O Yeah, I Remember

O my.



The strip sets sewn by Michael James are what spurred my purchase of all those jelly rolls.
I love how they look on the table in the first picture. He did all sorts of fancy cutting and lining up of the strips (way tooo much trouble for me).

 So fabulous... I truly appreciate them. I just want to have the strips in a line on a bed, which even that is daunting....all that strip sewing. Ugh. Lazy is my middle name. But the subtle color change of the strips, so alluring. If and that is a big IF, I must not just use the 2.5" strips, but will cut some 1.5" and 2" so that I am not even tempted to line up one band of strips with the previous one.
I have nothing to prove. (repeat if necessary).
His newer work has very cool layouts and is totally unlike the previous style.
Speaking of layouts, the collage work of Lisa Hockstein is tremendously inventive. It's salvaged paper, but easily translatable into fabric.


Layout can change a traditional looking quilt into an artquilt....just like that, snap! With collage, the white paper's edge makes all the difference.
I'm just sayin'.
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I just put all my newest QAYG quilts in a chest of drawers and had a big sigh of unresolved discomfort. I don't want them hidden away, and need a display cabinet. More furniture.
I am hopeless.



O Boy!

They arrived, just as predicted, although the dark solids were backordered, so I stuck that Moda roll in to hold its place. The middle roll is Dusty solids. I WILL figure out how to include those with all the brights and pastels.

In the meantime, I pulled some prints and they fell into place with the pinks-greens already assembled and I do believe I NEED to make a yellow quilt with pink and green accents. Not too much red, as I just did a mostly red quilt.



Although, now that I look at it again, it's not all that red, but the red in it is really really red. Hmmm. Maybe I should call it a primaries with green quilt.

ANYWAY...

I am leaning on doing a yellow since I have been collecting yellow prints. But then this stripe jumped out of the pack, and it has a lot of pink in it, so hold the phone. Aw geesh.

Let's just acknowledge that when I get started, the quilt will assert itself and I will just have to stumble along behind it.
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I was thrilled to get this email this morning:

Melody,

Your post yesterday was so helpful. I think I was confused because I’d seen so many different options for QAYG that I was getting them all mixed together. When you posted the three techniques all in one place, my brain lights finally lit up.

Today I took some blocks I made up last year and put them together in a placemat sized quilt with two of the methods you showed – Narrow connector strip and flip and sew border. I feel like I actually attended your workshop!

 

 

 This makes me so happy! I feel like a mini revolution has started. Thanks to Marianne over at www.thequiltingedge.com for firing the first shot.

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Remember this painting from a few days ago, when I said I would repaint it to coordinate with the new paint color of the house?

There were a lot of drugs in my system when I repainted this...ibuprophen mostly, as my knee is bad.

I must have pink and green on the brain...

 PS: This painting by Georgia Gray looks like a good idea for that Dusty roll.

Jelly Rolls

I find these collections of solids IRRESISTIBLE. They have been on my wish list for. ever. and finally I gave in (I had a coupon) and ordered some from Fabric.com. Then I found them way cheaper, no coupon necessary, from Missouri Star. They should be arriving this afternoon.


I wanted them originally because the thought of having to go through my entire stash of solids and find groups of pastels, brights, 30's colors, warms, and deep darks seemed daunting. Then upon getting them in my tight little hands, it occurred to me that if I used one of the colors, I would be without  that color and would need more. Dilemma.



So, duh, BIG DUH, I began to pull solids to match or nearly match the strips. In my defence, half the deciding was done for me by the assembled collections. My first batch of matches was easiest, because (no surprise) I have oodles of brights. This set of strips was a Free Spirit roll of 'Designer Solids', only 15 colors needed to be matched. I found there were great gaps in the range of colors, and no RED at all. More of an orangey color. I will be augmenting this pack in the future. The second roll was also Free Spirit and was supposedly pastel/neutrals. I was shocked at how wimpy these were, when paired with my solid stash. What is that orange and yellow doing in that roll? Not pastel enough, and certainly not neutral. But, surprisingly, I HAD matching light neutrals, hand dyed from way back when.


Then I pulled more lights/neutrals out of my shelves, without the aid of a jelly roll, and I no doubt will be cutting 2.5" strips from all of these, thus defeating the original plan.


Cool blues and greens and then greens in lights to darks...more cutting of strips.

I can see yellows-oranges are next, and of course reds-pinks, blues-purples and black-grays.
And what was the planned quilt I was going to make from all these solids?
I can't remember.
Duh.

QAYG : Review with Samples

In hopes of making these techniques clear and understandable, I have some samples to show, which I just used in my two lecture demos. The first sample is using the Narrow Connector Strip. Using two quilted sections, sew a 1" strip (1/4" seams always) to the front of one section and at the same time, sew a folded over two inch strip to the back of the same section. All of them are raw edges aligned at the outside edge of the quilted section. Doing it makes it obvious.
This shows the back side with the folded connector strip sewn to the back. The second section is sewn to the front connector strip, with a 1/4" seam allowance.
The wider back connector strip will cover the butted seams made by the front connector strip.
 Fold the back strip over the seams, and topstitch from the back or pin carefully from the front and stitch in the ditch, catching the edge of the folded strip.

Here the finished look. If I had used solid fabric, it would have been nicer, but the striped strip makes it more understandable.

The two choices of covering the seam: folded strip on the front or folded strip on the back. Either one works, but one is more visible on the good side while being easier to stitch. It's up to you which to do.

 Wide Connector Strips: This is a pieced example which could be used to join large quilted sections, ala Sashing Strips. The Strip is sewn to one section, with a 1/4" seam, and at the same time, a folded backing strip is sewn. The Backing strip (doubled) should measure as wide as the front connector plus 1/2" seam allowance and 1/4"-1/2" more for overlap.



This shows the doubled connector strip on the back, and the batting is cut to fit in between the seams, and then zigzagged to one edge of the seam allowance. Fold over the back strip and topstitch, either from the back or the front.

 The simplest one of all is the Flip and Sew border technique. Join a top strip and a back strip (not folded!) at the same time. Then add batting strip, and zigzag butting it up against the seam allowance. Then quilt the strips.
Please feel free to leave any questions in the comment section.

Before and After . . . more or less

The painting continues, with the second tier beginning today. While we love the new color, both Dave and I agree that the lack of contrast leaves something to be desired. In the first photo I have a painting hanging on the front porch, and tho it is not pictured, another one hung on the back porch. Both were quite bright and don't look so great against the new color. Still, we must do something to spark up the walls, in our minds at least.

 The west wall.. This is the painting that was there and it withstood lots of rain and wind and baking hot sun. Acrylic is so durable. I like the composition enough to repaint it right over the old colors, to make it look right against that wall.
It shouldn't take long. Stay tuned.

Officially Autumn

The bright yellow yarn has been transformed from Edison Bulb to Green Pepper. Hopefully more appealing and sellable.

The weather has turned cool and sunny with a fabulous steady breeze.
( You can tell we are old fogies, since every conversation begins with a weather report).  I can't resist being outdoors, but unfortunately I wrenched my knee (again), so the gardening that needs doing is not getting done. Dave continues to paint the house, so beautifully, and now all that remains is the upper tier, the death defying upper tier. Since we have a metal roof, it is slippery and some sort of harness must be used or we'll have a disaster.
A few weeks ago I cleaned the hot tub in anticipation of the cooler nights, filled it with fresh water and started the pump going. Hours later I noticed it was off, and a steady drip of water surrounded the base. The pump had blown and a big leak had almost drained the tub. Dave to the rescue. He removed the old pump, took it to the hot tub store so he could order a new one and then changed  his mind when he discovered the price. Instead of buying it retail, he came home and ordered it wholesale (free shipping!) from California. The new pump is here and with the help of our friend Jim, today is the day they will attempt to install it and hopefully solve the problem.  Yay!

With all the rain we've had lately the mushrooms have been surfacing all over the hill. This huge one caught my eye and I brought it home to photograph. We get a lot of big ones, but this is the biggest so far. Don't worry, I never would consider eating any of them.

 
I gave my first of two QAYG lecture demos on Saturday and found these two quilting layouts on Pinterest. I included them in the handout as sample assembly plans. Of course they are a lot more complicated looking than need be, but somehow stimulating anyway. O so many possibilities!


I must say that I really enjoyed having an audience again, and one person told me that she may never go back to making a quilt the old way, after being introduced to QAYG. Yay!!
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The three mousies have been through the wash and Chester is so happy to present a fresh trophy.
  Chumley can't be bothered.