in my little "80's quilt revival" I've had to ask myself how true to the original quilt I wanted to be. was I simply copying it to end up with a quilt that better suited my tastes or was I trying to go deeper and learn about traditional quilt construction from a group of women I'll never get to meet. I know I'm already going to fail in that regard since I'm not hand-quilting it. I am taking inspiration from their fabric placement though. all my sketches have little notes marking which pieces were prints or solids and what the color values in each block were. but there's something I'm just not loving, besides the hunter green, and that is appliqué. some of the blocks have center appliqué squares, that I don't see myself replicating. right now, hexes seem very modern and it would be an interesting challenge to limit a hex design to a six inch square without relying on a "grandmother's garden" flower. I just see myself ending up with a very messy block or a design I would constantly question. and I already question everything I do enough.

looking through my notes, there are two blocks in the first two rows with an appliqué center, a heart and a flower. I decided to play with fussy cutting, what seemed to me like another 'modern' option, to replace the heart. I also tried out a pinwheel to match two of the blocks in this row. I'm calling these "square in squares" and "pinwheels in a square" (which then leads me to call it "pinwheel in a box", which leads to singing). that's another thing I've noticed in this project, it's really hard to find quilt block patterns if you don't know their names. some blocks have more than one name and sometimes I'm not even sure how to go about finding them. it would be easier if I was just putting together random blocks for a sampler, I could just look through pictures and choose blocks that I like. but I'm trying to recreate a specific quilt, so there's a little more research for me.

right now, the fussy cut with plaid block is winning my heart. the pinwheel block is pretty too, but all that white is bothering me. especially compared to the other blocks I've made. I wrote down how I made these blocks in the extended entry. it's pretty picture heavy.

a quick tip before you start either block. mark the middle of the center block, be it the fussy cut square or the pinwheel. this will make it easier to align the triangles surrounding it.

square in squares

you will need:
center block (1) 6 1/2" sq
fabric surrounding center (2) 5 1/8" sq. each cut on the diagonal
second outer print (2) 6 7/8" sq each cut on the diagonal

this block comes together pretty quickly. simply place the solid fabric around the center square. sew the two pieces that are across from each other, press seams, and then sew the other two. press seams again.

repeat again with outer fabric, sewing opposite sides as you go. you may have to square up your center piece first before adding the outer corners.

pinwheels in a square

this one is basically the same, you just have to make some hst for the center and change up the corners.

you will need:

(4) solid 3 1/2" squares for corners
(2) white print 6 7/8" squares cut in diagonal
(2) orange print 5 1/8" squares cut in diagonal
(2) white print 3 7/8" squares for pinwheels
(2) turquoise print 3 7/8" squares for pinwheels

I started with the pinwheels. using the 3 7/8" cuts, make four half square triangle blocks. sew together into two rows and press seams in opposite directions. sew the two rows together and press seam.

and now, like before, sew the triangles around the center pinwheel block. I found it easier to work from opposite sides.

to make the corner units, first grab your 3 1/2" squares and draw a line on the diagonal. take the triangles cut from the 6 7/8" square and align a 3.5" solid block at the 90 degree corner. see image for placement. sew on the drawn line. cut excess fabric and press solid fabric out.

sew corner units to center square.

square up to 12"

Posted by bitter purl at 10:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (10)

the thing about paper piecing that people 'forget' to mention is that if you make a mistake, you REALLY make a mistake. ripping tiny stitches off paper is not fun. especially after the fifth time you sew on the wrong line. but the results are so worth it. I'm by no means a precision cutter (or sewer!), but this block doesn't give me away. just remember the printed side is the BACK of the block so you want to reverse things. I knew this going in, but something about the printed side hypnotizes you and makes you forget how you wanted to arrange the block.

the other thing they don't say is that if you cut your fabric too small, you'll definitely want to kill yourself. yes, I know I'm very dramatic. learn from my mistakes here, just cut things bigger thank you think. really. after you grab the dutchman's puzzle, print four copies out and make sure it's printed to the correct dimensions. chrome didn't want to print it right, but firefox was perfect. then erase line 3 with some whiteout or something. you don't want to see it or remember it was there. trust me.

for piece 1 and 4 cut two rectangles that measure 4 x 6.5" for 2,5, and 6 you want three pieces that measure 4 x 5". you could probably go a little smaller, but just don't. I rather end up with some scraps than rip. the other tip I can give you is to leave the paper on until the end. it's so easy lining everything up when you sew on the seam line. just rip the paper covering the seams after sewing each unit.

so that's four blocks down on my "80s quilt" with two more to go on this row. this is my favorite block so far, I love that blue "modern meadow" print and the pop of pink from "nicey jane". I skipped the "official" fourth block because of some math issues, but I think I almost have it figured out. I just need to wait for my quilt-alongers to catch up. in the meantime I'm going to try to get my hands on the original quilt to show you its green goodness.

Posted by bitter purl at 10:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)

this morning I found myself with a lot of time on my hands. so what better way to spend it than sewing? well, after some coffee, web surfing, and sunday morning on cbs.

I decided to go right along with my 80's quilt and on to block 3, otherwise known as shoo-fly (though I've also seen it called churn dash or wrench among others). I wasn't sure how to go about this one; not math-wise but fabric-wise. the original used a print and two solids (a medium and light green). I really didn't feel like getting another grey solid to coordinate with the slate I'm using. luckily I have some hope valley in the stash; the small print reads as a solid as you step back. problem solved!

this was a pretty relaxing block compared to the first two with all those half square triangles. rectangles? yes please.

you want to cut out:

(4) 2.5 x 4.5" of your solid
(4) 2.5 x 4.5" of your second "solid" (the hope valley print)
you'll make four pieced squares

(2) 4 7/8" squares of your solid
(2) 4 7/8" squares of your main print (timber)
you'll make four hst's out of these

(1) 4.5" square of your main print for the center

Posted by bitter purl at 1:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

last night I had to fend for myself dinner-wise, which meant reheating some leftover pizza and a lot of time on my hands. since I couldn't work on my circles quilt I decided to finally start my "80's quilt". what really spurred me on was the fear that amanda was going to come back from vacation with a million blocks finished and I would have nothing.

so far I have the first two rows sketched out and almost all of them have some sort of math behind them. there are some blocks with curves which look frightening and are stumping me. more on that later. I decided to go with these first two blocks since they seemed manageable and the math was easy to figure out.

I wanted to get away from the hunter greens and white of the original quilt. run away is more like it. I'm using amy butler slate as my solid and mixing up some nicey jane and modern meadow so far. you can basically get the math for these two blocks if you visit rachel's pinwheel along . I changed my block placement to match the old quilt, but it's basically the same as rachel's block one or three.

I'm still iffy about the second block. part of me doesn't like the way the two prints work together. maybe I should have used an orange or pink print to make it punchier. other times I look at it and like how quiet it is. I figure I'll keep it for now and I can always make another block along the line once I have more of the quilt done.

Posted by bitter purl at 3:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

while I go find some more batting and decide how I want to quilt the circle quilt, can you decide which fabric I should use for the binding? thanks

I'm leaning towards one, but I won't say which. also, the heather bailey dots (on top) is only a fat quarter so I would have to go find more. ok go!

here's a little reminder:

Posted by bitter purl at 5:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

it's sunny and in the 60's today, a welcomed change from this past weekend's non-stop rain. I totally think that working on this quilt this weekend helped bring the sun around! I pieced it on saturday, quilted on sunday, and finished the hand binding this morning. I had a couple of goals with this quilt: a baby quilt that wasn't too babyish, balance a modern with a vintage feel, and totally surprise my friend. I'm hoping I hit at least two out of three.

I used the wonderland prints as the color inspiration and went from there (after many txt and email messages with rangsiwan and amanda!), mixing some very modern fabrics with the more subdued katie jump rope prints. I wanted to stick with primaries without it screaming pre-school if you know what I mean. I also played with the idea of a "charm quilt", throwing in the wonky nine patch blocks to make it more playful. I sashed the 9 patch blocks with some essex linen and left them wonky for some movement. I basically cut them down to size unevenly depending on how I felt the prints were moving (wow, that sounds crazy).

I kept the back pretty simple, piecing some essex linen (in putty) with some carolina chambray and "recess" by american jane. I thought this was the perfect print since the dots with the flowers has that modern/vintage mix I was looking for. I love how playing with fabrics can make a very simple quilt fun and modern. hopefully my friend will love it as much as I do and that it will fit in the baby's room. well, she has to love it because I hand sewed the binding! my shoulder hurts, but it's hard to beat the look of hand binding.

the only issue I had was the actual quilting. this was the first time I tried free-motion quilting and it was hard to get the tension just right. not on the top, but the back which really played with my head. I already get scared that the quilt will just come apart every time I was one for the first time and this didn't help matters. thankfully it just came out nice and wrinkly! I did notice the thread becoming slack randomly which would create a weird long stitch, which probably means it's time to take my machine in for service this week. it's almost been a year after all.

Posted by bitter purl at 2:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (21)

I've learned a few things during my morning crafting sessions:

1. the stitch the sewing machine manual suggests to use with the 1/4" foot does not create a 1/4" seam. move the needle to 5.5, instead of 3.5, for that perfect seam.

2. gift sewing, just as gift knitting, brings about anxiety and self-doubt. stop over-thinking things.

3. opened seams make for easier cutting when working with crazy nine patch blocks.

4. you bought the 'best press', now use it.

5. if you're going to steam press something, then make sure you're wearing pants.

Posted by bitter purl at 2:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (12)

I should be working on my green quilt. sewing the rows, deciding on borders (I'm leaning towards nay) and piecing the back are all in order. but fabric is an evil temptress and I already have my eyes set on my next quilt.

I think my favorite part of quiltmaking is playing with colors. maybe because I don't really do this in my knitting? I don't do colorwork (yes, I'm limiting myself), I rarely knit a non-self-striping stripe, and mostly limit myself to one color for my projects. my socks are pretty colorful, but I didn't come up with the color combinations or have a say in color placement. with quilting though, there's a whole world of possibilities to someone like me.

ok, so I'm pretty restrained when it comes to my "personal" palette. most of my sweaters are grey, blue, red or some shade of purple. and now that I just wrote that, I notice that these images are pretty much that except for the orange. so I guess I'm not going that far out of my comfort zone with this next quilt. mixing all together is the big deal for me.

also, being able to imagine what the whole quilt will look like is apparently very hard for me which leads to a lot of second guessing. the quilt I'll be working on, along with amanda and rangsiwan, is a sampler of sorts. it's going to be based on a quilt I found at my in-laws. the original was made my a group of ladies that raffled it off for charity. it was definitely hand quilted and, I think, hand pieced. but this was in the '80's. so there's a lot of hunter green along with the white they used. the batting is pretty thin, almost nonexistent in some places.

I'm going to update it for myself, in grey and turquoise with touches of berry and orange. it's going to be a very relaxed quilt-along, maybe a block or two every week or so. it'll be fun to see our different interpretations of it. I already know some blocks are going to be a lot of fun to piece and some, not so much.

for now though, all I can do is think about it. there's a green quilt calling me.

Posted by bitter purl at 2:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

crafting

baking

and eating

now I just wish they lasted longer. how was your weekend?

Posted by bitter purl at 9:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

I wish I had some exciting excuse for being offline for so long, but really I have nothing. literally. 2010 has not been a very crafty year for me so far. between my arm hurting too much to knit and regular life stuff getting in the way, there just hasn't been much time. I was feeling a little down about this, especially with all my yarn mocking me from their shelves, but now I don't mind so much. I love what I've made, or am working on, so far. I'm just going to consider this a little slow down.

my arm has been acting up for a little while now. a couple of weeks ago I tried to finish a sweater and just after a few rounds in the sleeves my wrist was on fire. I honestly think the culprit was this cowl I knit in january. I probably should have taken my time with it but that malabrigo silky merino was just calling out to me. the yarn was a gift from stef and I had to put it to use right away. straight up stockinette on 4mm needles, I love you but I hate you. no, I love you. the pain is almost worth it. this cowl is so cuddly and I love the shimmer in the yarn.

oh wait, maybe it was the other super long stockinette scarf/cowl I was knitting at the same time. this time with some malabrigo in natural and shokay in azure with 5.5mm needles. I started this over christmas as a way to stashbust and for something to do in car rides. I may even love this one more, it's that snuggly.

after a few weeks of doing nothing craft wise, I started up a new schedule for myself. I've been sewing a little bit each day, usually in the morning with some tea and npr. I love it, it feels like a little treat before I have to jump into the minutiae of the everyday. a little bit each day and I finally have all the rows for my next quilt pieced. now I just need to figure out how and if I want to appliqué some circles and how big of a border to make.

Posted by bitter purl at 11:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)