For February’s Mid-Century Modern Bee Block, Carla asked us to make the paper-pieced birthday cake found on the Ellison Lane blog. If you decide to make this, note that the default printer settings are quite a bit smaller, so make sure your scaling is set to 100% when you go to print it out. It went together really easily. Carla’s going to have a whole quilt of layer cakes.
The Good Heart Quilters gathered together for our monthly get-together; it was held at Charlotte’s house (upper right) and we felt well feted by her hospitality. Lisa (above left) wore her quilty socks, and finished up Diane’s Date Night Clutch. We had others there, too, and we were all sewing on the Date Night Clutch, however, I got to hold Caitlin’s newborn baby so she could sew. A good choice!
This is the version I made from Dianne’s pattern. I had a box way up in the closet labeled “Japanese Fabrics,” and it held cloth purchased when I went to Japan and Shanghai China about fifteen years ago, a month after 9/11. I had put up the fabric and pretty much forgotten about it, so when I decided to see what was in there, it was a lovely surprise.
Why did I only buy a half-yard of this amazing red/white cotton?
Diane has two different versions of her clutch and this one includes the inner pocket on one side, the insert that will hold credit cards and bills, and a small zipper pocket for small items (or change?)
I’m all ready for QuiltCon now, as I have a small useful clutch to tuck in the bigger tote bags we all carry around.
And. . . I survived the grading of their first essay. I could tell you stories, but I don’t want to upset you if you are eating. I have one student that I’ve picked out as the One I Teach To. He spent a year at Cornell University before decided that it wasn’t for him (he didn’t elaborate). He’s always prepared for class, got an A on the essay, doesn’t fall asleep, and looks interested. . . like he values his education. See why he’s the one I’m teaching to? I generally like all my students, although Video Zombie Boy is getting on my nerves–turning in two paragraphs four days late and telling me it was his essay. (Right.) I’m leaving them all behind for a couple of days while I head to QuiltCon next week. I remind myself of the student I was working with in conference about re-writes, and after we’d finished, she blurted out “I’m going to see Wicked next week and I can hardly sleep I’m so excited!”
Katja Marek, who wrote this book, is hostingMother Hen to all of us as we work our way towards having a new version of a millefiore quilt, based on the blocks in her book. Laurel and Rhonda and Cindy and about 1500 of my other closest friends are doing this. It’s fun to see the rosettes pop up on Instagram and in my Google Images when I search for them for inspiration.
I’d pulled these pages of a Morocan town out of the travel magazine, with all their aquas and moody blues, yellow-greens and dark blues as inspiration, then pulled a bunch of fabrics.
For a long time they were pinned into my design wall, but then I needed the wall, so they now live in this basket.
The very middle six triangles are the center, and here you see round one, of Rosette One.
Katja sends us an email every month, telling us about the next rosette. I act like we’ve done this for years, but really we all started in January. Well, people who weren’t trying to get a college English class up and going started January first, but the others of us began like, last week or so. Here I’m plotting Round Two.
Still plotting. I ordered the templates from Paper Pieces, as suggested, mainly because my brain just couldn’t handle one more decision. A good choice for me, but I know others are tracing them off. Definitely do the glue stick thing when you attach your fabric to the paper pieces. It’s brilliant.
Tonight, as I watched The Muppet Movie (the most recent one with Tina Fey, who made me laugh), I finished off the third round of Rosette One. I have one more round to go. This thing is getting really big, so I decided to pop out the interior papers.
I loosen the edges by sliding underneath them with my stiletto, and they pop right out.
Fun to be at this point. Tomorrow, after I grade six more essays (I had a batch come in on Wednesday and I’m doing six-a-day until they are done), I’ll pull all those fabrics out of my basket and make a bigger mess in here (see photos below).
I also wrote up my goals for the quarter, conveniently skipping January because we all know what that month was like. I can already see some holes in the quarter, like where are the Circle Blocks? One a month?
My horoscope, which I read faithfully and believe about 10% of the time, said I was spending too much time on things that would not matter in the long run. This is one of those 10% times it actually coincided with what was going on in my real life. Like lining up the readings for the next unit on the ironing board. I sent eight more readings off to the printers today. I have to get this unit ready because I’m headed to QuiltCon in about (wait, let me get my phone out of my pocket because QuiltCon has its own app that tells me how many days. . .)
Okay, this was a couple of days ago, but you get my drift. They have thought of everything to make us freaked out, excited quilters. It’s like it’s more than a Quilt Show…it’s a Life Changing Event. I think of it as a way to party with quilters, and certainly these young’uns will be a different bunch than the usual staid quilters. I knew this because one of the items in their scavenger hunt is to find someone whose tattoo I love. Right.
Okay, so between the prepping, grading, planning and working on everything else, here is a Truthy Moment: the mess at my sewing desk. I expect it will be clean, say, about July.
I loved reading all your comments about our recent Four-in-Art quilts, and am slowly working my way through them. Somehow the internet swallowed a few comments, so I have to go and find them. I can see them on the website, but not in my email, where I usually answer them. Thank you all for the lovely things you wrote. I think we were energized by new members, the new yearly theme and the added bonus of choosing our own quarterly theme. Now you know why I ordered my papers for my hexagon. Way too many decisions!
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
#1 in the Literature Series
Quilt #142
Moving a different direction, the Four-in-Art quilters have chosen a year-long theme of Literature for this current series, and within that, we each have chosen our own way to think about literature. Some have chosen to focus in fiction or non-fiction or others have chosen children’s literature. I have chosen poetry.
Robert Frost’s poem, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” is one that I taught in my literature class at school, which gave me a chance to really research it, to hear a recording of him reading his work, to explore what others have thought about it. Depression runs in our family, and many writers have commented about the intimation of suicide — the struggle over this — buried deep in the implied meaning in many of the lines. Frost, of course, has denied that, but I think that while the writer may write the lines, it’s the readers who get to interpret what they see in the poem. Time for you to see the poem:
“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”
by Robert Frost
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
In class we study the iambic tetrameter, the rhyme scheme, the internal rhymes and then focus in on those repeated lines. When you watch Frost read his poem, the first line of that last stanza really comes through that the woods are dark and deep, although lovely, and then he raises his eyebrows, almost in a shrug, saying he has promises to keep, as if that prevents him from exploring the darker woods before him. And many times our obligations do keep us on a certain track, keeping us from veering off into depression or getting lost in other ways. When you have to put food on the table for your young family, you have fewer minutes to ruminate or cry or sit in the corner and stare out the window.
I think the first line, “And miles to go before I sleep,” might refer to the tasks we all face: the laundry, work, family and social obligations, that daily list of compiled chores that pile up before us. I know I certainly had a week like that, and even though some were delightful obligations that brought great pleasure, there was no extra space on the calendar, no breathing room to stop and look at woods filling up with snow.
Perhaps that second repeated line refers to the longer view, past calendars, past busyness, past the To-Do list. We all need purpose in our lives as it is the engine that drives us to get up and get dressed, to engage with the world and to lay out our days in ways that not only contribute to the lives of those around us, but more importantly, lets us focus on the miles both behind us and in front of us. Frost’s genius lay in crafting the lines that cause us to reflect on the bigger picture. His poem reminds us to pay attention to the journey of our lives, rather than than the mere detritus of our lives.
While some may think of the quilting as just a hobby, for me it has become part of my purpose in life: to explore and to create, to reach across the world or country and build friendships, like this small art quilt group. Certainly I can outline the big ideals that inform my choices, but when traveling miles to bring a quilt to fruition, I take heart in Frost’s reminder to keep to the journey.
I like this new challenge for this year. I’ve already chosen my poem for the next reveal, which is in May, and yes, all mine this year will have a seasonal theme.
Please take time to visit the other Four-in-Arters, who have also put up their Challenge Quilts today
(just bits and snips of their quilts are shown–be sure to see the full quilt at their sites):
This is Circles Block #8 of my EPP Circles Block Sew-A-Long.
It all started way up there on the really tall archway in the church in Ljubljana, Slovenia where I first spotted this lovely circle.
I just had to have it. And my sweet husband helped me out by giving me Electric Quilt 7 for Christmas–the version that works on a Macinstosh.
I got to work and failed miserably. Then I got back to work and learned a few more things, and a few more things after that and above is the result. Since I have a lot of experience on QuiltPro (which I still use) I didn’t find it hard to figure things out, Googling for specific instructions when I became stuck. I went on to design all the rest of the circles, completing the set of twelve, but you’ll have to wait for them, as I haven’t stitched them up and I like to do that before giving you the patterns.
The free patterns are now returning (Red, White & Blue version is above). I request that you not distribute them, but send people here to this website to get them. Click to download a PDF file:
Please remember to set your printer settings to 100% and check the little scale square included on the pattern. It should measure 1″ in size. Illustrations below are with the OLD version of the pattern, so it may vary from what’s included now.
I must admit to being a bit nervous about this new process, so I drew up a circle and then tried to fit the pieces into it, making sure that they were all the same size as the other circles.
And then I didn’t like how the pattern looked, so I went and redrew it (you have the latest version).
Remembering the nightmare of trying to get all those points to fit into the center on a previous block, I added a small circle, and changed the pattern to the one you have now:
For this project, I used 24 lb. paper, a bit heavier than the usual copy paper (which can either be 18-lb. or 20-lb) Print off the patterns, then stack them carefully. Staple the pages together around the pieces, not through them. As you cut, using either scissors or an old non-fabric rotary cutter, the pieces will be free of the stapled background when cut out. I don’t usually staple more than four pages together. Note: Even if the bottom papers slip slightly, and don’t appear to be cut exactly on the line, the patterns are still accurate.
Laying out the fabrics. This was the easiest one yet.
I also used the technique of seaming together my two fabrics, then cutting out the pattern piece, lining up the center lines. I’m not a purist–I don’t need everything to be hand-sewn and doing this step this way will make your circle more accurate and save you a lot of headache.
Trim out the seam allowances at the tip.
I sometimes get confused whether the pieces should go printed side up, or printed side down, so my usual recommendation is if they are bi-directional — meaning it doesn’t matter — then it doesn’t matter. But if you need your yellow on one side and your gold on the other and you don’t want to have to figure it out, then put the printed side down, for that’s how you see it.
I tried a new-to-me technique this time: glueing down the seam allowances. I had purchased the narrow glue stick for the The New Hexagon Millefiore Quilt Along and thought it was time to learn a few new tricks.
I’d read that it was not a good idea to go all the way to the edge of the paper when glueing, that it was better to leave a small bit unglued. Then I just smoothed the seam allowance up over the glue. It was easier to keep the pieces centered (sometimes I put a dot of glue on the piece before putting it down, but not always) and I love how they look. (And it saves time and energy and my hands!)
I laid out all the pieces and I liked what I saw. With the glue stick, I wasn’t too worried about re-doing any pieces as it was so quick and easy.
I first sewed the gold/yellow together, then added the blue diamondish-square (I labeled it as a square, but it is slightly wonky).
Then I added two blue sections to that one, then started joining them all together.
Sometimes there is some interesting bends that go on while working. Every once in a while a seam allowance would work itself loose from the paper but I treated it like an envelope: I licked the paper and stuck back the seam allowance.
The above photographs show the steps in how I sewed this together: pieces, then small sections, moving along to the larger sections.
Ah. The best sight in EPP-land: all the papers on the pieces, from the back.
Time for the $64,000 question: can you get the glued papers off the circle block? Yes. Here you can see they are starting to pop off already. Sliding a seam ripper or a stiletto point between the fabric and the paper can also help loosen stubborn spots.
In my new project, I am now working with the cardstock versions of the papers for the Millefiore quilt and I’m sure the answer is the same, but they do seem to stick more to the rougher surface of the cardstock, with no papers trying to escape, like mine are, above.
I like to appliqué on my center circle as I think it is a cleaner business (shown here from the back). I use really teeny stitches and stitch length, putting way more stitches in there than I do for regular appliqué, as it stabilizes the whole block and anchors the center.
As usual for these blocks, cut a 14 1/2″ square, fold it into fourths and press lightly so the creases can serve as registration marks for centering your circle. Here’s your choice: point at the 12 o’clock mark. . .
. . . or not? Try them back and forth until you settle on one. There is no wrong or right — just what is best for your block.
The block looks more relaxed with all those papers out. I loved fussy-cutting the X in the aqua, and love-love-love this circle.
So here they all are–aren’t they fine looking? Until next month, happy EPP-ing! If you finish any of your circles, send them over and I’ll do a post.
The Good Heart Quilters gathered together for our monthly get-together; it was held at Charlotte’s house (upper right) and we felt well feted by her hospitality. Lisa (above left) wore her quilty socks, and finished up Diane’s Date Night Clutch. We had others there, too, and we were all sewing on the Date Night Clutch, however, I got to hold Caitlin’s newborn baby so she could sew. A good choice!
And. . . I survived the grading of their first essay. I could tell you stories, but I don’t want to upset you if you are eating. I have one student that I’ve picked out as the One I Teach To. He spent a year at Cornell University before decided that it wasn’t for him (he didn’t elaborate). He’s always prepared for class, got an A on the essay, doesn’t fall asleep, and looks interested. . . like he values his education. See why he’s the one I’m teaching to? I generally like all my students, although Video Zombie Boy is getting on my nerves–turning in two paragraphs four days late and telling me it was his essay. (Right.) I’m leaving them all behind for a couple of days while I head to QuiltCon next week. I remind myself of the student I was working with in conference about re-writes, and after we’d finished, she blurted out “I’m going to see Wicked next week and I can hardly sleep I’m so excited!”
