Quilts

Sewing, Tasking, Listening, Remembering

September 11, 2015July 2, 2024 Elizabeth E.12 Comments

Sewing This: Sometimes you just need a new direction when you are sick of your own sewing. ~~The free tutorial for this block, from Sew Kylie, is found *here.* My bee-mate chose it for her month, and it was a lovely change. UPDATE 10/18: The pattern in three sizes is now found on Craftsy.~~

UPDATE June 2019: The pattern is no longer found on BluPrint/Craftsy, however it is now found on PayHip. This is her newest version, which includes three different sizes.

Here are four blocks together. The photo is from her previous blog.

Tasking This: Mostly I just sit around and stare at my Get To Work Book calendar (realizing that most pages have one entry on each: “nap”), but occasionally I can produce. Above are a few recent successes (a label from my Mini House Swap that my partner received–made in June–and yes, she loved it!), two Dumpling Pouches (which take all of 45 minutes each) and a re-working of a quilt square (made in 2006–I simply backed it, quilted it simply and bound it) into a flat pillow to cushion the pulling of the seat belt when I drive. Doesn’t that all look so productive?

Listening to This: Louise Penny’s tenth Inspector Gamache book. Number 11 (The Nature of the Beast) was released this fall, so I still have another to savor. Here’s the order of the books (better to read them in order):

Remembering This:

Quilts

Popsicles in My Way

August 30, 2015August 30, 2015 Elizabeth E.16 Comments

This morning, I drove the car down to our local park, walked one mile with my husband by my side, and drove home. Not a big deal for most people, but it was the first time I’d driven a round trip and walked that far in one swoop since the surgery nearly five weeks ago. Maybe all the post-surgery obstacles are now, after five weeks, becoming more like popsicles: little humps of fun to celebrate with song and a leap into the old swimming hole.

So even though this feels like a lost summer, this past week I had another first: I operated my sewing machine, sewing up the Bee blocks for Mary’s turn at bat. And the world didn’t end. Tutorial is *here* or you can find it on the tab above under Tutorials, where I keep links to all of the tutorials on this blog.

We’ve watched nearly all three seasons of Granite Flats (only 2 more episodes to go) and I’m continually amazed at how much freedom children in the sixties were given to roam around on their bikes and get into scrapes and generally explore. While it can be at times cheesy, it’s a fun show that has allowed me to sit and stitch, fully entertained.

Earlier I was able, over the course of several days, to put this together on my pin wall, then went to bed for nearly two days to recover, paying for my creative burst of energy. During recovery I was confining my sewing to handwork, and was hoping to get this stitched up for the Kaffe Mini Swap I’m in, but I saw the writing on the wall, and switched to a different project that involved the sewing machine.

I was able to put this one on the wall (only took two days this time), and will now tweak it and stitch it together and quilt it–all tasks that will probably take me oodles longer than usual. (Working title: Kaffe’s Rainbow Block.) But that is the good news! That I am actually quilting, working with the cloth, however slowly, and participating once again.

And to further prove that I’m into Popsicle Territory, I have started reading a book, a task unthinkable two weeks ago with my fuzzed-out brain cells. David Orr’s book is a fascinating look at Robert Frost’s well-known poem, and while I find myself arguing with Orr’s analysis every once in a while, he wins me over as he progresses, teaching me about Frost, perception, decision making and the “deciders.”

Little steps, but definitely progress.

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