skip to main |
skip to sidebar
I had lost one of my cameras for a bit and when I took out the card, I realized I had never posted the final iteration of the "it never goes as planned" stack and whack that I did for the talk I gave back in May. It will definitely be given away as a charity quilt!
I was also playing with some of my non-successful mandalas. I had cut this one up as in the uncut version, those purple sections were on the outside and there was a nondescript section in the middle which was downright boring. I liked this iteration better but thought I could improve it even more so again made diagonal cuts.
If I can find these pieces again, will put together in this pinwheel version and maybe make a pillow cover as this was one of my smaller mandalas.
This is the final Hidden Well piece with the borders not attached yet. I will use the dark blue as the binding as well.
I am working on another one now that doesn't have as many different fabrics in it.
Caris started off show and tell with this incredible purse that she has made. First she felted the wool, then eco-dyed it and then constructed this elegant purse. Below is the other side of the purse.
The handles are made from cork fabric. Can you see the shibori on the bottom part. Gorgeous!!
Joyce shared several of her recent pieces with us. She has been dyeing and painting up a storm!!
Donna just did these wool scarves. She is a champion felter but wanted to try out the acid dyes first on purchased wool so she could get a feel for the colors. They certainly are bright. She overlaid turquoise onto yellow with lots and lots of resists!
Loved these tees that she did by putting paint on manhole covers and then printing on the tees. She is getting official permission from the town before she does more!
Jessie shared a whole bunch of indigo dyed fabrics that Donna did for her!
Liz s a bit obsessed with Halloween and this was her latest!!
Regina is one of our most prolific and talented artists. I just loved this piece.
I loved these next two black white and red pieces as well. This is a palette I have been drawn to lately.
Two of our group members are finalists in the Cherrywood fabric competition! A big yeah to Ann and Elaine!!
This is the Hidden Wells Version 1 finished. In this version you line up all the square sandwiches with the identical orientations.
Before I started sewing strips together, I decided to test sewing a bunch of 1 inch strips together of random fabric from my huge strip collection!! This shows what I will call Hidden Wells Version 2.
This is the second set of strips I decided to try and decided to make two blocks just to make sure I have it right! You will notice the horizontal squares are both the same while the two vertical arrangements are mirror images. You stack an upper square and a lower square and then sew 1/4 inch seam around the whole outside. Then you make two diagonal cuts and open up which results in four squares.
I always like to test a couple to see if I find the color arrangement pleasing before I commit to cutting the 5 additional strip sets. This particular strip set is 10 1/2 inches wide so you can get four cuts out of a 45 inch wide strip. This results in two blocks which are about 13 inches finished.
Four are finished but unfortunately I cut one set too big and then had to scrounge around for some fabric that would match so I could remake the bottom right squares. Measure twice, cut once is a good maxim that would have prevented this mishap!
Now I have six done. Like in the other quilt, I have used a variety of fabrics in the filler areas -- the yellow and the lime green areas as I didn't cut up a lot of the 1 1/2 strips like I did the others. The width of the strips was 1 1/2, 2 1/2, 1 1/2, 2 1/2, 1 1/2, 2 1/2, 1 1/2 inches resulting in the 10 1/2 inch wide strip which is ideal for not wasting. These six blocks comprise half the finished top which will measure about 39 inches by 52 inches before I add borders -- nice size. Really the most difficult part of this is the sewing together as there are lots of seams to match. I may try one with just four 2 1/2 inch segments like my very first block, but with the new arrangement. We shall see! Instead of Stack and Whacks for charity, this year there will be Hidden Wells!
As I have mentioned, I have cutting fabric 1 yard and less into strips. I only have true blues, purples, browns and black and whites to go but am getting bored and am surrounded by about 70 lbs of strips now!! This will be good to make lots of charity quilts. I am only cutting up what are called "solid substitutes" leaving the more pictoral or interesting fabric alone as it will work better as large squares or triangles.
Hidden Wells is pattern created by Mary Lou Hopkins back in the 80s. Her technique was a bit cumbersome.
I found several sources on the internet but none I had found gave me the results I wanted. This semi finished top is the closest I have come. I finally discovered a blog last night that answered my question. It was what I had decided but was a little nervous about wasting more fabric trying it out. This blog confirmed my suspicion as to why I got green and red mixed in the squares instead of a green square next to a red square. This blog is Hidden Wells Tutorial.
This is the strip set that makes all of the above. It is 8 1/2 inches wide and results in a 10 1/2 inch square.
I thought I had it right until I took a picture! I had done all but the equivalent of one block (see above) and finished the last block this morning and then sewed everything together. Then I noticed that the four blocks in the lower right side were wrong. I only had enough to use scraps to do the blocks over.
Here it is fixed but not before I actually did the blocks wrong yet again!! I had to undo the blocks and then sew them replace the four smaller blocks on the quilt. I now know how to get the blocks so that they alternate the green and red and hopefully by the next post will have an example of that. Now to just add some borders onto this one as it is only 31 1/2 x 42 currently. I think it will only grow to 36 x 48 eventually though. I will also have a more detailed breakdown of the process if you don't want to go to the blog I have quoted above!
I also played a bit with taking a strip of 3 2 1/2 inch strips, sewing them together and then cutting 60 degree triangles. I would chose more interesting fabrics. You can twist these triangles around and make a variety of blocks. I would sew that last seem if these were to be in a quilt unless I was going to insert triangles between them. These were both cut from the same strip set.
I finally finished the quilting on my Great Egret and only have to do the binding now It is hard to see any of the quilting. I did big pebbles in the grey "stone" part and straight lines in the green I may do a bit more in the eye but have to get the original picture.
I finally got three of the four borders done. Still have to attach the final blue border. I have enough to do a back as it is a big wide piece of fabric. I am going to do the quilting down in North Carolina.
I am up to about 50 lbs of strips in red through green in 2 1/2 inch, 2 inch and some 1 1/2 inch and 1 inch strips. These are mostly solid substitutes at this point and if I need solid like fabrics these days, I tend to use my hand dyes as I probably have about every color. The yellow and green in this quilt are hand dyes. I have been accumulating lots of patterns.
It's finished except for the corners and the borders. I will have a 2 in green border, a 1 inch white border, 1/2 gold and then a blue border. Decided to take a break as I want to get it all pressed and good iron is in a different room! Soon. I will do the quilting when I return to NC.
I have been cleaning out as I have mentioned and discovered quite a trove of tshirts so I decided to get some done both for my daughters and to sell at my quilt club garage sale. These are just a few of them. I am going to overdye a couple of them as I am not crazy about the colors. Some I folded and some I just smushed like this one. I used only fuchsia, sun yellow and navy blue over ice. The navy blue was a 5% solution and the other two were a 10% solution.
Really liked this one!
I may throw this one into some yellow dye.
Another one I liked.
Random color!
I believe this was a light yellow tshirt that I just used the fuchsia and navy on.
These are the first five of the blocks which will be part of a mystery quilt I am working on with the guild. Also have parts of other blocks but have no idea what it will look like when finished or whether I will like it or not. I am sticking with a purple, green and white palette.
I have been spending some time each afternoon cutting various widths of strips from smaller pieces of fabrics which were mostly less than a yard ea. I am doing them by color family and have done yellow, orange and most of red so far and probably have close to 30 lbs in 2 1/2 gallon bags.
I have been searching the internet for easy blocks to do with jelly roll sized strips especially since this is what I have the most of (2 1/2 inches wide).
One technique an art club member mentioned was making half square triangles out of strips of fabric. I have always disliked half square triangles because of the trimming but using this technique makes them turn out perfectly the same even though they have bias edges. You sew two strips together on both sides (instead of just one), then use a 45 degree ruler and cut out triangles which unfolded turn into squares. Using two 2 1/2 inch strips, the finished squares are 2 1/2 inch (3 inch unfinished).
The next thing I played with is a block called Hidden Wells which coincidentally was probably the basis of one of the very first quilts I did 40 years ago! The technique for this one is related to the above one. I just randomly took four strips from my 2 1/2 inch x 22 inch bag. I sewed them together to make an 8 1/2 inch wide strip, pressed the seams to one side and then cut out two 8 1/2 inch squares. I then sewed those two squares together around all four sides, placing one with the stripes horizontally on top of one with the stripes going vertically. After sewing all the way around the outside, I made two cuts diagonally on the finished square which results in four squares which I sewed together as shown here!. It is certainly a lot easier technique than the one I used so many years ago and resulted in a really well matched block which was about 10 inches square. I will probably use the same color family on the top and bottom of strips for a real quilt. I think a quilt will come together really quickly and this technique really is easy. I will have those bags of strips used up in no time!!
I am making significant but very slow progress on this quilt. I have fiddled around with settings and testing out colors and doing everything on point is making it trickier.
I finally got all the blocks done and most of the four patches and everything up on the design wall so I could arrange the blocks.
I have about half of the quilt sewn together now and am putting the blue and yellow half blocks around the outside but am not so sure about this now so back to Electric Quilt to test some options. If I had enough of the blue, I would have used it around the whole outside but alas it is a very specific blue that I can't match (believe it or not!!).
Well, I am now seriously thinking I will undo a bit and but one of my hand dyed greens around the outside including those set in triangles. Will test this tomorrow.
In the meantime, my sister gifted me with an early birthday present.
As I have mentioned before, the only type of radial symmetry quilt I haven't done but had seen is one where you have a central panel and then do hexagons out of six additional panels which you use to surround the image. I am so glad she bought seven panels for herself as well. The fabric is by Northcott and is part of the Water Garden series. This may end up being my very favorite and end up on a wall. We shall see... the panel is about 27 inches by 44 inches. Can you believe birds!!!!
Posts
