Snowball Quilt; Fussy Cutting

2016 is the year of using my stash. Or more correctly, the first of many years of using my stash.
I probably have enough fabric to last a lifetime so I really, really should use it.

Sometimes though it's not easy. Sometimes I pull fabrics and then find it quite hard to cut them up. Fabrics that I've had forever. Fabrics that are out of print. Fabrics that I had another plan for.
hmmm . . . if I had a plan then why haven't I used it?

Do you feel my pain? Come on. Admit it. I'll bet you've have a least one fabric that you've hoarded and don't want to cut.

I have been cutting a lot of fabric lately. Fabric for multiple projects that I wrote about here. This week I'm focusing on the snowball quilt. It's an abundance of color and blooms. Many of the blocks feature fussy cut flowers so I thought I'd share my fussy cutting method.

1.  Start by cutting a 2 part paper template. The first part is a window with an opening the exact finished size of the block. The second part is simply the cut out part from the window.
I use copy paper.

2.  Using the window, audition different areas of the fabric to find the part you'd like to fussy cut.

3.  Once the area to cut is selected, place the template shape in the window opening. It helps to have a rolled piece of tape on the back of the shape to hold it in position.

4.  Remove the template window, leaving the shape in place.

5.  Position a quilter's ruler over the paper shape allowing a 1/4" seam allowance around two sides of the paper shape and cut along the ruler on both sides. Reposition the ruler, adding the 1/4" seam allowances, and cut the remaining two sides.

6.  Thats' it! Now you have a fussy cut shape and leftover fabric with a hole in it.

You may be wondering why my template window is a hexagon but my cut shape ends up being a square. For the snowball block I will be using the stitch and flip method on the corners of the block to create the angles so there's no need to cut a hexagon shape. I do want to see what part of the fabric will actually show in the finished block though, so my template window is a hexagon. I've used this method for years and have a file full of different sized square windows.

It's the leftover fabric with holes in it that gives me pause right now. I find myself being indecisive about fussy cutting some of my favorite Kaffe prints. I've hoarded many of them for a long time and of course they aren't available any more. Fussy cutting can leave very chopped up pieces of fabric. Not that the remaining piece isn't usable but it might end up being less useful when there's a hole cut out of it. I'm doing my best to keep the holes along one edge so that I still have the option to cut WOF strips or other bigger pieces in the future.

While I may agonize here and there about cutting holes in my fabric, it feels sooo good to use my stash. I'm mixing my older traditional florals with a wide variety of Kaffe and Amy Butler prints.
So far I love what's going on.

This is how it's looking on my wall. No rhythm or reason yet to placement. That will come after I sew the corners on. I am curious though about the possibility of bordering it with the green prints. This happened accidentally as I cut mostly warm colors when I started and then moved on to the cooler colors. There wasn't anyplace to put them other than the edges. This is probably only half of what I'll need for a queen sized quilt so I have a lot more cutting to do.

If you're wondering about how to use your stash, take a look at this article by Weeks Ringle. While most of the fabrics in the article are more traditional than mine, Weeks provides valuable tips on using your stash by combining different fabrics into workable groups.

Follow

The Evolution of a Design

Today I thought I'd share a little about my design process by walking you through a quilt I'm currently working on and showing the evolution of my design. Here's a sliver of what's on my design wall right now.

This project actually began when I was playing with the Drunkard's Path block. There are so many wonderful layouts using this simple quarter circle block.

My early explorations were primarily based on positive shapes created when quarter circle units are combined into larger shapes. Some of these shapes reminded me of flowers which led to my Christmas poinsettia quilt with lovely red and green Kaffe fabrics. I even did a quilt along last year based on this design which you can learn more about here. I love how it turned out.

While this quilt was in the works, I continued to explore other layouts using the Drunkard's Path block. As I played, I began to focus on more modern designs and the use of negative space. Three quarter circles creates a square negative space. One quarter circle can look like a bite taken out of a larger square. Just look at all the interesting negative spaces in the example below.

I started my explorations by creating a palette of basic shapes in Adobe Illustrator. A single quarter circle. A half circle. A 3/4 circle. Then I duplicated each shape and rotated them to give me a variety of orientations. Once I had my shape palette, I started to play around with placement of the shapes while paying close attention to the negative spaces that were created. At this point I worked in black and white.

Creating negative squares from positive circles really intrigued me and, with this concept in mind, the name Circling the Square was born. I don't often name a quilt before designing it but in this case the name spoke to me. It seemed to clarify the concept and began to influence my design decisions.

Early on I tried quarter circles coming in and swirling around until they created a square of negative space in the center. Very interesting but not quite what the name implied to me. Perhaps I'll pursue this further at another time.

Then I began to focus on the circles forming a mass with the square at it's center. This was closer to what the name implied but wasn't quite there yet.

The consolidation of shapes was going in the right direction but the rectangular format wasn't right. I made the decision to change the overall format to a square which seemed much more appropriate given the quilt name.

As the mass of quarter circles came together it only seemed right that the larger shape created be circular in nature. I tried a lot of different arrangements until I got a somewhat uniform mass of circles. Careful attention was paid, not only to the placement of the circular units, but also to the negative shapes that were created. I wanted to balance the use of full circles, 3/4 circles, and half circles along with the negative shapes. I worked primarily with odd numbers, in many cases repeating the use of three elements as you can see below.

Once I got the basic shapes in place, I started to explore color. The constructive nature of the design reminded me of the early modern art movements of Constructivism and Bauhaus.  Black, white and red were frequently used in the graphic designs of these movements so it just seemed to be the right color scheme to use here. I did look at a few other colors but nothing was as dynamic and strong.

As you can see in the illustration below, I tried using red for the center square. It seemed like the natural place to use color. The effect, however, was that the red square became a positive shape rather than a negative space. There's nothing wrong with this except it wasn't what I was trying to explore. My intent was the creation of a negative square formed by the circles. Removing the red, as in the second example, returned the square to it's negative space but the design needed color. By placing the red in the only full circle in the entire layout a focal point was established. It gave the eye a place to start the journey of the circles swirling around the square.

Once I settled on color placement, I explored the finer details of the arrangement. The addition of little black arcs around the outside activated the circle. Take a look at the far right illustration above and then the illustrations below and you can see how the composition feels more active. I started with three (below left) and ended up with six (below right).

Another refinement was in the three small negative squares that come off the large central square. I felt the small squares (below left) diminished the effect of the large square. It didn't quite read as a single large square in the way I intended. Next I tried changing the small squares to quarter circles (below right) but this didn't quite work either. Now the center square looked like it had three little wings. This arrangement also introduced a new positive shape to the black 3/4 circles that I didn't really like.

Do you feel like you're playing one of those games where you need to find the differences? Can you find all the things I'm referencing? If not look harder.  : )

Below is the final layout. Simply rotating the quarter circle units brought the 3/4 quarter shapes back in alignment with the rest of the design while clearly defining the negative center square. So there you have it. The final design . . .

While I work out a lot of my design in Illustrator, many of these finer details happened on my design wall. The placement of the final black arcs and refinement of the center square all happened on the wall.  I'm pretty happy with how this design evolved and developed. I also auditioned fabrics on the wall. I used tone-on-tone prints for almost all of the circle shapes and for all the negative areas except the center square which is a solid.

Here's the finished top. Even now, I'm contemplating a change or two. We'll see.

I hope this has been an informative post. It's a glimpse into my design process. My graphic design background leads me to a more controlled approach to my work but not everything is predetermined. It's a back and forth between computer and design wall. Sometimes even a rough sketch on paper.

I love designing.  : )

Follow

Summer Bee Blocks

It's been months since I shared my blocks made for the Mid Century Modern Bee. One of the things I like about sewing bee blocks is the variety of designs I have the chance to make. This summer has been no exception. Lots of variety.

In May I made this churn dash block for Carla of Grace and Favour. She gave us the freedom to make whatever style churn dash we wanted and one of the examples she provided was this one with a center square. I liked the additional space to use another fabric.

In June it was the Raspberry Kiss block for Rene' of Rene' Creates. She asked for clear, cool blues. Perfect colors for a Florida resident. The tutorial is by Rachel of Wooden Spoon Quilts and can be found here.

Then for July it was colorful log cabins for Sherri of A Quilting Life. Sherri always has so many wonderful projects going on on her blog. Especially some great scrap projects. I look forward to seeing all the scrappy log cabins come together. It's such an iconic quilt block.

Wrapping up the summer was this woven block for Mary of Needled Mom. Mary asked for oceany blues and teals. The pattern for this block is by Elizabeth Hartman and can be found here.

Well that wraps up my summer bee blocks. Four more months of MCM to go in 2016. October will be my month to request blocks so I better start thinking about it now. In the past I've had bee mates make test blocks for a couple of my patterns which helped tremendously as I worked through the pattern writing process and tested various fabric concepts.

Are you in a quilting bee? If so what is your favorite part?

Follow

Starting . . .

I'm really not sure what happened to the last several weeks here on my blog. I guess you could say I was on vacation. At least a social media vacation. Even though I haven't been around online, I have been spending meaningful time in my studio. I've been playing with lots and lots of pretty fabrics . . .

My absence wasn't exactly planned, but I do think it's good to unplug from social media once in awhile. Between blogs, Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest, I find it easy to get sucked into the media black hole. Especially Pinterest. Way, way too much time spent looking. And looking. And looking. Definitely not enough time spent making.

Not enough time making is something I have always struggled with. One reason is that I simply have too many ideas and find it hard to decide what project to start. I also usually feel compelled to design my own quilts rather than make something from a book or published pattern. And then there's the hesitation to cut into a certain cherished, hoarded fabric. All these things can get in the way of actually starting.

The solution . . .  I've started multiple projects at once. I'm using patterns other than my own. I'm using hoarded fabrics as well as older stashed fabrics. The plan is to work on them as inspiration strikes and time allows.

My studios has gone from neat and tidy to messy. The bottom photo doesn't even come close to showing just how messy it's gotten around here. But pulling and cutting multiple projects at the same time makes for a good mess that I don't mind at all. It means progress.

So here's what's been happening . . .

• I'm cutting for Courtyard Tiles, a pattern purchased from My Quilt Infatuation. I love Kelly's use of large scale prints. I might try mixing in a few Kaffe and/or Amy Butler prints with the bright traditional florals. These are my fabrics so far. Some cut, some being auditioned. Kelly recently made a version with scrappy low volume prints in place of the solid white. I think I'll explore that idea more because it looked great.

• I've been collecting both fabrics and ideas for leafy quilts for ages. The hardest part has been choosing which idea to do first. Last week I just decided to start. I easily have enough fabric for other leafy quilts so why get hung up on which one comes first? I'm happy to be cutting and sewing a little for a quilt from the book Applique Outside the Lines by Piece O' Cake Designs.

• I'm cutting for a floral quilt I've long wanted to make using the snowball block. Mostly Kaffe with a few traditional prints mixed in. My daughter suggested going big for this one. A large quilt would really carry the whole garden floral theme to it's maximum effect so it will probably be a longer term project. Not sure whether the small squares will be solid white or some type of print. I'm leaning toward the simplicity of plain white because I like how it really makes the flowers pop.

• I'm also cutting into my traditional floral stash in an attempt to use them. Most of these are leftover from the days of watercolor and blended quilting. Since I haven't dug into them in years, I envisioned more of them as bright, large scale prints but in reality there are lots of smaller scale prints in softer colors. Hmmm. Certainly not what I buy these days. I'm thinking maybe a scrappy trip quilt. Maybe a 9-patch. Maybe a charity quilt. I think I'll cut a bunch of 2 1/2" strips and go from there.

• And in case you're wondering where the modern fits in the this picture . . . I've got the start of a QuiltCon entry on my design wall. Almost ready to begin sewing.

• I also have this solids concept going from Jacquie Gering's workshop last month sponsored by the Boulder MQG. Jacquie is a fabulous teacher and I really enjoyed her workshop. I'd highly recommend taking a class with her if you get the chance.

So, as you can see, there are lots of things in the works. More than I usually have going on at once. I just wish I had more design wall space to put everything up. Perhaps some batting on the wall in another room is in order. I might as well take over the whole house don't you think?

It feels good to be moving forward on some of the projects I've been wanting to make for so long. More time making. It also feels good to free myself of the labels of modern or traditional and just be making what I want.

So what are you making this summer? Do tell.

Follow

Corals

I'm getting back to my Color Inspiration series with a new post on one of my favorite colors . . . Coral.

The color Coral can lean toward the orange side with names like Salmon, Tangerine, Bittersweet, Peach. Other times it leans toward the pink side with names like Watermelon, Flamingo or Blush. Coral can be hard to define. What seems coral in one instance might seem pink in another. It can be soft almost peach like or it can be vibrant and intense with a lot of red undertones. One of my favorite color combinations is a true coral paired with tangerine and fuchsia. I really love these colors used together.

For years, my favorite sweatshirt was a lovely coral color. I wore it until the cuffs were in complete tatters. I also have a fair share of other corals in my wardrobe. Lots of coral t-shirts, a couple of sweaters, and these accessories that cover the whole tangerine to fuchsia range. Love love them. They make me happy.

It's flower planting time here in Colorado and I'm a sucker for all the beautiful coral, soft orange, pink and fuchsia flowers. You don't want to go to the garden center with me. Trust me. It takes forever for me to settle on what to buy. I want everything. They're all just so pretty and colorful.

I have a decent collection of coral in my fabric stash. Recently, I pulled these lovely hues with thoughts of a summer version of my drunkard's path quilt from my quilt along.

I've also made a few bee blocks over the years that have touches of coral.

Coral mixed with aqua and a touch of chartreuse in these Amy Butler fabrics makes a lively color scheme. I'm working on new versions of this design which will soon be a pattern so stay tuned.

Coral is also a popular color for jewelry. My daughter has made several lovely pieces showcasing coral colors.

I'll sum up this coral post with a few more images showing the range of corals I've photographed lately.

When I started this color series, my intention was to really look for the color in my own personal world. To see the color around me in my house, my environment and my experiences. For that reason I've chosen to use my own photos rather than rely on the abundance of beautiful photos and color schemes available through sites like Pinterest and Design Seeds. These sites are wonderful places for inspiration on color but I want my series to be personal . . . representative of the color I see around me.

You can see all my other color stories under the Color Inspiration tab at the top of my blog. If you'd like to see additional beautiful color images, you can follow my Pinterest color boards here. Just look for the specific color boards or my Color Scheme board. There are some beautiful color images.

I challenge you to look around your home, your neighborhood, your work and really see the colors in your world. Go look for some Coral in your life. Thanks for reading.

Follow