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29.4 Working on it Wednesday January 16

January 16, 2013

This quilt is getting SO SO close.

I do have my issues with my vintage machine – carlotta my necchi.

I was sewing the binding on the back to do my very first machine binding, choosing to do the zig zag finish stitch with the pretty multicolored thread. I got 1/3 of the way around and, ugg, I have to rip & start over, may need to press my binding down flat, but the stitches were being skipped on the binding.

sewing on bidning

And you may or may not be able to see the skipped stitches in this picture.

machine binding stitches skipped

I gave up for the day (and the next day) as soon as I saw that I’d be ripping out. NO STRESS for this quilt, and if I had ripped at this time, I would have stayed up late and stressed me out at work all day the next day. And today, was busy after work as well.

And tomorrow’s a sewing day, but a sewing at someone else’s house day, so I don’t have the luxury of sewing down binding due to limited space.

I DID think I didn’t know what to do tomorrow, but I think I inadvertently found a project. That was at the “piecing stage”.

I think I want to do the “Quilt It! Challenge” hosted by Jackie and Kitty, some wonderful ladies on twitter in the podcast universe community thing.

The premise is to take 1 quilt block and quilt it 3 different ways throughout a quarter.

Love this idea, very “experimental”.

Although I could see this being a quilt together and my symmetrical mind screams 4 blocks, 4 blocks, you must do 4 blocks each. So it’d be interesting to think about a 4th design. Let alone a 3rd or 2nd design on the blocks.

And the first 3 months are close to a design I was going to do anyway for the future, so tomorrow I’ll be piecing some blue & white blocks together.

And I will do my best to quilt it this year. I already have plans to quilt more this year to reduce the number of tops waiting to be quilts.

I wanted to show off something one of my quilting retreat friends/mentors/inspirators made for everyone at the last retreat I attended.

A beautiful stiletto.

stiletto gift

It makes me want to purchase a custom seam ripper. Maybe one day.

And today I got a book, and a few days ago another pattern. Want to see?

books and pattern

The book in the middle talks about color, and my friend is introducing a color workshop for our guild next month, and I am sure this may help inspire her, although at this point, it may be too late.

The pattern on the right is just a twister color inspiration. I will probably be making the throw quilt pattern out of this pattern as it has more colors to it than the others.

With the twist ruler I bought, I can be somewhat flexible on the size of the project, but I do have to keep in mind I’ll be making a quilt twice with it.

twistandstitchtool

And the book on the right is spiral quilts, which takes a shape, and shows you how to fractal the shape, and how to design quilts, color patterns, and math, and pretty, and triangles, and fractals, and pretty ….. swoon.

Plus I’m trying to get in a little bit of walking in, or cycling on a stationary bike type thing (pedal only), or something, which also takes chunks out of my days.

Busy busy. Always. I know how to stay busy. But the last half hour or 45 minutes of my day I do tend to rest.  Take care! Until next time.

Posted in Experiment, Home Sewing Front | 4 Comments »

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22.0 First 15 Minute Challenge Jan 10, 2012

January 10, 2012

I have thought a lot about joining up the 15 minute challenge since a podcast about it a year ago.

I have also not been disciplined enough to always do something on a certain day, or really rigorous in my quilting experiments that I have set up and then long forgotten to get ahead on quilting projects.

But, I am considering having a Marching Along in March where the challenge is similar to Kelley’s May Mayhem and all you have to do is sew for 15 minutes a day in march.

If I want to set up something like that, I have to start somewhere, and what better way than posting a 15 minute challenge results from the last week, and then linking it to Life in Pieces Blog – at least once anyway.

And to spice up the information, it usually goes out with a graphic, so I am trying that too.

This whole week has been taken up by progress on my Exothermic quilt blocks.

Some other rules about the 15 minute challenge that I have set up for myself:

No where do I actually say I definitively have worked for 15 minutes, AND this list for me can include things that make sewing easier that are either necessary prep items or something more than just twittering & blogging.  Also when not journaled correctly, I reserve the right to fudge a little bits on the dates this all happened.

I have the right to change the rules at any time.

More details?

Tuesday, I was finishing up the alternate blocks (dark blocks in exothermic design) by figuring out the corners that I would need to cut off & sew down. I sewed one complete block with corners that day. or was this monday??

Wednesday, I repeated the process of flipping & cutting down the pieces that go on the corners on the remaining 11 blocks to complete.

Thursday, I got a little farther in sewing the corners that I prepped on Wednesday, sewed 8 of 11 on.

Friday, I finished up sewing all the corners on the blocks.

Saturday was figuring out how to best piece the side block, I had to cut out the templates, tape together the paper pieced portion (oh why didn’t I use washable glue?), sew strip sets for the graduated look of the block, cut down the strips for paper piecing the block.

Sunday, I had less time to sew than I had planned, I got all the pieces together and had my puckers on the side block, but I did measure, and it is staying w/in the 45 degress of an isoceles right triangle.

Monday, back at work, I started cutting the paper piece templates for the rest of my 13 side blocks I need to make. Cutting these at lunch did eventually lead to 15 minutes of work, no sewing, but sewing prep and that counts.

That’s my first 15 minute challenge post.

Posted in 15 minute challenge, Data, Home Sewing Front | 3 Comments »

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21.2 Practicing quilting with paper

December 4, 2011

Sometimes you just have to make your own mistakes and make your own experiments before you believe a result that someone else has already warned you about.

I have been neglecting the FMQ on my giveaway quilt, probably since I haven’t FMQ’d since June. (That’s Free Motion Quilting, for the uninformed)

That and I really just want to piece my (other) quilts in my own room, around my own things, which leads me to procrastinate on this current project.

This quilt was supposed to be a quick quilt to get me to practice the FMQ, and that is starting to serve it’s purpose this early morning.

My experiment & hypothesis: I can FMQ through a freezer paper quilting template and still like the quilting results on the quilt when the freezer paper is removed.

First I took a paper copy of my design (Just ran the freezer paper copy through my printer) and pinned it down to the top of a practice quilt sandwich.

I quilted through that.  First, I locked up & realized how much lint is gathering under my metal plate, so spent a half hour ‘delinting’ my machine.

After all is lint free, I try again with the regular paper. I suppose this was my ‘control’ of my experiment.  To see if freezer paper would be easier than the regular paper.

Regular paper quilts through mostly fine, although at this point, I haven’t removed the regular paper yet, so this data is only halfway done.

Then decided I needed more time getting the rhythm for the design down, so I cut a smaller sandwich for the middle design & quilted it down.

So I took freezer paper and put it on my practice quilt sandwich and FMQ’d away.

I have only removed the paper from one of the flowers and leaves at this point, and although this technique I think would work, I am having reservations at how much this is pulling up the stitches.

One solution: faster foot pedal, slower hands.

This produces smaller stitches that would make it easier to tear away the paper and would prevent large loops coming undone

Another solution: tighten the tension on the top (?)

I am not sure but maybe a tighter tension would produce tighter stitches on the top.

Another solution: get the freezer paper wet with water to help remove the paper.

enough said.

Another solution: get a light weight quilting paper specially designed to dissolve away.

This would help with keeping the stitches close to the actual fabric underneath, perhaps also providing more tension all on it’s own. I don’t own any of this.

Another solution: trace the design from paper to the fabric using dressmaker’s carbon.

This way I don’t have to deal with the paper itself. Of course I don’t OWN any dressmaker’s carbon.

Another solution: trace the design onto tissue paper.

Same as the carbon, and I may actually have some. somewhere. Somewhere.Tissue paper’s thin.  May come with its own set of problems too though.

Another option: leave it – it’s working out ok enough.

I think this may work overall, if I decided to leave the freezer paper & tear it out by hand, I think this could be “good enough” and know that over time, I’ll get better. And hopefully the recipient would understand.

I realized that I never have come to this place before in my stages of quilting.

Which solution / option do you usually chose?  Reasons why?

Posted in Data, Experiment, Home Sewing Front, Hypothesis | Tagged , , , , , | 7 Comments »

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20.6 SQ Episode 032 – Optical Illusions

November 6, 2011

Podcast Feed

Optical (visual) illusions come when your brain interprets something you see that you actually don’t see.

Optical Illusions come in many forms

Line (& Shape) Illusions

Lines appear bulged or squished depending on lines around it.

Op-Art Quilts book on Amazon

Op Art on Wikipedia

This looks like the op art quilts in the book but is not exactly:

Orchid Kaleidoscope

Image from flickr by andy02124 (creative commons)

The Cafe Wall Illusion

Image from Wikipedia

Herring Illusion

Image from wikipedia

Herring Illusion variation

There are squares set on point that have concentric circles that make the squares seem squished

The Bulging Checkerboard (see below)

Kaleidoscope quilt variations (this one does not show circles, but is Kaleidoscope quilt

kaleidoscope Quilt

Image from flickr by heidielliot(creative commons)

Storm at Sea

Storm At Sea

Image from flickr by The Last Cookie

Dimensional Illusions

Due to colors/ value lines, two dimensional objects appear in three dimensions

2D –> 3D

Vasarely Budapest Déli pályaudvar

Tumbling block and varations

Shadow box quilt

Movement Illusions

Due to highly dense & colored designs, the designs appear to move on you.

Revolving CirclesImage from Wikipedia

A dizzying optical illusion quilt that you won’t be disappointed to see, but watch, made me dizzy to look at.

Rotating Snake Illusion (very moving, if you’re epileptic, be aware before clicking)

Fraser Spiral

Image from wikipedia

Actually moving illusion that induces an interesting afterimage effect (don’t go if epileptic)

Illusion of Inclusion

Your brain completes the picture, it finishes things up that are not there.

Kansia Triangle

Image from wikipedia

Ambiguous Objects

Duck and Rabbit

Two Faces & Vase

Image from wikipedia

Robbing Peter to Pay Paul

1997 Robbing Peter to pay Paul

Image from flickr by PeggyinMaine

Paradoxical Drawings

These objects are impossible … very impossible.

Penrose Triangle

Image from Wikipedia

MC Escher stairs

Penrose stairs

This hilarious video of these penrose stairs. Video is called Hallucii.  You’ll see why when you click.

Secondary Patterns

Patterns come up that are not expected – from very simple blocks

The Neutral Stars Block

The simple three strip block that doesn’t look like much on its own.

More about the Bulging Checkerboard

Jane’s wonderful optical illusion quilt has stuck in my mind over the last year, when I would see it on her blog, I remember thinking, wow, what a quilt.

She has graciously agreed to let me share pictures of it with you.

Jane has named her quilt False Impressions, the website of this effect is called bulging checkerboard.

The effect is simply amazing, but the execution of it looks like squares on larger squares.  The hardest part would appear to be keeping everything separate and in line.

Here is a detail shot.  It would be easy to do with big enough blocks, the effect is much greater when standing back.

Do you see why it’s a bulging checkerboard?

Jane has discussed this quilt in several different posts, and in the latest post has talked even more about optical illusions for quilt ideas.

Wow, this quilt, I would be really proud of Jane.

Jane calls herself a quilter geek, and this is a great example of this.

Other Optical Quilts

3D Tetris Quilt by Quilter Geek

My Tumbling Block Table Runner

My Opic by Ruthann from Mirkwood Designs (link from SeamedUp, tell me if it’s broken)

Who is known as the Optical Illusion Quilter?

Karen Combs (facebook page)

Optical Illusion Quilts on amazon

Optical Illusion quilts at the Online Quilt Museum

Further Links

Links to the Wikipedia site on Optical Illusions & Geometrical Optical Illusions.

Whole site of Illusions at Visual Phenomena & Optical Illusions

I did not discuss color constancy, which is a whole other ball of wax that tricks your brain into thinking about the colors based on the other colors around it.

Additional music

Mevios Music Alley: Get Myself Together by The Tones

Posted in Experiment, Flickr, Podcast Episode, Science, self reflection | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments »

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20.2 Evolution of Exothermic Wonders

October 2, 2011

Ugg.  I love / hate the design process.

Here’s a short version of a story I’d like to tell more elongatedly.

I made a weaving, rectangular, quilt design in February that matches current decor perfectly.

“Eh it’s boring”. That quilt is still in pieces, ready to be put into rows, ready for me to decide a clever weaving border for it.

… Then there’s been my recent smaller square quilts that I’ve been doing …  in addition to the hurricane quilt that hasn’t been touched since I’ve been trying to baste it to remove the oil stain on it (might not remove it all the way, it’s starting to add more character to the hurricane story I’m building around this quilt).

and more … “eh, squares are really just not my thing”, “I’m not digging that color”, “can’t you put in some more exciting blocks” ….

hmm …. okaaayyyy ….

So I was working on the alternate blocks on electric quilt for my latest quilt, Exothermic Wonders, current version that you’ve seen below.

This is what I started with. the variation I liked the most of what people also liked the most.

But I ran out of black & so did the store.  So I got some lower contrast, darker orange /red-orange fabrics for alternate blocks, and I finally put the fabrics into EQ7 this weekend, thinking as long as the blocks are fairly low contrast, there is still the main design.

Here’s one version:

But here’s the version I liked even better that that one:

I was working out how much fabric would I need for the alternate blocks as I was designing them, so I removed the outer borders from the electric quilt design, which, I have had completed for at least a month or two.

And finally, from over my shoulder:

“Hey, I like that!”  “I could see that quilt if you take out the pink ones because they’re too distracting, but I like that.”

And this was said without the borders, so I quick put the picture above on the screen and say, you mean this one?

“No.  I don’t like the borders.”  “Do it without the borders.” “Well, it’s your quilt, and you can do it how you want, but I like it without the borders – too distracting.” “This new design is simple – more symmetrical.” “The borders look too much like the quilt on the inside, same style”.

So if I listen to this request, I get a quilt that is ACTUALLY wanted, but then … not large enough.

So I need to make more of the middle blocks (that are done & have been sewn together since July, & cut since April), and then, what the heck do I do with all the borders that are also already done? I suppose I could do the back with them, or have a bonus quilt from it?

That, and to do the alternate blocks the way they are, I require more fabric anyway.  But I DO like the stability of the alternate blocks as they are.  (Actually slightly lower contrast than what’s shown here also)

So here’s my new design, assuming I don’t revert back to the border one.

Which I do admit, I like (right now).  But this means a lot of paper piecing for the alternate blocks.  Hopefully I’ll like the end result.

Tried putting the borders as alternate blocks, and I almost liked it too, less work, but more scrappy, and I do like how non-scrappy these alternate blocks are.

(sorry about the poor quality, it looks better before I post the design, don’t know what’s going on with that).

Posted in Computer Manipulation, EQ7, Experiment, Quilting Design | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments »

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17.4 The Vortex of a New Project

July 19, 2011

Suddenly, I have one swap to do – Pinwheels, podcast done, house good, things going well (generally).  So it feels like virtual freedom.

The lack of quilt show deadline looming over my head actually has found me in a state of “well, now what do I do?”.

Which is almost comical, when I list out the UFO’s that I have to work on, several of which incredibly excite me.

I had promised Nonnie, from Nonnie’s Quilting Dreams that I would get her some blocks for her massive charity quilt project.

So I took her up on it and finally set down to sew together several blocks, now they’re just waiting to be mailed (tomorrow).  These are pictures of other Four Patches, hers are already in the envelope before I got out the camera.

And, because of her talking about the Disappearing Four Patch Blocks, I just HAD to try them, I just HAD to.

Even though I only made the requested Four patch for Nonnie as requested, I couldn’t help but make some disappearing four patch blocks on my own. Here is a murdered four patch.

I almost took Nonnie’s suggestion of cutting the blocks at 4 inches from the edge, but

  1. I didn’t square up the 4 patches to 12 inches first
  2. All blocks were consistently 12.5 finished before cutting
  3. I liked the look of cutting each line 4.5 inches from the outer edge
  4. Even after sewing them together I liked the look of 4.5 inches, the middles are small, but not TOO small.
  5. The more distance between you and the cut, the skinnier the strips (FYI).

I made 9 different blocks, and decided instead of changing out two colors, I thought I would investigate a bright scrappy quilt, by first lining up all my pieces.

And then went full on scrappy pieces on my design wall (3 pieces aren’t pictured here)

And now 3 blocks are sewn together. New life Frankensteined from nine separate blocks, stitched together lovingly, and fairly quickly.

Overall, so far, good experimental technique, and it’s fun, and I am learning to play a little bit!

Here is Nonnie’s directions to the charity quilt request, (just 4 patches) and here is Nonnie’s directions on how to do disappearing four patch blocks.  Or D4P?

Posted in Data, Experiment, Home Sewing Front, Quilting Community | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments »

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17.0 Meet my Quilts

July 6, 2011

The following quilts are going into the show this weekend titled with the following names:

Quilt #1:

Challenged by Yellow

28 X 14

I found Judy L’s (Patchwork Times online) monochromatic challenge for the month of January intriguing – Yellow!  Yellow!  Who makes a full yellow quilt?

Challenge is on!

Using Bonnie Hunters (Quiltville) Strip Twist pattern as inspiration, I made the 2 blocks (limited in size by my lack of yellow fabrics) and then found a black and yellow butterfly on my calendar, so I traced and appliqued it onto the top.

Quilt #2:

Make it Sew

6 X 17 X 12

I was inspired to make the style of cover by flossie blossom (on flickr) but wanted a machine cover that had the words “make it sew”.  Make it sew is a play on Start Terk Next Generation Captain Piccard’s famous line “Make it so”  So I added the Star Trek emblem to the front.

I had wanted to complete a spectrum quilt, and on Star Trek they refer to ‘dilithium’ a lot, so the embroidery on the front and back is dilithium – 2 lithium spectra.

The hole in the back is perfect fit for my machine.

Quilt #3:

Homeless Escher Steps in 3D

18 X 16

Pattern from paperpieces.com

This is the first quitl I hand pieced which was a breeze.  1-2 sides a day every day after lunch, this took a while to piece, but I enjoyed doing it.

Pattern was absolutely perfect for my round table and then I got rid of the table 2 months after completing this quilt.

Named by blog readers.

Quilt #4:

Tilted Online Friendship (With Tribbles)

37 x 37

This was a swapped block from quilterscache.com as the first swap of a group of Quilting podcasters and listeners.  Sandi (Colwell) pieced the tilted 4 patch blocks and I sashed the blocks and added the applique which I designed.

This quilt is my first attempt at quilt-as-you-go technique which caused some issues.

The gold hexagons I call ‘tribbles’ because they were multiplying like crazy for another project.  Even they could not stay away from this quilt.

Quilt #5:

Sunflower Patio Dreams

37 X 39

The leaves and the flower petals were from a pattern called “Delightful Daisies” by Bee Creative Studio which I muiltiplied, created a bud that was opened.

I designed the two flowerpots myself, using one of my flower pots as inspiration.

The birds are from ‘Award Winning Applique Birds’ by Panela Humphries and I envisioned this (quilt scene) as if I was looking out the window on a patio.

After searching online the daisies I made were way more like sunflowers which caused some confusion for a while on the title.

Quilt Auction Quilt:

Tweeting in the Crimson Sunrise

21 x 21

Pattern from Quilters cache.com

Otherwise known as “Ouch this hurts my eyes”

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Will try to get a podcast around the ‘behind the scenes of a quilt show” by podcasting a little each day the next few days.  The Quilt Show starts Friday at Eudora Middle School and goes through Saturday afternoon.

Posted in Conclusion, Home Sewing Front, Podcasting Progress, Quilting Community | Tagged , , | 5 Comments »

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13.4 Saturday on Tuesday

March 8, 2011

This week, like one of every 5 weeks, I have a saturday off on a tuesday.

It feels surreal and wonderful to go to work on monday – usually the busiest day of the week for my shift – and then automatically have the next day off.

And actually, I was ultra lucky because I preplanned for my quilt guild meeting tonight and took tomorrow off in advance too!

So ….

This all means that I have had time to complete things on my lists.

I really need to brush up on my handwriting.

We’ll see how the list thing goes.  In the past, I have written lists and it has paralyzed me.

But I have matured.  Maybe.

 

Sewing Day Report

This past Sunday, I saw this amazing book that my friend has a pattern in, which I’m going to have to pick up, there are lots of great small projects in this book.

The other friend who also works in the quilt shop was trying to get information about the quilt shop picking up the book, so maybe I’ll wait until I see it there and help a whole bunch of people out instead of just helping out Barnes and Noble or Amazon.

Or since the other friend works in the interlibrary loan department of her library, perhaps I should check it out instead.

I’ll give you more details as I know them.  Right now I have to go to the one blog to remember the title and stuff.

I always ask (and usually forget, so most likely re-ask) about the process of being a designer, how long it takes, how the contracts work, how/if the magazines or books retain the rights to the pattern.

It’s been fascinating to learn.

The other friend who was at the table at the time is a tech editor for a book company, and there was talk about book ideas and copyright, corporate espionage (… well not exactly, but I threw that in to see if you’re paying attention) and all sorts of stuff about do you speak about a book project or not.

Just to make it clear, at this time, I have no intention of going down the book road … but I wouldn’t be opposed to going down a book road in a few years or so … if anything happens and I can actually create real life patterns for people that will sell.

First things first, build up my own skills, have a blast doing it, create good relationships between online and real-life people.  (You know what I mean)

 

At the sewing day I finished measuring and sewing the front on my tumbling block table runner.

 

Because of how I ignored the mitered corner trick, I introduced ‘pookers’ in the corners. I had just read a yahoo group explanation of how to handle this too … days before this was done. And the author of the group solution was sitting right across from me at the sewing day.

Frankly, I was more worried about measuring the length of the binding at the time, and truthfully, right now, pookers don’t bother me.  Next time, I’ll want to rip that out and redo it.  Probably.  Maybe.

If you’re wondering, I kept in the stitching I did at the retreat.  I mean, why was I worried about something that I cannot see well either due to my thread color matching awesomeness?

I have more stitching to share from today and from Sunday, but I’ll break it up so I can scoot to Quilt Guild.

 

Posted in Conclusion, Home Sewing Front, Quilting Design | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments »

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12.2 Velocity Results … Finally!

February 12, 2011

Thanks for all 5 of you that participated in

I learned a few things about myself when hosting this type of event, which I will share on the next podcast.

Here’s my bullet list of what I learned:

  • get a great giveaway item
  • show the item for the giveaway first to help with participation
  • don’t make a giveaway so complicated!
  • don’t make a giveaway a really long time frame
  • giveaways that seem complicated just get put off until later … and later …
  • give a hard and fast deadline to when the results will be given – no excuses
  • set a timer to help you get past the fact that figuring out the results may seem hard (even though it’s not)
  • once you get past the initial inertia of figuring out results, it is NEVER as hard as you think
  • you forgot how much joy you have in creating the giveaway to begin with if you never work on it!
  • dimensional analysis will get you through times when you haven’t done the math right

… You want actual results?

How fast do we sew?  Really?

Here’s a copy of the pdf of the google document that I created.

velocityexperiment-2

Here’s the picture (for those who don’t have pdf readers handy):

This is not meant to be a display on who can sew fastest when, so I blurred the names here, except mine.

The highlighted column ends up being the speed in yards / minute as I have calculated.  I hope I got all the kinks worked out on the yards / minute calculation.

(note: there are 3 feet in a yard, 12 inches in a foot, and 60 seconds in a minute, and forgetting one or all of these facts can cause you to go crazy for about a half hour)

Actual conclusions (to the data, not to how I mishandled the giveaway and experimental results).

  • Two quilters sewed faster when sewing full length strips rather than sewing blocks.
  • One quilter sewed faster when chain piecing blocks than sewing full length strips
  • MY speed was the slowest of them all when it came to sewing blocks.  And right now I can’t remember if I actually sewed two pieces of 2 and a half width blocks instead of one piece.  If I sewed a length of 5 inches instead of 2.5 then my speed would be much closer to the speed of sewing everything else.
  • Sometimes cats, ironing, threadies under the fabric get in the way and slow us down.
  • The width of the strips DOES matter on speed.  The narrow 1.5 inch strips are slower on all quilters who attempted them, and the fastest speed is on 8.5 inch blocks.
  • Some people get in a rush when trying to time themselves and cause themselves more trouble than they would otherwise.
  • The average speed of all the results is 1.36 yards / minute.  We can sew just about 1 and 1 third yards of fabric in a minute’s time.  And do it accurately.
  • Some people don’t like timing themselves, but everyone who did, I am truly grateful
  • I have a timer on my iPod Nano that I didn’t know I had

Feel free to continue to participate and now that I have the database set up better, I can hopefully reply much faster (get it – faster?) with the velocity.

Giveaway

For the giveaway, I assigned each trial that people timed a separate # and then used the random number generator to determine the winner of the giveaway.

And the winner is:

Janet!

Sending you an e-mail Janet, hope to get in contact with you soon!

Posted in Conclusion, Data, Experiment, Physics, Quilting, Science | Tagged , , | 4 Comments »

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10.9 The left brained swap results

January 11, 2011

I have to say kudos, kudos to my swap partner for the quiltcast supergroup tilted four patch block swap.  Actually, kudos to both of them, the one who made me my blocks, and the one who received my blocks.

This was for the innaugrial Quiltcast Supergroup block swap.

Block swapped:  Tilted 4 patch. 

Template and instructions found on Quilter’s Cache

Swapped with SwapBot, hosted by Katie (Quilted Magnolia in Big Tent)

Most of the other swappers were done some time in november, but the swap deadline was January 8th, so realistically I had plenty of time before I was late. 

But me being me, seeing other people complete their swapping projects, made me feel under the gun, behind, a little slow.

… And there is this whole ‘left brained quilter thing’.

You see, I had read somewhere that to control the bias of a tilted block, that you can mount a template on with freezer paper.

So I copied and cutout 4 x 4 triangle templates.

And then proceeded to iron them onto the BACK of the fabric.

Which this is leftover fabric for my hurricane top quilt.  I specifically chose this fabric first, thinking of all the colors I could draw from. for the 4 patch.

Actually these fabrics were laying out before I had my triangle templates, but you can see the fun I had here.  Many options for something else in the future!

Anyway, here’s a tip.  When you make freezer paper templates do one of two things! 

  1. iron freezer paper to the FRONT of the fabric
  2. reverse your teamplate before tracing it on freezer paper

I sewed my 4 patch together, matching them instead of actually going scrappy, using inspiration from the patches I received from Sandi.

See, the blocks are tilted to the right.  The four patch has leaned over to the right.

When you put the template on the back, the blocks, when sewn, lean to the left.

Left handed blocks from a left brained quilter.  And the other thing I wasn’t so proud of was my seam allowances. 

Yes, the seam allowances were great on my triangles, they had a template with quarter inch marked (because I wanted to torture myself), but the center of my 4 patch was not quite so nice. 

Too small seam allowance on the blocks = too large of inner block = points just matching up to the edges, but once these blocks are sewn together to something else, the points are toasted!

And I had a thought. 

Watching square in a square ruler video, I had an idea to use her method for the tilted 4 patch to make it easier!  And I could make these blocks tilt the ‘correct way’.

I had to use my current blocks to get the tilt.  Turns out these blocks are tilted 15 degrees instead of the more common 30 degrees. 

I could have also gotten the template out to figure out the tilt, but instead i used the block I already had done, but to work with it, I flipped it upside down.

The block in the back that is facing right side towards the camera has extra fabric around the outside in rectangles, which are easier to sew.

The block in the front is the block I was lining up to get the tilt correct!

Here is a picture of the completed block, ready to cut.  I had to line up my ruler straight on towards me and tilt the block behind it.

And then rip with the rotary cutter.

Square up, turn and repeat. For all 4 sides, for all 4 blocks.

Downside:  Now the bias is on the outside edge.  I hope this doesn’t create too much problem later on.  Starch it like crazy.

Or fuse the block with freezer paper for stabilization.

Moral of the story, check which direction you have the freezer paper, or you could be going backwards.  Or left tilted for the left brained quilter!

I made sure my partner got both sets of blocks, since one was backwards.  Anyway, this was fun.  On to the next swap!

Posted in Conclusion, Home Sewing Front | 2 Comments »

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