June 5, 2015April 27, 2019 Elizabeth E.14 Comments

I’m back to the Sentimental Journey–a round-up of all the bee blocks I’ve made, and the quilts or collections where my blocks ended up. Carla, of Grace and Favour, inspired by Jen Kingwell’s Green Tea and Sweet Beans, asked us all for a sampler block with a texty background.

Here’s mine. Of course, I loved this quilt so much, I copied it for January 2015–now I have one too.

Another year, Carla dreamed up this terrific tutorial for making an arrow, and she combined it with a couple of other blocks, some neutral backgrounds to make this quilt.

Here was mine. This was fun because I was able to use a lot of stash fabrics and it still looks interesting and modern-ish.

A feather block, this time for Susan of PatchworknPlay, from a now-defunct tutorial by Anna Maria Horner. Susan sent us the greige background fabric, and asked us for the two-color combo shown above.

She ended up having some feathers in different sizes (probably because of some printer scaling not set to 100%), but I loved the way she set them all on the diagonal, making this beautiful quilt.

Inspired by a quilt she saw on Pinterest, one round Susan asked us for brightly colored solids with black background; above is my block. It took me forever to get her my signature block (I really miss my mind when it wanders) but she waited for me and added it to the back. Here is the front of her gorgeous quilt:

Linda of Flourishing Palms asked us for strip-pieced diamonds. The tricky part is to get the strips going the right way (trust me on this).

She also asked us for pink and green “bar” blocks, which she has now used to complete her “Strawberry Fizz and Lime Pop” quilt.

A gifted domestic-machine quilter, she has now started to quilt it. These photos are taken from IG, so aren’t that great, but click on the link to her quilt name and see many more!

Mary of Molly Flanders asked us for this set of triangles (above) as well as this set of blocks (below), but is planning on making a larger quilt using both, so doesn’t have a grouping to share.

These two fun pink Cross-X blocks were for Mary, of Mary on Lake Pulaski. She turned our blocks into this quilt:

And this is her collection of the Union Jack blocks she asked us to make for her. I won’t tell you where mine is, because even though I ripped it out three times, I still don’t think it was very good. It looks fine in this grouping, though, proving there is strength in numbers, even if the numbers are quilt blocks.

The final set of blocks and quilts are for Anne Deister, of SpringLeaf Studios. I loved making Anne’s blocks because I always felt as if I were in on a big secret, as she is a pattern designer and we were helping her figure out, and pattern test, her designs. So here’s one set of blocks, above, which turned into the quilt top below:

Which she then refined, and made up in her stash, turning out this beauty, above. She calls it Matrix, and it should be released soon (she gave me permission to post these photos). It was easy to make, and fun to see the finished product.

And then this block turned into this terrific quilt:

Anne calls this Tumble, and again, the pattern should be released soon. We’ll probably do a blog hop/giveaway, so I’ll keep you posted.

She has an artist’s eye for staging her quilts. I love this photo.

So that’s it for the originals. We have had some leave our group, and some newbies join us, which I have written about as I’ve made their blocks. It’s been a rewarding experience working with all these women!