The Story Thus Far

Every quilt has a story--here's the story of this quilt-in-progress thus far.

A few years ago I won a set of 6 inch square string blocks in the Block Lotto.  Half were made from light colors fabrics, half were made from dark strings. I always planned to use them as fabric, cut them up and do something, but my idea of what that something was kept changing. Plus, whenever I had an idea, it always seemed to need more string squares . . .

Last winter during Nancie's Bring Your Own Stash (BYOS) class, while I was working on a very traditional looking quilt and making my blocks from vintage feed sacks,  inspiration hit and I decided I would make a variation of her road trip quilt using the string squares.  I loved the totally different look you could get from the same basic unit.

I decided I wanted to use the dark and light values of the string blocks in my design and so I decided to make light and dark pieced blocks and alternate them. 

Once again, I knew I was going to need more light string squares and so, in February, I made some.

In February, in the block lotto, we were also making string blocks and turning them into heart blocks with dark backgrounds.  I really liked the look of those blocks and decided to use a bundle of dark, neutral hand dyed fabrics that I had purchased by the pound at an incredible yard sale at the MSU Museum. Although there are deep blues and reds and violets in those fabrics, they make me think of chocolates . . . and I have come to think of this quilt-in-the-making as Strings & Chocolates.

This afternoon, I pieced the string borders.  Since the string fabric in the blocks was pieced on a foundation fabric, I cut a dozen 7 x 19 inch rectangles--sized to to keep the "blocks" manageable--from muslin and chose strings that were medium-to-dark to tie to those almost disappearing blocks made from the dark strings.

I had planned to put string pieced fan shaped blocks in the corners of the border, but after I spread the top on the floor and laid the border rectangles around it, I knew that the corners should be mitered to echo the mitered look of the center of the blocks.  More foundations were cut and I returned to the bottomless bag of fabric strips and put together some smaller rectangular string blocks to extend the border on each side long enough for the mitered corners.

I ran out of steam before I could finish, but all the string pieces for the border are done and–even just folded into place--I can already tell that I like the revised, mitered border design very much.

Check out the projects on more design walls/floors/tables on Judy Laquidera's Design Wall Monday blog post.

The Circle Game

It didn't feel like much of a sew-in, but there was some (hand) sewing–if the running stitches in the seam allowance of all those circles count– and at the end of the night I had prepared these 40 circles for machine appliqué . . . it seems a little less impressive in the morning light ;-)

I am using this method for the circles: Preparing Circular Elements for Appliqué

No, I did NOT decide to add appliqué to the sampler quilt, these circles, along with the leaves that will turn them into "flowers" will be going onto the setting triangles for Road Trip to the 30's, my BYOS quilt made from feed sacks.

Seeing RED on my design wall

Friday night's FNSI was a Friday night SICK-IN for me--I was down for the count with the flu all of Friday and most of Saturday. Yesterday, I was upright, but not up for leaving the apartment, so I cut more red triangles from the scraps I found in the bottom of the project box and made 8 more scrappy hearts, for a total of 13. I added some black squares to the red squares and made six 16-patch blocks and . . . from the bits and pieces left over, I pieced a dozen red crumb blocks.

At this point, my red scrap bin contains more pinks than anything else.  I'm counting that as a victory.

The 16-patch blocks will probably become a tote like this one; not sure yet how the crumb blocks will be used.

Saturday night--when I started to feel human again--I sewed together the last of the road trip blocks I need from the feed sacks.

Next up, getting started on the applique on the setting triangles for all those feed sack blocks. I haven't made such a traditional quilt in ... maybe forever. It doesn't feel like me, but it's interesting and fun to think about making a quilt like one that might have been made by a quilter in the 30's or 40's from her collected feed sacks.

See more design walls by following the links at the bottom of Judy's Design Wall Monday post.

Progress Report

I made another dozen blocks from the feed sacks during the super bowl ... and made a few more in the evenings. I have less than a dozen to go.  It was time to get them on the (temporary) design wall so I could really see them together.

I didn't spend any time arranging the blocks, but I know I will torment myself with it when it comes time to put the blocks together because of the blend-y nature of most of them--I can tell already I will either have to embrace that characteristic or work really hard to avoid the effect.

I have also been doing some research into typical 30's applique (of the more simplistic variety) and found a simple flower that I'll applique on the setting triangles.  I made a quick trip during my lunch hour yesterday to buy some solids in 30's reproduction colors. It was kind of amazing to put the modern solids next to the vintage feedsack fabrics and see how they were an exact color match.

Nancie V named her quilt design "Road Trip." I've come to think of my quilt as a Road Trip to the 1930's. I find myself imagining a 1930's woman (in my head, she's a farmer's wife) and the design decisions she might have made while making a similar quilt.

I didn't get the temporary wall up in time for Judy's Design Wall Monday ... and so I decided WIP Wednesday was the next best thing. 

What will you do during the Super Bowl?

How are you spending Super Bowl Sunday?

Will you watch?  Will you host a party or go to one?  Will you join one of the many Super Bowl mystery quilts or quilt-a-longs? Have you challenged yourself to make serious progress on a knitting project or a quilt during the course of the game?

I've decided to spend the game focusing on my feed sack blocks and challenging myself to see how many I can make over the course of the game.   I received some extra-special motivation this week from Terri, who shared some of her feed sack fabrics with me.

 

When the BYOS (bring your own stash) group meets this month, I really want to have all my blocks made, so I can spend the time deciding on setting and start working on the piano key borders that I almost certainly will want.

Friday Night ... Saturday Morning

Here's one of my first blocks made from the feedsacks: It is perfectly imperfect and so quick to make.

I cut into two of the feedsacks last night in class and woke up this morning anxious to add some of the other sacks, so I could begin to see whether or not they're going to play nicely together, so I made blocks from two more.  Here's my first dozen.

It's unlikely the blocks will end up in anything like this straight set, but it's kind of interesting to see them side by side like this. 

In a class like this, where everyone is starting with fabrics from their stash, it's always fun to see what everyone else is using.  It turns out that quite a few of us are working out of our comfort zone--across the table from me, Karen is using pretty, soft water-color-like fabrics and Mary is using some fabrics from a baby print line--including a panel that may end up on the front or as some kind of back art.

Nanci is showing off someone's blocks made from CW repros--I loved the shirting fabrics she was using.

Here are some of the other colorways from the group:

This is one of a set of brights with black & white prints, which would probably have been my usual choice ;-)

There were two or three students at each table, making blocks from dramatically different colorways.

Feedsacks

When Terri commented on my previous post about my choice of "repros" to make Nancie's Road Trip quilt, I realized I wasn't clear. When I said feed sacks, I was talking about real, vintage, from the 1930's and 40's feed sacks.

Here's my meager collection, after I finished pressing them last night.  I didn't realize until I pulled them our of my stash that half of them have paisley designs (and some of the leaves on the other half have paisley-like qualities.)

It's interesting to compare these textiles to modern quilting cottons.  The fabric is narrower--from selvage to selvage it's 36 inches--and more loosely woven.

I don't know how many of the 7 sacks will end up in my quilt--there are one or two that definitely have a "not like the others" quality . . . though I'm not sure if that's a reason to take them out or keep them in.   Plus, I keep thinking that the one with the big bold red scrolls and blue flowers could become the most adorable apron . . .