Spring Has Sprung

I sit down to write about quilting, but must admit that I haven't sewed a stitch this week.  We have had our first bout of nice weather and just had to get out in the yard.  We emptied all the rocks out of our faux pond and cleaned them off.  Next we will lay down landscape cloth and put the rocks back.  It will be so nice to see the pond without weeds.  We have occasional heavy rains here in the mountains so we designed the pond as a catch basin to slow the water down and reduce erosion.  Normally it is fake with no water in it.  While DH does the rocks, I dig dandelions.

As the yard improved the sewing room disintegrated.  Now I have to go in and straighten things out to get ready to sew again, but I can carry on for blog purposes with the next steps of creating my thread painted portrait.

I now have three copies of the design (scroll down to last week's blog to catch up).  The copy on mylar I leave on the foam core board, and set it up for viewing and checking as I progress.  I am going to cut out fabric pieces along the lines drawn on the paper patterns.  The beauty of this method is that you can see what the portrait looks like before you thread paint.  If a color is wrong, you can replace it with a different fabric before it is too late.

Copy #2.  The one that does not have the little red markings I place on my light table and cover it with a silicone pressing sheet.  Tape the paper pattern to the back of the pressing sheet or secure both paper and pressing sheet to the light table.  The point is to avoid slippage of either one while you work.

TIP:  I use a plexiglass sewing machine extender table as my light box.  The light is provided by an OTT light folded out flat.

TIP:  Set out another pressing sheet on your regular ironing surface for use with fusing, and for ironing freezer paper patterns to the fabric.  I even have a protective cover for my iron.  All this is to reduce the amount of errant fusible gumming up my equipment.

Protective cover on my iron.  Pressing sheet on the ironing board (left).
I also keep a little Clover iron hot for tiny pieces.

sub-TIP:  Keep the ironing space separate from the cutting space if you can (I didn't).  See below what happened to my extra pressing sheet.  Next time I will tape it to the ironing board (at least at the front) so the scissors can't slip underneath and slice it while I nonchalantly cut my fabric.

Oops!!

Copy #3 is going to be cut into pieces as patterns for cutting the fabric.  I cut only one piece at a time, starting with the lightest value.
**Roughly cut a piece of fusible (I like Soft Fuse) a little bigger than your pattern piece and fuse it to the wrong side of your chosen fabric.

**Then on your protected ironing surface, lightly press the paper pattern shiny side down to the right side of the fabric.  The fusible side sticks to the pressing cloth, but pulls right up leaving the fusible where it belongs - on the back of the fabric.

**Lift up the fabric and paper pattern as a unit and cut the fabric around the pattern.  The first pieces are those of lightest value.

**Any edges with red markings will need about 1/8 inch extra fabric, seam allowance so-to-speak, in order to slip under the next darker fabric.

**Proceed as described moving to darker and darker fabrics.

Once you have finished cutting your first piece, pull off the freezer paper pattern and stash it where you can find it.  I collect all my cut pattern pieces in a pie tin and set it aside where it won't get dumped.

Pattern pieces in case I need them again...and I did!

Place the fabric piece on the pressing sheet aligning it carefully into its special place as guided by the paper pattern guide underneath.  Lightly touch it with the iron in a couple of places so it adheres to the pressing sheet.

TIP:  Be careful:  your light table surface is probably not designed to be an ironing surface.

Below see the start of the fabric part of the design.  It is on the pressing sheet, which is over the paper pattern, all of which is taped to the light table.

Getting started.

  I didn't like the grayish tone of the swirly fabric.  Lips are too pink.  I removed those offending fabrics and ran to the fabric store where I found a perfect white to brown ombre.  Glad I saved the pattern pieces and didn't have to make new ones.

Below is the finished fabric creation of my portrait.

Success!  Ready to thread paint.

Sew some happy seams this week.  I wish you good sewing and some time outdoors.

Looking Ahead, Stuck Behind

Now I am in limbo.  I am quilting my quilt with Kimono Silk thread from Superior, which is lovely thread and nice to work with.  The downside is that I have to order it online.  I ran out of the thread for my border three inches from the end of the last side, on the final side of a feather.  So my quilt sits sullenly on my sewing table waiting for the thread to arrive for the five minute finish.  What is a girl to do but start a new project?  I am a "finisher," but never averse to a fresh start when circumstances dictate.

The new project is a Phoenix that I adapted from the beautiful artwork of my 15 year old granddaughter, with her permission.  She had decorated her father's iPad with it so I took a photo, made some minor changes so I can sew it, enlarged it and have admired it basking in it's own paper glow on the sewing room bed.  With a 20% rewards discount and a $20 gift card I spent an hour in the candy - I mean quilt store and bought my fabric for about half price.  What a deal, and I am so eager to get started.

What am I going to do?  I am going full bore into thread painting this gorgeous red bird.  I have never done any serious thread painting so I am using the pattern of one wing only to experiment with the process.  Am I the only one who starts a new technique running instead of walking?  Wish me luck!

First I used my new Inktense pencils to "paint" the background as in the original artwork.  I will fuse the Phoenix onto this background and then thread paint.  The bird is made up of many feathers, which I will cut from batiks and fuse to the background.

Here is the process as suggested by Lea McComas:

Trace a line pattern on freezer paper from the full-sized, printed design marking with little red arrows where extra fabric will be cut to fit under the adjacent piece.  The color of the fabric to be used is noted on the pattern piece.

Full-sized pattern (color at 50%) with line drawing on top.  This will not be cut.

Cut the freezer paper pattern apart on the drawn lines (sorry no photo before I cut it apart).

Iron fusible material to the back of the fabric.  I use Soft Fuse, but I hear Misty Fuse is excellent too.  Press the freezer paper patterns to the right side of the appropriate fabrics and cut them out.  I love this method as you don't have to remember to reverse the pattern as you would do if you were marking the fusible itself.  That would drive me nuts on a complex piece like this.

Left: front side with freezer paper patterns. Right:  fusible material on the back side of fabric.

Pattern piece cut with extra fabric as needed to go under another piece.  See the red arrows?

Lay the uncut line pattern on a light table and tape it down securely.  Cover it with a teflon sheet (you can see through it) and arrange the pieces on it.  Carefully lay another teflon sheet on top of the arranged pieces to protect your iron from errant fusible gunk.  Iron it all together, let cool, and lift the fused fabric off the teflon in one solid piece to the background fabric.  Iron to the background fabric.

Test piece for practice.

Create a quilt sandwich so you can test the quilting process and threads.

This small piece (12 x 18 in) is strictly for testing, but it has taught me a lot already.  It consists of one full-sized wing of the bird on a full-sized example of the background.  I will use pencil to lightly mark the outlines of some of the feathers and thread painting will blend and shade colors as needed.  What did I learn so far?

1.  I need to make the line drawing twice on freezer paper with all the markings.  One will serve as reference and the other will be cut apart.

2.  This is an insane puzzle so I need to number each little pattern piece to avoid spending so much time trying to figure out where the pieces go.  They don't look the same when the extra fabric is included on some sides, but not all.

3.  I need to allow for better gradations of color from light gold to red.  These fabrics are from my stash and are not the ones I will use for the real quilt.  Some are woven and some are batik.  I have some really luscious, blendable batiks, but I didn't want to use them up on the tester.  I also wanted to see how woven fabrics work with the thread painting.

4.  I don't want the background to show through any fabric (see the yellow on the right).  I need to use a darker fabric, or line the light fabric, or not paint the background where the bird will fly.  The latter is my choice.

The next part of the project is to try my hand at thread painting.  I also want to see how my fabric markers work on the painted background, but now my blue, silk  thread has arrived and I must finish my other quilt.  I'll come back to the Phoenix while the other quilt dries on the blocking board.

TIP:  Take the time to test if there is any uncertainty of the results.  It is well worth the time it takes, as you can see.  A little extra practice is never wasted.

Stay tuned to find out what other challenges surface with the tester that have to be addressed before making the quilt.

Fabric for Rhapsody

Did you have fun creating a design?  I always do.  I love what Paul Nadelstern says about creativity:
"Please, let's not allow external pressure to dictate that we conform to an imaginary standard based on the mythological perfection of the quiltmaking legacy.

My next step is to go back to the little 8x8 inch initial drawing and assess the fabrics that I want to be my background.  The drawing is just that:  a background that will support appliqué.  I cut the fabrics to fit the various elements in the small design and glue them to the appropriate spot on the dull side of the freezer paper with glue stick or double-sided masking tape.  A mirror can give an idea of what two or more triangles will look like together, but I prefer to take a digital photo, bring it into the computer, and rotate to see how the four corners will look together.

I no longer have a photo of my chosen fabrics for the quilt I am describing so I just filled the spaces with color on the computer to give you the idea.  Below is the total design with color.  It would be more lively with real fabric.

Now that I know what fabrics I want where, I go back to my full size freezer paper corner (20x20" for this quilt, which will give me a finished quilt about 40x40"), and make a copy of that full size corner.  Did I mention that if the drawing is not done on a perfect square, the pieces won't fit together?  It pays to be fussy at the very start of the process.  I have no way to do a machine copy so I just hunker down and carefully trace it by rubbing or using a light box.  This will serve as a reference copy in case I need it down the road, and it pays to do it carefully.  Ask someone who knows about this!

TIP:  Don't have a light box?  If you have a plexiglas extender table for your machine, take it to a table or the ironing board, put a goose-neck desk lamp underneath and you have your lightbox.  No fuss, no muss, no expense.  You can also buy a square of plexiglass and set it on book stacks leaving space in the middle for a lamp underneath.

When I am satisfied with what I have done so far, I take a ruler and draw lines on the freezer paper that are parallel to a straight edge through all the elements to indicate the fabric grain.  This kind of quilt can easily go wonky with its seams wandering all over the grain and bias.  Cutting the pieces with grain in mind will minimize or eliminate potential problems.

Pardon my inaccurate drawing.  I did it on the computer for this post, long after finishing the quilt.  

This is why I draw my designs on paper with pencil and eraser! 

TIP:  I use a colored pencil for the grain lines to avoid mixing them up with seam lines.

TIP:  In spite of my slipshod example, I must stress that accurate lines and a perfect square make a beautiful quilt.  Skewed designs will not work and you will end up wearing a turban after pulling out all your hair.  The sloppy line design above will NOT work because the square is not perfect nor is the diagonal.  You can see where the fit is going to be pulling, rippled and rumpled.  My original was done carefully by hand and it paid off.

Log Cabin Border

The next step in this quilt I call "Lifetime" is a series Log Cabin blocks.  These are very simple and a great stash buster.  Mine are made with 1/2 inch strips and finish as 4 inch blocks.  I printed the blocks on Sulky Solvy Water Soluble Paper and foundation pieced them.  You don't have to, but when the strips are so narrow it is the best way to get the block precise.  Below is my pattern.  I used very dark blue for half of it and very light blue for the other half.  The center of each block (#1) is a 1 inch, fussy-cut flower from a delicate floral fabric.  They are red, purple, blue and yellow, but don't overwhelm the blue because they are so small.  I numbered and colored the pattern so I wouldn't get mixed up.

Log Cabin Block

It helps to organize your workspace.  Anything to keep from getting mixed up and having to rip!  I laid out 1 1/2 inch strips of different fabrics on a small table beside me, cutting the length as I went.  These strips do not need to be precise, but do have to be wide enough to cover the area of an individual piece of the pattern.  There are many Log Cabin tutorials and videos on the Internet with very precise directions that are worth looking at.

 You can arrange the dark and light blocks as you wish.  My choice is below (not showing the center flowers):

Four Log Cabin Blocks

You may have wondered why I broke the sequence with the post on borders.  Why bother with that little 1/4 border around the compass in the middle?  That was so the log cabin border would fit!  I needed the extra 1/2 inch that it gave me.  After the log cabin border was stitched, I added a 1/2 inch pink border around it for continuity.

An aside to this is that my daughter said, "Mom, you really have to break away from pink and blue."  My response was that I love pink and blue and if that is what I want, I can do it.  I have since departed to other colors, but sometimes we have to work through a perception before we are ready to move on.

Lifetime so far on Illustrator.

Lifetime so far with fabric.

TIP:  When you are paper piecing take the time to lay out your fabrics in order and pay attention to the colors and numbers on your pattern.  This will save you lots of grief and you can leave the cap on your seam ripper.

TIP:  Check out books and videos for directions.  You can always learn something even if you have already done something similar.  My books are getting tattered from constant "how to" refreshers and idea searches.

TIP:  It is great to learn design concepts, but ultimately this is your quilt so let your creative  juices carry you.

Synergy

I love Jinny Beyer designs and fabrics so it is understandable that I fell prey to the pattern she named "Synergy."  It was published in McCall's Quilting magazine February 2007.  Her patterns have so much movement, depth and color.  I visited her shop in VA once and was entranced by all her beautiful fabrics.  What a treat.

Synergy was my introduction to spiral quilts, although I didn't know it until several years later when I picked up a book by RaNae Merrill called "Simply Amazing Spiral Quilts."  It is comprised of sixteen blocks made in the same fashion as a traditional Log Cabin block, but with triangles instead of rectangles.  It is sometimes called a Twisted Log Cabin.  I used the paper piecing technique, but instead of copying the published master pattern, I drew it out on my computer so I could easily print out the necessary 16 paper patterns.  There are directions on how to sew this block without using paper here.  I must confess that I have not tried the latter method.  I happen to enjoy paper piecing or foundation piecing as it is also called.  I love Sulky Paper Solvy for paper piecing because I can run it through my printer, and it is soluble so you don't have to tear the paper out when the sewing is done.  I tear out the bulk of it anyhow, but any little pieces left will disappear when the quilt is immersed in water.

I love the way this pattern swirls and flows so I tried some quilting that reflected that quality.  It is not very imaginative, but remember, I was just learning and this was another step up for me.  I got hooked on curly-cues early on for the the red border.  Mine are very inexact, although I prefer to call them "organic."   I find curves easier to do than straight anything, but then I landscaped the lawn with curves too (drives my husband crazy!).  Leah Day has many ideas for quilting.

I have published these TIPS on paper piecing before, but it never hurts to review them:

TIP:  When paper piecing be sure that the fabric covers the required area and seam allowance completely …..as you go.

TIP:  Be sure to press the seam every time you stitch and press it all the way back away from the stitched join.  Sulky Paper Solvy  gets scorched and brittle from ironing if there are a lot of seams.  I now use the Hera Marker to do "finger pressing."  I find I do a better job of getting the fabric tightly pressed and I don't scorch the paper or my fingers.  A toothbrush back also works.

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.