Kew Quilt Update

I had called this my “thinking” quilt because I thought that it would take a lot of brain-power and would probably take a long time to do. Because of some choices that I have made along the way……I was WRONG!!

The first decision was a biggie…..to keep it more abstract and not worry about obtaining the full perspective. I had talked about this in my last post but was still a bit concerned about it when I got to the bigger of the steps…..

Were these larger posts (circled in orange) going to look bad if they were a solid piece? AND, if I didn’t have the stair points that stick out (circled in green), would that interfere with the visual aspect?

Rather than piecing it both ways to see, I turned to my computer and used digital fabric to cover the edges and see how it looked (Michael’s suggestion!!!).

This was the center section that was ALMOST complete (I had pieced and un-pieced the next section 3 times and had given up for the night)……

It even shows some of the “stair points”.

And, this is how it looked after the digital “trimming (note….I will not trim the actual fabric quite this thin)!!……

When you look at them side-by-side, I just don’t see enough difference to warrant the extra time and energy…..

Does that make me a bad person????

So, I went upstairs, sewed on the last set of stair strips and the took my rotary cutter to it and trimmed all of the edges off!!!….No going back…….NEXT!!!

Now it was time to start thinking about the sides…..

I quickly realized that the “glass” sections should mirror the “glass” sections of the middle……ie they should be grey and should change in value as they move up the piece.

I had in my mind that the smaller strips would be in colors with the color changing as it came to the curved lines in the photo, but had no idea about what colors to choose. This is where providence stepped in!!!

While I was looking for possible colors, my eyes landed on this piece of fabric……

I had a yard if it and wondered if it might work, alleviating the need for ME to do the gradations as it came to those curved lines.

The only way to find out was to try it so I drew out the pattern and started piecing. When I put it on the wall, I was pretty sure that this was what I wanted…..

…but once I had the entire side done, I was positive about it…..

Tomorrow we will look at the process of piecing the other side….mistakes included!!

Kew Quilt – Taking the easy road

As I mentioned in my last post, I had started piecing the easier of the “stair-steps”….ie, the ones that didn’t have any visible dimensional aspects. I quickly came to the end of those easy ones…..

….and had to make a hard decision. DO I make the piecing super complicated and have all of the dimensional elements as the stair moves back up OR…. do I keep it simple and let the perspective speak for itself.

Guess what I picked!!! I decided to keep things simple, knowing that I can re-do it if I am not happy.

Also, I started thinking about adding the dimensional elements with paint or thread during quilting. Those sound like good reasons don’t they……don’t they????

Anyway, at the end of the afternoon’s piecing I was about half-way finished with the “upside” and, so far, I am happy with how it looks……

Since I have decided to keep this part easy, I REALLY have to start thinking about the sides….they are coming sooner than I expected!!

Kew Quilt…..NOW WHAT??

Now that I have the design drawn and the initial fabrics selected, it is time to turn my mind to EXACTLY how I am going to accomplish this quilt.

I don’t believe that the side strips will be super hard. I will just have to be extremely accurate and careful in my piecing!!

But, how am I going to make the center “ladder” section.

Applique would obviously work, but seems like a LOT of trouble!!

I really want to piece most of it but am concerned about how I will accomplish these dimensional areas….

Rather than making a full plan, I did what I normally do and started with the part that would be the easiest. I can always figure out the harder stuff when I get there!!!

Although it is not my favorite piecing method, I decided to paper piece each section….

….starting with the large (window) piece, adding the black side pieces and finally adding the “step” to one side.

After finishing with each section, I attached it to the preceding section…..

By doing this section by section, before I knew it, I had finished the top five window panes!!

There are three more of these “simple” sections and then I get to the hard part!!

To quote Scarlett O’Hara……

Fun Jungle Quilt

My friend Nancy B made this wonderful Jungle quilt……
Have a close up look at some of the fun critters…..

Needless to say, Nancy is a “Paper-Piecer Extraordinaire!!!!!!”
WELL DONE!!!!!

Scrap Fun

I am in need of a quilt for an upcoming gift (more about that in later posts) and was trying to figure out what to do. I knew that it needed to be a small wall quilt so I started looking thru my Miniature Quilts magazines….starting with Issue number 2. MANY issues later, I came upon a strip pieced quilt that caught my eye and proceeded to start planning it in my head.

The first ideas was to use the strips that I had been cutting from my scraps, but realized that the smallest of those (1-1/2 inches) was still too big. SO, I moved up a drawer and pulled out the bits that were “too small to use”….ie narrower than 1-1/2 inches. They were perfect for piecing this quilt!!

I drew one of the block sections on Golden Threads paper and then put 30+ additional squares under the drawn one. I then sewed around the design using a threadless machine and achieved all of my paper patterns in one fell swoop.

I started with all of my scraps in the drawer, but ended up throwing them onto the floor so that I could get to them easier.

As I started paper piecing these blocks, I found two things that helped the process go easier. The first was to leave my machine in “Needle-Up” mode. By doing this, I didn’t have to move the needle up after every seam when I was wanting to pull the sewn piece to the back and start sewing on the next one.

The second was to select and cut ALL of the pieces for a certain seam at the same time rather than reaching down into the pile and cutting them individually.

After piecing the paper blocks, I removed the paper and put them together into the quilt top.

My original idea was to put a solid color fabric in the small border, but decided that it lost the sparkle that the rest of the quilt had, so I used a handful of 1-1/2 strips and created the stripe.

It was a fun quilt to make and I am truly happy with the results.

Now it is off to the home opener for the University of Georgia football team.

GOOOOOOOO DAWGS!!!! Sic-Em!!!! WOOF WOOF WOOF!!!!