Process Pledge: Working in a Series

While it took me FOREVER to figure out how to work in a series, I now know a few ways to attack the idea. Here we have a collage of my Pine Tree series. The common element is the tree shape in each of the compositions. Some have house shapes too, but others are examples of my Stack idea. Despite the varying sizes in this photo collage, all the quilts were about the same size and all had some hand stitching and of course all were fused hand dyed cottons, with a few commercial cottons included. I began by making lots of tree shapes thinking I would make a quilt with blocks of trees. Nah. That wasn't going to work, and I quit that idea and returned later with the better plan to make individual compositions, making me much happier.
(Collages were made with Picasa3, a free program from Google).

The Pine Tree series was not my first series, having done this Street Series first. But what made the Pine Tree series significant is that it was sorta pictorial. It is easier to explain than the Street Series.
 In the Street series my aim was to limit my color scheme (ha!), to use the Stack construction again, but to keep them all to the same size and shape. They would also have strings and dots and handwork too.
Color was the real limiting factor though, as I was trying to get past my dependence on 'all color, all the time' which had gotten kinda stale.

Feeling courageous, I decided to go for the really hard stuff, MUD.
Brown is not my favorite color, but I had some super earth tones in my stash, and determined to use them I did a series with the working title
Rivers of Illinois.

I couldn't stick with one size and designs went whereever they needed to go. I felt I had 'overcome'.
Much later I found I could wander back into that muddy stash and make more with a similar feel. If this were a gallery showing, I might put these on an adjacent wall. The yellow and blue composition at the bottom of this group (A New Day) is included even though it isn't muddy colored. It just belongs. Artist's perogative.


So far I have been talking about small works. Easy peasy. What about making series that are larger and more complicated? Eeek.
I should mention right here that I never know I am making a series when the first piece gets made. That would mean I know what I am doing, calculating the future. As if.
With this Bon bon series, I made lots of parts first (blocks and strips). That seemed to be a good way to start since I had no ideas. At least there is something to arrange and design which could begin to work into a composition, maybe. Plus it kept me busy and out of trouble.
Layout came from a quilt made by Robin Ferrier. It was in horizontal bands. That was enough to get the parts organized and vroom! soon the top was assembled. I had made lots more parts and the second one was easy. The third one, in blues and greens was difficult and forced. I made it once, didn't like it and then tried a second time, removing parts and decided to stick with the results. #4 incorporated some of the blues that were left and a really different layout was used.

 Months and months passed and other things got made and different ideas were tried and then...nothing.  

Trying to  get back into a working mode made me consider returning to the Bon bon ideas. This time they turned out quite different, more traditional looking and controlled. The good thing about working in a series is having limits, layouts or themes that can be reinvented. The simpler the better, methinks.

Process Pledge: Fused Piecing

Fused applique was where it all began for me, but after a time I wanted to make some quilts that looked like they were pieced.

I thought: Can I fuse them? And the answer was: Why not?

Here's how it is done.

Beginning with already fused fabrics, cut some strips. Keep the fused side down. Choose two contrasting colors, one light and one darker.

 Cut a square-ish piece from one of the strips and from the other cut some very narrow strips.

Apply the narrow strips to the square and fuse lightly in place. In this case I am fusing directly onto a teflon pressing sheet. You may also fuse onto the release paper leftover from the Wonder-Under (no fusible remains on the paper). After the piece has been fused, it peels up easily. It can be pressed many times onto this pressing sheet without losing its ability to stick.

Next cut a strip from the contrasting fabric. Trim it to the size of the block, either before or after pressing it with the iron. Overlap the edge of the square with the fabric strip, just a bit, not a complete 1/4".
Continue to add and trim the strip until the center block is surrounded. The order in which the strip is added is your choice.

This is the reverse side of the fabric, which shows the uneven amount of fusible on the darker piece. I didn't even notice that when I started. It still works since the lighter fabric has been fused to the darker piece. It still works, since the lighter piece was completely covered with fusible. Should there be a need to add more fusible where there is none, just cut a piece of Wonder-Under the size needed, placing it on the bare spot and then.....cover the whole area to be fused with a protective sheet of release paper, so no fusible from the remaining areas gets on the iron.

 All four sides are now attached. Trim the excess strip and this part is finished. Notice the skinny 'seam allowance' visible on the lighter strip. No need to worry, it will stay fused.

The next border is done in a similar fashion with thin strips being added before applying the next round.

And here is the finished block.

Neat and quickly done, with no trips to the sewing machine. I likey!

Some have asked about fraying. Since the fabric is cut and fused  (no paper remaining on the back, ever!!)and carefully handled  (mostly)  fraying just does not pose a problem. However, and this is a big HOWEVER...I am using hand dyed cottons here which are different than commercial cottons (solids or prints) in several ways.
1. No surface coating of any kind, like Perma-Press, Wash and Wear, or Easy Care. These do not wash out and do prevent perfect fusing.
2. With commercial cottons, the printing is on one side and the back is not the same, so when it is cut, the edges sometimes are not nice.
3. Commercial cottons are often a looser weave than the fabric I use/dye. The looser weaves are more likely to fray sometime down the road.
4. It is possible to fuse commercial cottons and use them in quilts, as long as some care is taken to cover the edges with fabrics that don't fray, like closely woven hand dyes.

Finally, I am making quilts for the wall, not functional quilts for the bed, lap or crib. It's a whole different ball game.

PS. To make the rest of the quilt, make more blocks, overlapping as if to seam until the top is fully assembled. Do NOT fuse this to another sheet of fabric, but instead fuse it directly to a smooth surfaced cotton batting, such as Hobbs Heirloom Cotton (80/20) or Fairfield Cotton Classic. Fusible batting is not necessary, and neither is spray glue. No basting is required to quilt it either. I mean, REALLY.

Process Pledge: The Fusing Begins

This post is for those who are new to fusing quilts.

I have been fusing a long time and have a large collection of fabrics that I both dyed and fused. The fusible web I use is regular Wonder-Under. Nothing else will do the job as well. My art quilts are all fused, because I can do things with fusing that would be impossible or take a really long time to do with other techniques. All that fabric on the table is backed with Wonder-Under and some of it is very old. It doesn't matter. It still works just fine. No paper remains on the fabric from the fusing process, but I do have lots of the paper left, which is now called RELEASE PAPER. It has no fusible on it.

 For this quilt I am beginning with a drawing, which will act as my pattern. I probably will make some changes along the way, but it will help keep me on track as I construct the quilt.

To begin, I use the release paper as my pattern tracing paper, and trace the shapes I want to cut from the fabric. Notice I have drawn the letter G on each of the pieces. This is to safeguard the side that goes onto the fused side of the fabric.
Each piece is cut out and is now ready to find its fabric mate.

Here's the fabric showing the fused side and the unfused front. It is pretty easy to tell here which is which, but when working with nearly white colors, it is not so easy. I have a habit of always working with my fabric glue side down, so when it comes time to use it, I turn it over and that is the side with the fusible on it. I still goof occasionally. I have a lot of iron cleaner handy for those times.
I place the cut out pattern pieces on the fused side with the G facing the 'glue'. With the tip of my iron, I CAREFULLY fuse a spot on the paper to hold it in place while I cut.
I use a rotary cutter most times, or a sharp pair of small scissors (for smaller pieces) to cut the fabric. I never cut the paper. Notice that the fabric is slightly larger than the paper. Really important. One will need an overlap or underlap when assembling the pieces. And since the paper is not totally fused to the fabric, it is easily removed without disturbing the fabric edges. Really IMPORTANT.
 A clean edge is a beautiful edge.

I use a larger piece of release paper to overlay my pattern, for placement. As I cut each piece of fabric I will fuse them together, under or overlapping slightly until that section is finished. Each piece is fused together with the release paper as a base. Do not fuse directly onto the original pattern paper. Use only the release paper as the construction base, as the fused fabrics will come up from it after they are fused together.

Since I started quilting in 1981 I  made both pieced (functional) and fused quilts (art quilts for the wall), but I realized one day that the quilts that garnered all the attention and won the prizes were the fused quilts. It was then that I made the decision to focus solely on fusing as my process. The largest fused quilt I ever made was Eternal Horizons, which was 99" wide by 80.5" high. It was also the quilt that sold for the highest price of my career.
Also see this post for more pattern fusing information.

PS.Whoa! I found a picture in the Visions:Quilt San Diego book from 1997. Eternal Horizons.

And the blurb that went with it...

Process Pledge: Mixing Dyes

So much has NOT happened since last we spoke, except I went grocery shopping at my local Wal-Mart (not the big city Chattanooga version) and lo and behold they had Deer Park bottled water, 6 for $2 with the flip caps I wanted!!! The big city Smart Water was $1 each and had to be drunk up as it had chemicals in it that could possibly have interferred with the dye, or not. So who was the Smart one? Not Mel, but at least I got lots more usable dye bottles. Today it is raining AGAIN and chilly but they promise tomorrow will be sunny and warm and I will start dyeing for sure then. It will all be over in less time than it has taken me to procrastinate prepare all this.

I haven't balked this much since my first dye session over 21 years ago.

To begin, I am breaking all the rules and doing this in my cleaned up kitchen (miracle!!) since there really isn't any other place with accessible water. I will clean it back up to hospital standards, I promise.

My plastic tablespoon has disappeared so I am instead using a funny coffee measure I found in the utensil drawer, and a pyrex measure which was in the laundry room. I tossed out all my dye stuff or gave it away before we moved, because I was NEVER going to dye again, and so here I am, making do. The water in the bottles gets mixed with the dyes (3 cups of water per bottle, I measured) and two scoops of whatever that scoop holds, ABOUT.  I remembered to buy a funnel. That was a second miracle. The remembering part.

I did spill after mixing about eight bottles of dye. I cleaned the red dye up immediately after preserving the crime scene. I am reading a lot of murder mysteries this week. Blood spatters. Eeoouuww.

Ta da! The finished product...sort of.  I'll be storing these in the porch refrigerator until dye time tomorrow.
I mixed three greens: lime, grass and a dirty dark foresty green plus an aqua which is between turquoise and green. I know I need more of those colors in my stash. I didn't mix black yet. I'll do all the brights first and then get down to the darks after those. It's best to separate them for the later wash out.

Binding Tutorial

1. Cut binding fabric at 2.25" wide, fold in half and press the length of the binding. 2. Stitch on the front of the quilt sandwich with a 1/4" seam. 3. At the corners make a 90 degree 1/4" from the end of the side. 4. Sew off.

5. Fold up the binding at a 45 degree angle. 6. Fold binding again, even with the quilt edge. 7. Stitch down folded end and continue stitching on that side of the quilt.

8. Sew mitered corners on all four corners of the the quilt until reaching the start/end point. 9. Trim excess binding to 1/4" to allow for the seam. 10. Unpick previous stitching to allow binding to be sewn opened up. Sew seam. 11. This shows the finished seam, which has also been sewn to the quilt top. 12. Press over and  fold the binding, forming a nice folded miter and pin the binding evenly all around the edge, catching the backing part with the needle.  

13. Pin so that the pins can be removed.14. This shows the back side miter before stitching. Make sure that is nicely folded too. 15. Stitch in the ditch from the front. 16. Neat close to the edge binding, front side.

17. And the backside showing the miter is caught with the stitching.