NW Quilting Expo Sampler

Although I am back from vacation, there is too much unpacking chaos for me to get back to quilting yet. However, that didn’t stop me from heading out to the annual NW Quilt Expo in Portland OR. I saw probably 3/4 of the 700 quilts hanging.

Three special exhibits caught my attention:Western Modern Quilt Guild’s Native American themed challenge, Cover to Cover’s interpretations from two novels, and Latimer Museum’s antique quilts. A couple photos from each.

From the Native American challenge, I appreciated most the quilts that though inspired by history didn’t closely reproduce traditional native images, rather creating new ones.

This one gave the traditional Crossed Canoe block a new meaning.

Fishing Hole by Nancy Schaefer

Schaefer described deriving her design while watching the fish ladders at the Bonneville Dam and thinking back to a time when salmon were so plentiful they could be speared from a canoe.

This quilt also referenced salmon.

Tails and Fins by Beverly Shoger

Shoger, noting that salmon linked the coastal tribes, chose to represent them by abstracted tails and naming the better known groups.

This quilt was based on a collaboration.

Shaman’s View by Kathy White

White’s granddaughter had done a senior project that included shamanism. She drew a sketch that White translated into fabric.

Cover to Cover Book Club Quilters is a group that designs quilts based on novels, usually doing two a year. One was Gone With the Wind. There were quilts showing Tara, quilts with abstractions in blue and gray, and quilts representing grand living and the Atlanta fire. This humorous one caught my fancy.

Flowered and Southern Fried by Patricia Goodwin Andrews

(Not so humorous from the chicken’s point of view.) Andrews says, “It’s Saturday and this chicken has another day till it is Sunday and southern fried chicken day.

The group’s second book was All the Light We Cannot See.

The Map in Her Head by Dianne Kane

Several of the quilts referenced Marie-Laure’s blindness; the fabric selection in this one appealed to me.

Last, but not least, are the antique quilts from the Latimer Museum collection.

Nine-Patch Medallion

This one was dated ~1840.  It looked to be double-bed size.

Here is a closer view of the trapunta and hand quilting. Notice some of the old fabrics are beginning to shred. Those early dyes were harsh.

The next one was dated ~1880 and looked to be twin size.

Ohio Star

The center square in the Ohio Star blocks looked to be about 3/4-inch on each side–the blocks about 4 inches.

If you live in the area, you have one more day to see the show. I hope the rest of you enjoyed the sampling.

 

 

 

Sunny Lanes–more tips than tutorial (and weather update)

Last year I participated in Foot Squared Freestyle (F2F). The time came for me to receive my blocks, and I did (link here if you want to see them all; scroll down to March for mine). I had planned to make my three after I saw if any color/shade was needed to balance things. I’d also made Sunny Lanes for everyone and planned to make one for me. That is what stalled the process. I needed yellow-orange and didn’t have any. I finally bought some and prewashed it, but by then I was on to other projects. So I am finally back, and here is my finished Sunny Lanes.

12 1/2 x 12 1/2

Since I made one for everyone, I thought it would be fun to see what variety color differences can make for one block pattern. (There are only 11 because I started a month late.) A reminder of the rules: Members could make any pattern 12 1/2-inch block using the colors chosen by the recipient.

12 1/2 x 12 1/2

Sunny Lanes

Sunny Lanes 12 1/2 x 12 1/2

12 1/2 x 12 1/2

Sunny Lanes 12 1/2 x 12 1/2

Sunny Lanes 12 1/2 x 12 1/2

12 1/2 x 12 1/2

Sunny Lanes 12 1/2 x 12 1/2

After seeing all those, you want to try one, right? I foresee a quilt in my future using scraps for the squares and a unifying pair of colors for the HSTs.

A 12-inch block requires 8 HSTs (Cut four 4-inch squares of two colors–I allow oversizing and trim to 3 1/2 inches.) and 32 2-inch squares (they will finish at 1 1/2 inches).

When I have plenty of fabric, I cut 8 squares of each potential color and make my HSTs and play around. I add the extra squares to my collection for scrap quilts for later use. So I tried three color groupings for the current block.

I started out thinking I wanted the medium brown in the corners, then saw the bright red beside the stripe and thought I’d like it. Last I tried the gold, just in case. In the abstract it was my least favorite, but I ended up liking it best. I thought the medium brown too distracting and the red too bright. I wait till the 4-patch pieces are sewn to fiddle with the direction the corner ones will go–sometimes a diagonal line, sometimes more rounded. Much easier to rotate one piece than four each time.

After making 3 or4, I finally had a system.

Three challenges for assembly: keeping the HSTs going the correct way, keeping the colors where you want them, and pressing the seams so they will nest when assembling the next seam (of course people who press open don’t have to worry about the latter).

I lay the pieces out on my 15 1/2 square ruler.

I start chain piecing with the small squares, L to R, top to bottom. I do not cut them apart until after they are pressed, and I leave the thread bunny (or leader/ender) attached to mark the top. I press seams in alternating directions. That way each pair will nest.

It would have been smart to show the wrong side, but you can see some of the fold directions. And the thread bunny.

I snip the pairs in twos as I lay them in their place on the square ruler. Then, again moving L to R and top to bottom, I stitch each four patch segment.

This time pressing is a major issue only for the center 16 squares because they will meet up. The corner ones do not matter. I lay all pieces back in place on the ruler and carry it to the ironing board. I press the seams in the two in the center-left column down and the ones in the right up.

Now you have the choice of assembling the center and the pairs of HSTs then assembling the whole as if it were a 9-patch block or assembling row by row. I have found the latter easier as it requires fewer breaks.

I sew pairs down one side, then down the other, then sew the middle seam, making four strips. I lay them out and press in alternate directions. Nothing left to do except the final joining seams.

I hope to see some of your variations on Sunny Lanes.

And after I come back from vacation, I’ll lay out blocks, make my last two and start setting them together.

BTW I will be without WiFi on most of vacation, so won’t be responding to comments till I get back.

Also while catching up on blocks, I finally made June and July for the weather quilt.

June 14 1/2 x 14 1/2

Yep, that orange is for highs in the 90s and that is what we had at the beginning of June, 97 to be exact.

July

July was cooler and pretty boring colorwise. Too bad I hadn’t planned on different colors for each 5-degree increment.

And here are all the blocks so far.

There will be cream sashing between eventually. Most weather quilts are done in rows (some samples here) instead  of blocks and look better, but I’ll finish what I started.

See you in three weeks.

Reading Instead of Sewing, Again

Facts & Fabrications-Unraveling the History of Quilts & Slavery: 8 Projects 20 Blocks First-Person Accounts by Barbara Brackman

The history is in summary form, but there are endnotes with further sources.

The book opens with a brief discussion of myth Vs. historical method. This is followed by an abbreviated history of slavery from the beginning of the slave trade to emancipation and migration. Although I am fairly familiar with the topic (having read The Great Migration, I learned some new detail (the migration to the plains). And the quotations from diaries and WPA recorded oral histories added an important dimension.

Brackman links each stage of the history to a quilt block by the name of the block, a story telling method she links with the 20th century. The idea is to create a mnemonic for remembering the history.

The block patterns and quilt layouts are clearly explained and illustrated, but she refers readers to other how-to books for basic quilting instructions. She also includes suggestions for adapting the history and sewing to children (in formal and informal settings)  and includes possible discussion questions.

View all my reviews

Practice Stitching Curves

Buried among my orphan blocks were these strips of squares. It amazes me how almost modern the print, and the setting is even gray.

They have a long history, only part mine. They lived in a basement among other sewing things, as squares, not strips. I don’t know how long they had been there, but they smelled musty, so much so that I got accused of smoking (in a non-smoking apartment) when I pressed them. The owner of the house was moving to a nursing home, and her relative, who was in my guild, was giving out the UFOs. This was at least ten years ago.

I took them along to a retreat as a filler in case I finished other projects faster than expected; sometimes it happens. I did,  so stitched the squares into these strips. It was before rulerless cutting was in vogue, but these irregular squares appeared to have been cut without a ruler or marking. Add to that my inexperience at machine piecing (hand piecing comes out right because you sew on the seam line) and irregular 1/4 inch seams, the strips were quite wobbly.

So they sat, waiting for me to trim them straight and do something about the bubbles. Also they needed something to  double them to make an adequate sized quilt.

They were sitting out when a member of Sunshine (link in the sidebar under quilt groups) issued an Olympic challenge–make a quilt using the Olympic colors while watching the Olympics. Noting that the colors in the print were all the colors except black, I started to plan.

Instead of trimming to straight edges, I decided to use Sherri Lynn Wood’s curved seam approach to the irregular edges and darting to control the bubbles.

And I ended up with this.

Close to 40 x 60

If I can find my black, I’ll border and bind it in black. The border is needed because darting shrank some strips to 39 1/2, and that is without quilting or binding seams.

Now, about sewing curves. As you can see, these are quite gentle. I marked match-points on the first seam and noticed that they always met. So I didn’t mark any more, nor did I pin other than the first pin so that I’d start in the right place. I didn’t have to redo any seams.

Now we are told that it is easier to stitch when the concave curve is on top. In the past when I had S-curves I’d even start twice so that both halves could have concave on top. But on these gentle curves I didn’t bother. Yes, it is a little harder with the convex on top, but I developed a trick or two as I progressed.

This is one time to watch the needle. Even half an inch before the needle is too far away to match edges. I stitched till the two fabrics diverged to almost make a V at the needle, then with needle down, slid them gently together. Sometimes I had to repeat this every 3 or 4 stitches until I got around the convex spot.

Another thing I have read is to lift the top fabric high to aid in matching. I did not find that necessary. What is necessary is to handle the top and bottom fabrics separately, sometimes one in one hand and one in the other. Maybe lifting the top one high helps some to handle them separately, but I found it the dual handling that matters.

Occasionally at really tricky spots, I used a stylus (well, I never bought an official stylus, I just used my seam ripper) to hold the two edges in place near the needle.

One caveat: I don’t know how sharp a curve will prevent my method from working. I’ll keep using it till it doesn’t work and report back.

About the yellow curves. Here is a slightly better photo with them out of the fold of the sofa.

At first I was going to sew straight strips, but it seemed better to continue with curves. For the first seam, I cut the blue and yellow together. Stitched. Then pressed away from the fabric that would become the narrow strip (toward navy in this top). I cut the fabrics for the second seam separately. I cut the yellow irregularly in what looked like pleasing variations. Where I wanted the yellow to disappear, I made sure to cut only 1/4 from the previous seam. Then I used the yellow as pattern to cut the navy.

Now to go hunt the errant black fabric.

 

Reading about Race

Waking Up White, and Finding Myself in the Story of Race by Debby Irving

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I appreciated reading this meditation on growing personal awareness of whiteness as a race, not as neutral or a norm. It is not an easy lesson to learn, and Irving shares her missteps as well as her successes.

Sometimes books on interracial communication leave me fearful of saying anything at all. Irving answers that fear by speaking of the need to get over ourselves, to get over needing to be seen as a “good person” or a “good anti-racist,” but to be willing to be vulnerable.

Irving admits that her white culture could be different from that of other readers due to differences in social class. And while much of what she describes rings true to me and I admit white privilege, there are some networking advantages she had that were not available to me. Those differences do not negate her message that we need to own our privilege and see its flip side in privilege withheld from people of color. And I can identify with the dominant white cultural dictum to avoid conflict, hence avoid discussion. Yep, I was raised like that.

Irving’s book is not about white do-goodism; in fact that is one of the stages she went through on her way. Nor is it about diversity training. Rather it is about recognizing and confronting systemic racism and our place in it.

View all my reviews

Block-of-the-Month Assembly

Three months out of the year I won the guild block-of-the-month pile–ending up with 26 after making only 15. Back in February, the pink ones quickly became a top (back made, but yet to be quilted). More recently I won the red-blue-gold nine and the totally scrappy six.  Along came a straggler that thought I had won pastels.

The straggler became a top for a doll quilt for the Toy and Joy project.

I’ll be making doll/teddy bear quilts till the minky fabric is all used up, but the bag just doesn’t get empty. However, the fire fighters have requested more infant sized quilts (36 x 36). So I’ll shift my attention.

Nine 12-inch blocks easily make 36 x 36. Here are the red-blue-gold.

The six block group required more thought. I laid out five.

I could use the sixth and make three more, or I could do something else. I thought and thought.

Once, long ago, I’d offered a challenge for people to send blocks with sides in any multiple of 3-inches. At the time I’d wanted to practice designing a quilt using variously sized blocks. What I didn’t anticipate was that without a color limitation, they wouldn’t play together even if I could arrange the space. I grouped them into color sets and put them aside. Maybe I should get them out. I arranged and rearranged the blue and white ones till I got four 12-inch blocks and added them in.

I decided it worked and sewed the top. The one remaining block will be combined with novelty fabric to become another doll/teddy bear quilt.

Now the two await backs.  I have multiple small pieces of flannel from which I’ll be making scrappy backs until it is gone. I have until the November or December meeting to finish these. Next in the stranded-block line up are the Foot Squared Freestyle (F2F) blocks–I still have to make my three as well as assemble blocks.

I’ll be linking with Let’s Make Baby Quilts (button in sidebar) when the link is available on Friday. And people visiting from that linky might also want to see the heart quilt on this blog entry, also a baby quilt.

 

More Lotto Block Tops

As I assembled these tops, I pondered my process for grouping unlike  blocks.There are many features to play with: color, shape, value, intensity . . .

• I look for exact pairs (or groups when there are more than two).
• I look for similar colors and balance them–usually into corners.
• I fill in the empty spaces with similar or coordinating colors; sometimes blocks that match in color add different colors as well, and that new color leads to a criteria for selecting other blocks.
• I evaluate shapes and shift blocks around.
• I consider values and shift blocks around.

Sometimes, of course, the block that is the right shape is the “wrong” color or value, so I shift around and go for the Gestalt effect that is pleasing.

I’d started this process toward the end of July (here), and after a reading break,  I made five more tops. This first one is about similar shapes first, then color considerations.

42 x 42

I had some of the stripe left that  I’d used in the first batch,  just enough for sashing/borders by adding the yellow cornerstones. The plan is that the stripes unify the different colors.

Another top where striped fabric comes to the rescue:

42 x 60

This one started out with framed pictures as the unifying idea, then framed anything, then 9-patch blocks that had a novelty center. Finally the Shoo-Fly block that sorta fit. Next I shuffled them around till I liked the look of the colors and shapes.

The next one was arranged mostly by color; secondarily by shape. The yellow center block might have looked good in the bottom middle, but so did the one with green.  Either one would have balanced the top center.

42 x 42

The border and cornerstones tie those two blocks to the other more aqua ones; however, there is purple and green in the prints of the corner blocks, which suggested the addition of the two center purple/green blocks. Aqua around the center block was to keep the top from becoming too purple.

I played more drastically with color in the next one. The closer to the end, the fewer to swap around.

42 x 60

I started with the matching pink blocks and added the pink-brown-green. I’m not sure which came first the 36-patch or the aqua in the corner. The bottom center balanced the top center’s dark value. Originally I had the orange and aqua 36-patch in the lower corner to balance the upper aqua, but it was too dark. Dark seemed to fit the center better. Then, because the colors were so varied, I made the sashing and borders in as many of the colors as I could and tried to spread them around. It isn’t the world’s best design, but this is, after all, a utility quilt, so making do is okay.

And the last one is a surprise.  Looking at them tossed on the floor–the 12 rejects from the other 9 tops–I had decided they didn’t play together at all. I decided to take a photo to show that.

Instead of putting the blocks away, I started moving them around until they became a workable group.

36 x 48

Isn’t it amazing what just a little rearranging will do?

That concludes my current batch of Lotto blocks, collected over about 6-7 years and 9+ winnings. I still have Blocks of the month from guild to assemble and my Foot Squared Freestyle blocks to arrange. Maybe in a day or two.