Returning to the Shadows

"Don't think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It's self-conscious and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can't try to do things; you simply must do things."

~Ray Bradbury

Quilting

While I disagree with Ray's statement as far as thinking goes, the last sentence is a reminder that was even echoed by Yoda, "Do or do not. There is no try." We see that in our own lives as the things we 'do not' pile around us physically or mentally. Hopefully we tackle some of them each day. Speaking of which...

Who remembers the Shadow Star blocks? Who knows why I set them aside? Certainly not me although I suspect it involved baby quilts... with which I am constantly in arrears.

Shadow Star quilt blocks with centers being sewn

At least I appliqued all the centers to the stars before setting them aside. And I pinned and labelled the columns so it's easy to pull them out now that they've been flashing through my mind. The next step is to choose the sashing.

As far as I recall my great-aunt's quilt didn't have sashing. Or at least it was the same muslin as the stars. But mine seems to need something in the corners. Should it be a tiny post of color or something that extends into the sashing and corners of the blocks? Flowers? Circles? Stars? I tested some ideas previously so at least I know red is not the answer and an eight-pointed star is too heavy.

One benefit of setting this aside for a while is the extra time to simply think about it. The shadowed stars work because they sit on a darker background that fades to white. Your eye gets a glimpse of the shape and continues it when contrast fails. So foreground and background are important. And the posts/sashing are not foreground.

What about these very light compass points? The fabric is a pale green on cream. Audrey wrote about a similar issue with her tulip quilt.

Sashing choice for Shadow Star quilt

It would need a different post fabric. Here are brown, medium blue, and a flower on purple cut two different ways. While centering the flower in the post repeats the circles of the stars, it makes the post too light. {Those white petals conflict with the tiny space.} Quartering the flowers puts a bit of color right in the center. Plus, I think those arcs look good.

Possible posts for Shadow Star quilt

And that's how the week went. Thinking can take a lot of time.

Yet Another Plea to Make the Internet Safer
I sound like a broken record but... After six years, there are still people who haven't set their blogs to https. What a shame. There's a simple way to start if you use Blogger. Look at the top right of your blog and click Design. Then chose the Settings tab and then Basic. Toggle "Yes" on HTTPS Redirect. That will send people to this much, much safer way to access your blog.

Http is an outdated protocol allowing hackers to change your content, redirect people to a bogus site, and steal identity and credit information. {Some of us have clicked a link and gotten a porn site instead.} Here's more information on why you should definitely switch to https.

How do you tell if a website is secure? It has a lock icon before the address. Keep yourself and your readers safe. Don't go to any site {including the famous quilters who haven't addressed this basic safety issue} unless you are willing to risk exposing your personal and financial information to every malicious hacker in the world. I NEVER go to any site that hasn't got this simple, effective safeguard.  Whether you're selling something or just writing, if you want me to read your blog, it has to be https.

Enjoy the day, Ann

Chinese Coins II Moving Along

I got busy with this top and forgot to take process photos. While I liked the red sashing better, I didn't want the sashing to be the focal point.

Chinese Coins II with
green sashing and star posts

On the other hand, the green sashing blended into the blocks too much. {Here's the photo from last time to compare.} Also, everything here was too squared up.

Posts without stars

I considered applique flowers over the posts again but really wanted some red and pink here. You can see how circumspect I was adding tiny bits of red Coins.

Star points were cut from more squares the size of the posts. They were sew-and-flipped to the sashing then pressed. That let me use the sashing as a guide to again square up the sashing.

Many of the coins were hand cut. Of course, some were rotary cut scraps from previous projects. If they were already a decent width I left them as is. I overlapped the the light and dark coin sets before rotary cutting that seam line without a ruler, both to add individuality and to keep as much length as possible. But I squared up the final coin set pairs and cut the sashing with rotary and ruler. I liked the combination of free and sharp this gives.

Several quilters combine these techniques, including Freddy Moran, Gwen Marston, and Sujata Shah. Look at Sujata's Windmills quilt as an example. Free cuts within the block but block perimeter is squared up.

There wasn't enough green to complete the outer sashing either. Fortunately a half-yard of this navy print waited in my stash. Even it wasn't enough so a fat quarter remnant fills out the top and bottom.


#AHIQtwoblocks

I've been thinking about two-block quilts. Several ideas are running through my head for future quilts but  a second block might make a good border here.  Improv quilts are a learning experience for me - at least, I want them to be. There are many techniques to be tried: non-paper-pieced curves and perhaps another bout of applique.

This is the year to be fearless; to push myself to learn new skills; to create more textured quilts. So I'm mulling inspiration from Kaja and Audrey's beautiful quilts.

Enjoy the day,
Ann

Sashing Chinese Coins II

Trying to salvage Retro Mama sashing. Is there a way to sneakily add some green to the sashing or posts? What if I appliqued simple flowers over the posts? It uses blues, reds, and greens but it's not doing anything for me.

Flower posts

Monica suggested adding brown or gold sashing which might look good with the plaid. But the few bits I had did nothing when these Coins are added. I will reserve that idea for a future quilt. Ha.

I bit the bullet and tried other sashing colors. Reds, pinks, and two shades of green. While I like the red, there's not enough of any of them. In fact, none of these fabrics is sufficient to sash the whole quilt. Of course, Nettie's quilt uses a variety of sashing fabrics. But they are secondary elements that add a frame/resting place for the eyes. These just "slap me up the side of the head."

Sewing these strings into value blocks created a sea change in this top. Some of the subtle aspects of Nettie's quilt will not work with them now. Time to figure out a new narrative.

Various sashing plans

I like this green with red posts although it's a bit too quiet. Funny. Red sashing is too dominant; green sashing is too recessive.

Green sashing with red posts

More thinking ahead.

Enjoy the day, Ann

Revisiting Chinese Coins II

Without progress on my Chinese Coins II for the past month, they came off the wall to work on the Mini Trip Around the World (TOW.) And look what happened.

Chinese Coin layout

While I didn't like the red boxes together, This arrangement alternating red boxes with slightly longer blue coins has possibilities. The sashing is a small scrap of dark olive that sets off the bright colors well. I was sure more fabric about this color lurked in the stash boxes... but I was wrong.

Although this plan didn't work out, it broke the drought and I sewed several sets of Coins. Many of my coins measured from six to eight-inches long. I haven't made a Coin top laid out vertically so they are purposely set to get my mind thinking the right direction.

Monica at Lakeview Stitching and I are both inspired by Nettie Young's Stack Bricks. Like both of them, I'm planning wide sashing. It's interesting to see the variations we each bring to this design. Monica recut some hourglass blocks into several improv blocks but she retained the tall rectangular outline of the block.

Chinese Coin sets

Mine are turned ninety degrees; wider than they are high. Without really planning, I ended up with a light side and a dark side. Originally I laid them all with the dark on top. That made too strong a horizontal. Now they alternate. They almost look square as they float behind the sashing.

Because these strip sets had lots of blues and pinks, I was absolutely certain my second choice for sashing would be perfect. {First choices was a remnant here.} So I cut several strips. Wrong-o. Again.

I was amused to note my sashing has the same colors as Monica's. She planned her colors better; the browns and tans, fit the cornflower blues. {Someone in the States didn't keep her eye on the scraps.} Somehow my coins became greener. The quiet color saturation of both these sashings attracts me but doesn't work with the stronger, {more acidic?} strings. This sashing won't make the grade either. It looks like Retro Mama meets the Groovy Gal.

Plaid sashing for Chinese Coins II

Back to the drawing board.

Enjoy the day, Ann

Philadelphia: It's Not Just a City

If you're a parent I'm sure you've worked hard teaching your children to schedule, to plan long-term projects, to break those projects into smaller parts and set intermediate goals. There were times it seemed as if my children would never internalize this skill. Late night runs to any store still open for poster board or special supplies for the diorama... you know, the one assigned four weeks previously.

When my youngest went to college I had a pretty good idea of his graduation date: mid-May 2015. How has the date snuck up on me? He and his two roommates all need quilts in the next six weeks.

Fortunately, the first roommate wants something traditional. These 9"-finished blocks have been stashed a while.

Philadelphia blocks in reproduction fabrics with muslin

According to my reference books, the block was first known as Philadelphia and later as Easy Four Patch. But it's not a four patch block; it's a nine-patch on a six by six grid.

The city of brotherly love, founded by William Penn, was the seat of our Continental Congress and where delegates met to rewrite the Articles of Confederation in 1787. I learned this in school but am reminded by the new book I'm reading: Madison's Gift: Five Partnerships That Built America by David O. Stewart. It discusses relationships James Madison, America's fourth president, built to reform our federal government from a confederation to a republic, to write and ratify our Constitution, and to establish the Bill of Rights.

Originally I'd planned to alternate these blocks with Ohio Stars.

One Ohio Star surrounded by Philadelphia blocks

Many pieces are cut and sorted but this was the only Ohio Star I sewed. Don't you love the double pink of the star itself!

But I'm on a short deadline. So I just used Philadelphia with a wide brown stripe for sashing.

Straight set Philadelphia blocks with 3"
reproduction brown stripe sashing and muslin posts

I rarely sash blocks without extending that sashing to the outside border but this is all of the brown. Something different will be needed to finish the quilt. Currently it's 69" by 82" - a bit larger than the planned lap quilt but these are tall men.

Enjoy the day, Ann

Putting Steam Punk Together

This quilt continues to be a delight! My two remaining decisions were whether nor not to sash the blocks and whether to set them straight or on point. Matching up all the propeller points didn't sound like fun. The block construction makes a thick lump of seams when they are sewed without sashing. Without sashing, the quilt looked better straight set. Everyone who commented preferred on point. But the density of the sets I previously posted still attracted me. So I did both: some blocks set together, some sashed.

Steam Punk in two sizes with single Sawtooth sashing

The propeller quartets keep the feel of my original sets, a few extra-large propellers add a change of scale and the sashing pumps it up. Happy dance!

I reduced the seam lumps a little by carefully unsewing all intersections that extended into the seam allowance. This top will not lend itself to straight line quilting but the sashing can be ditch quilted.

Originally I sketched the double sawtooth sashing of historic New York Beauties with its wide inner sash (in a color or muslin) and many little sawteeth on both sides. It's as labor intensive as the block - master quilter's work. This seemed too busy for Steam Punk so I switched to large triangles.

The base and height of the triangles are 2.25" which is the diameter of the propeller centers. I thought I might put circles in the posts but they were again too much.

Paper pieced sawtooth border

The triangles were drawn on graph paper, scanned and copied. I steamed each triangle after it was added, then turned the paper over and steamed again. By the time the sashing was done the paper tore off easily. I trimmed the sashing before removing the paper. It's easy to trim from the back with a rotary cutter since you already know your points are perfect.

This will be another huge quilt. It will take a while to sew together and even longer to figure out how and where to photograph it. I'll keep you posted.

Thanks for all the support and opinions, everyone!

Enjoy the day, Ann

A Lighter String

String quilts are a wonderful connection to our own past and to our quilting heritage. But the extra  thickness with the muslin was getting me down. So I decided to try stringing without a foundation.

First sort strings into lights and darks; I didn't follow this rule very strictly. Both groups contain several mediums of the same value although my second (strictly followed) rule was that each fabric could only be on one side. Next I sewed strings from one pile or the other until I had an eight inch block. After cutting them into QST (quarter square triangles) I sewed a light & dark together.

Eventually I figured out how to sew a light block and a dark block together like a 'potholder' which could be cut into QST to make four new blocks at once. Eureka. But not as unique as I'd originally thought. A few months later a friend shared a magazine article with the same method. Later I found this great video from Missouri Star Quilt Company and Three Dudes Quilting. They use jelly rolls but it's the same method. The video is short and very easy to follow; take a look.

For the mathematically challenged: Two original blocks become four new blocks. Since they must be the same area, they can't be the same size. The new unfinished block size will be 0.707 times the original block size. (This is one half times the square root of two.) Mine started at 8" but ended at 5.656". The new blocks are never a routine size but can always be trimmed down if needed. If you plan to use these in combination with other blocks think ahead.


This is a good project to sew over time. The 'potholders' stack nicely. Once they are cut open the new blocks are all bias edges, so wait until there are enough to finish your top. I made most of these blocks a year or more ago.

The alternating diamonds of light and dark are called a barn raising set. The blocks aren't log cabins so in each quadrant, all the darks go one way and all the lights go another. When I originally laid out the blocks they looked odd - either because the strings were different widths or because I had so many mediums on both sides. Finally I added sashing and posts again. Although the sashing still alternates between a light and a dark depending on which side of the block it touches, it makes a zig-zag in this rather than crosses like Red and String. Because of the use/abuse this quilt will probably receive, I meander quilted all over.

This block is fun and easy. The quilt is going to college and hopefully will graduate in four years!

Fret not; enjoy the day.

Ann

Red and String

The Dallas group traded red and string blocks in a desperate attempt to reduce the size of our scrap bags. Made on a ten-inch muslin foundation, one side had to be a red triangle but anything went on the other. Since I didn't need another project, they sat around until a neighbor was graduating.

The foundation makes the blocks very thick. I'd already fought that thickness on the Watermelon quilt so this time I added a half inch sashing. Now the thick string seam allowances meet exactly under the narrow sashing. No pressing problems this time. 

I used two different post colors (orange and yellow) and varied the sashing with the side of the block. Cute, done, off to college in the right color!

Fret not; enjoy the day.

Ann