Lifetime Quilt Begins

The quilt that I call "Lifetime" sits on my bed as we speak and is a catalog of memories beyond sewing.  I was inspired by the picture of a quilt by Maoko Kamamota in Quilters Newsletter Magazine, November 2003.  I put my own take on her design, using some elements and discarding others.  There was no pattern so I just started in the middle with a mariner's compass and thus began my foray into designing my own quilts.  I find I am an intuitive quilter, meaning that although I have a basic idea of what I want to do,  I tend to start somewhere and decide on the next step as I go along.  I drew it out in Adobe Illustrator as you can see below.

I broke the compass up into the following element that can be paper pieced.  There are many videos on the Internet that teach paper piecing so spend some time and find directions that speak to you.  The foundation must be the reverse of the final star as all the fabric will be on the back when you are done.  With this one it doesn't really matter which way it goes, but with some patterns it is important to remember so you don't end up with work finishing backwards.

Next I reduced the opacity of the color and added numbers telling me the order in which I need to sew. I reduced the opacity so I could see the muted color and don't have to add more text to small spaces reminding me what fabric I should use.  It really helps!!  I also added 1/4 inch seam allowance lines.

Finally, on the computer I placed four of these pieces to fit on 8.5 x 11 inch paper.  You must also prepare a similar triangle with #1 being a square for the corners, assuming you want the compass to end up to be a square as mine will be, and prepare four of these for another piece of paper.  Then print.  Then cut the paper so you have the 8 triangles ready to piece.  Then sew.

I love using Sulky Solvy Water Soluble Paper.  The paper tears away easily or you can leave it to dissolve later.  There are many other products on the market and you can also use plain copy paper.  By reducing stitch length the paper tears away easily on the perforations.

Once the eight triangles are all sewn, all that is left to do is sew them together.  The quilt's center in fabric is below.  It is 22 3/4 inches square with a 1/4 inch pink border.

TIP:  I find that it is sometimes challenging to get the points to go together nicely in the center.  If you try and fail there is always a seam ripper, but those points are delicate and will take only so much punishment.  You can always appliqué a small circle of fabric over the center and then cut away excess fabric on the back.  It looks just as nice.  This one I nailed perfectly with a loud, "Hurray!"  I'll write about methods for star centers at another time.

I am sorry I can't help you eQ7 quilt designers.  I have a Mac and have had to turn to Illustrator as my design software.  No matter, stay tuned and I will carry you through the process of creating an unusual sampler quilt.

Puzzle Quilt

Here is a quilt that was just plain fun.  It is called a Puzzle Quilt from the book "Puzzle Quilts:  Simple Blocks, Complex Fabrics by Paula Nadelstern.  She is another very talented fabric and pattern designer and quilt maker.  The idea is to cut triangles from different, interesting fabrics, and she gives direction as to what is likely to work best.  In doing this I learned a lot about which fabric motifs create movement and make a block more interesting.  I also fussy cut some of the triangles.  My finished blocks were to be 12 inches square so I cut a piece of cheap, plastic tablecloth about 16 inches square, set it on my ironing board, and arranged triangles on the flannel back until I got a pleasing design.  Ms. Nadelstern suggests several main arrangements with variations for each, but your fabric choices are what will make your quilt.  She also shows photos of several finished quilts.  I loved playing with the fabrics and even dragged my husband in for his opinion now and then.  Since his head works very differently than mine, I got some interesting opinions, many of which were very useful.

TIP:  Avoid open windows and fans or you might get a colorful snowstorm of triangles.

Puzzler

I read the book fairly completely before I did the quilt, but I missed a critical element.  I wondered why she called it a "puzzle quilt."  Later I read that you are supposed to make your blocks so that there are two of each pattern, for which you use different fabric choices.  If you number my blocks like you read a book then #2 and #6 are the same pattern.  The idea is for an admirer to try to find the blocks with the same pattern.  I didn't do that, but instead just played, had fun, and love this quilt that now resides on the back of my sofa.  It is the perfect size to use for decoration or as a lap quilt.

For quilting I used the Baptist Fan design.  This link takes you to a website that shows a very clever way to draw the design.  I happened to use Adobe Illustrator on my computer.  Once I had the design printed I copied it onto one piece of  Golden Threads tracing paper.  Then I cut 12 pieces of the tracing paper, each large enough for a block, stapled them securely together and machine stitched through the pile without  thread.  This left holes as guide lines.  You can also stitch through only one if you want to use pouncing chalk.  I suppose you could use your walking foot to do the quilting, but I decided to try my hand at free motion so I could avoid turning the quilt so much.  I did OK, got a lot of practice, broke a few needles and broke the thread sometimes, but those frustrations can provide motivation if you can figure out what caused them to happen.  I quilted a simple design in the sashing, but still used the tracing paper to keep it regular. (Sorry the photography is not up to snuff here, but the quilting is pretty much background noise and doesn't show much even on the quilt itself.  Great way to learn!

TIP:  Read the books you buy!  It is amazing how much you can learn when you think you already know how to do something.

TIP:  Triangles have a bias edge and you must treat it with gentle hands and move it through the machine without stretching if you plan to have a quilt with straight edges.  Please be sure that the straight edges are on the straight and crosswise grains of the fabric or you might have an unpredictable mess when you put the quilt together.

TIP:  Cut the triangles a smidge large, then carefully measure and trim each square after sewing two together, making sure the diagonal line of the ruler lines up with the diagonal seam.  That way the 12 inch block will come out to be the proper 12 1/2 inches (that includes 1/4 inch seam allowance).

Storm at Sea

Today I am returning to Memory Lane with a Storm at Sea quilt.  Unfortunately the color looks dull on this page.  It is really quite vibrant even though some of the colors are pastel.  I used Michael Miller's Fairy Frost fabrics for the light colors.

After the Storm

This is a fascinating pattern and has been done numerous times with almost as many variations as quilts.  It is interesting, it is colorful and it has amazing movement, and it all happens with only two blocks and a variation on one of those two blocks as demonstrated below.

These were drawn on Adobe Illustrator with precision in mind.  After I had drawn the basic pieces I set them together in the general design of the common "Storm at Sea" and began to add color.  I actually did only one quarter of it because all four quarters are exactly the same.  It is like working in a coloring book, which I loved doing as a child.

You don't have to, but I paper pieced the blocks because I like the precision I get with this technique, and the pieces are pretty small.  The blocks are only 4" square with the diamond being 2"x4."  Of course, they can be made any comparable size you want.  I have done a miniature with 2" blocks and have seen it done with 8" blocks.  I labeled every column (8 of them) with a letter.  I labeled every row with a number (1-8) and the center row with a capital C.  On each quarter I only needed one of the center row as the other center column (that would be the  "i" column) goes on the adjoining quarter.  A color print of this labeled quarter was pinned to my design wall to keep me on the straight and narrow.

I keep old envelopes in a sewing drawer for organization purposes.  These are just small mailing envelopes and I labeled each one in pencil (so I can erase and use them for the next project):  1a, 1b, 1c…….., 2a, 2b, 2c,…….., etc.  That is a lot of envelopes and each one ended up with four of its labelled block, one for each quarter of the quilt.  A shoebox is nice to keep them all corralled.  Once organized like this I was able to take my box of completed blocks to Quilt Camp and put it all together without having to think very hard.  Even so, when I got home I noticed 4 blocks either in the wrong place or turned 90º or 180º.  Yes, I had to haul out the seam ripper, turn, and restitch.  I think I had to make one block over again from scratch, but considering that I had 288 blocks all together it could have been worse.

Once complete, I added a seaworthy fabric as a frame.  The quilting is an edge-to-edge ocean wave sort of design.  See, I am getting better.  I tried a new pattern for my quilting and got lots of practice doing a simple, curvy design so I could concentrate on moving my quilt around and keeping my stitches even….and I didn't even have to mark the quilting lines after practicing on scraps.

The quilt blocks are not hard, but you just have to be careful putting them together right.  See the many variations of this design on Pinterest.  You can get a free pattern here or you can draw your own as I did.

TIP:  Color or mark your paper foundation to make sure you are putting the right color in the right place.  I print out my foundations with about 40% color opacity so I am sure to grab the right fabric as I am piecing. 

TIP:  Organization is critical for a quilt like this.  If you look closely, blocks with the same basic design often have colors placed differently.

TIP:  Check twice or more before sewing the pieces together.  It is too easy to get one of them turned.

TIP:  Watch your points so you don't clip them off as you sew the seams.   

TIP:  Practice your quilting.  It is the only way to improve.

Asian Window

I love Asian fabrics and designs.  I don't know what exactly attracts me, but I always stop in the Asian section of any quilt store I visit and I have made several quilts with an Asian theme.  I fell in love with every aspect of this fabric:  birds, colors, moon, volcano.  It just spoke to me and kept calling for awhile as it sat in the closet begging to be released.  I have also liked the look of the "Attic Window" pattern, but this fabric needed something bigger than traditional, little windows.  I sat down at the computer and drew out a perspective view of a series of windows on Adobe "Illustrator," my go-to design program.  Once the design was on the screen I printed out the various parts and pieces, which became the cutting patterns.  From there it was just a matter of cutting my beautiful fabric (oh how hard that was!) in a way that would showcase the design elements.  Did I succeed?

Birds through the Window

My Asian grandson walked into my sewing room and saw the pieces partially arranged on my design wall, and he said, "Wow, Grandma!  That is cool."  Ultimately I gave it to him as he loves all things Asian.

The window sills and frame were quilted in straight lines, close together with a walking foot, but I went all out in a new direction by quilting around the birds' feathers.  This was the first time I attempted anything so detailed and intricate and it was my first time with metallic thread.  Quilting around fabric designs is a fabulous way to learn to control machine quilting.  Somehow, you will know when you are ready for this.  The background behind the birds is quilted with long, flowing flame stitches that follow the lines of color.   The stitching on the volcano follows the path that lava might flow and the moon has some squiggly, curlies on it.