Two Down and the Start of Another

The first one is finally done except for the borders which I will add after quilting.  I do like the way it turned out and think it was a good use of the fabrics.

This is the second one which I have since finished but neglected to take a picture.  It is a little shorter and has different ending triangles on the side.  

This is one of the fabrics I used in the above tops.  I had two different colorways of this fabric and this was my least favorite so I decided to see how it would look as a "posie" stack and whack.  It had a 12 inch repeat so each square was 2 3/4 in maximizing the repeat which after trimming was only 11 1/2 inches.  I ended up with 54 squares which will finish to 4 1/2 inches each.

Here are the first 37 completed.  They are pretty tame and I am not yet sure whether I want to cut up the other fabric  but probably will as thre is enough variety.  

My technique is to rip the fabric into its sections and then to sit in bed watching tv and pin along all four sides to insure I get perfect repeats.  

The next day I cut all the packets of squares and then sit in bed the next night auditioning the positioning as you can make so many with these 4 patches!  I put a pin in the corner which means that is where the center will be.  

I then carefully place them on piece of batting so that I can accurately pick up the pieces.  

I will most likely frame each of these squares with a variety of matching colors - greys, tans, browns and golds.  

 

A New Project

 

I have seen versions of this quilt on Pinterest and have wanted to construct one for a while.  It looks pretty easy but I didn't think it was!!  Maybe faster the next time.  Anyway, I found this pile of Kaffe Fassett fabrics all in browns which I had left behind up here in Rochester (I took all the brightly colored ones south and don't really work in browns anymore).  I cut up 4 1/2 inch squares and then made the half square triangles using the "8 at a time method" I documented before.  It uses 10 in squares of black and white.  Three ten inch squares gave me enough for the top.

I found a small piece of the beige fabric to use to finish off the sides.  I had a terrible time figuring out how many to do across and down and screwed up a number of times on my design wall (not sewing thankfully).  I started with a 7 across by 8 down set but ended up doing 6 across and 10 down so that the corners would be the same.  This also allows for borders without having to buy double fabric.  It will be a "comfort quilt" to be donated either here or NC.  I started sewing the top left corner just to see how it tooks and I am pleased.

I finally sewed all the rows and have them on my design wall awaiting my putting them all together.  My back decided to give me fits at the end of this day of sewing so I am resting a bit before completion.  I think I will attempt putting it together here in Rochester as I sewed a bunch of batting together the other day so should have a piece big enough.

I am pretty sure I will do more of this design as I really like it and it is a good use of all those bags of 5 in squares I have.  Trimming them to 4 1/2 inches is easy!

If I do baby quilts, I will make them 6 x 8 and use a softer color instead of the black.

Farmer's Wife 20s Blocks and Some Fun

Because I had more blocks for this quilt than the 30s blocks, I decided to go with a 11 x 9 orientation which with the sashing will yield a top that is 80 x 100 inches approximately.  I decided to add sashing as I felt the eye needed some place to rest and some dark to counteract all the light.  I haven't quite decided to do about borders yet but they won't be wide!  I actually used every square inch of the purple fabric that I had in the sashing.  I was two 9 in strips shy so found another piece that was close.  I had roughly calculated before I started using the fabric.  This is the first far left section.

This is the middle section.  Those outside strips are not attached but will be added when I do the "quilt as you go" combining the sections.

This is the third and last section.

In RAFA (Rochester Area Fiber Artists) group yesterday, Joyce showed us something called momigami (hope that's spelled right) which is the crumpling of paper over and over to give you a fabric-like look.  We took small pieces of brown paper bags and crumpled and re-crumpled and even added a little oil to our hands.  I took it one step further and took a photo of the result which is to the left.  I then played around just using Picasa  (not Photoshop which would yield even more interesting results).  I printed this on an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper (thus enlarging it by about four).  I am thinking I will print it on some cloth as well as it looks like rocks to me and could be used in an art quilt.  Some of the fiddling around with Picasa is below!

 

Back to Farmer's Wife Blocks!

It's been a while since I published a blog on the progress of the Farmer's Wife blocks that I completed back in January!  I found some significant yardage back here in New York so I managed to finish bordering them all last week!  I am going to make the king sized quilt in two pieces each 5 blocks wide by 9 blocks long.  These are the 30's FW blocks that I did.  For some reason, I missed quite a few in the book but have now given away the book.  I had one block left over which is one I wasn't all that crazy about anyway.  This is the second half.  The blocks finish at 8 1/2 inches square.  The strips around the regular blocks were cut 1 3/4 in wide and the half square triangles were cut from a 5 1/2 in square.  It used a lot of fabric but I must have had a full bolt of this off white fabric.

This was the first half of the quilt.  I am very pleased with it.  I found some leftover striped blue fabric that I am going to cut up and use as an outside border.  First will be a border of the off white and then a narrow border of green.

After I finished all the blocks from the 30's book, I decided I might as well do the 20's blocks, of which I have about 10 more so this quilt will be 9 x 11 blocks I think.  The blocks are very bright and I had a really difficult time deciding on how I would border them and how i would set them.  You can see this set is columns of straight set and then on point set and then straight set.

I thought I would like the green for setting the blocks as the yellow is so bright but didn't like it at all.  The background green is a better match than it looks in this picture however.

I found some significant yardage of a very pale yellow and decided that I would try that.  It is not perfect but is okay.  There is so much bright yellow in the blocks in this bunch of blocks.

This was my first day's work and you can clearly see the yellow background.  In some ways, it almost mutes the brighter yellow.  So I forged ahead!

And here is what is done after two days.  I actually found one of those slotted rulers that had 1/4 markings which made the cutting of the strips much more accurate.  These blocks also finish at 8 1/2 inches.  I am going to use purple and dark green in the borders to try to tone it down a bit.  I won't be doing any of the machine quilting until I get back to NC where my faithful Juki is as well as my pool noodles which make basting much easier!  I don't put on borders anymore until I finish machine quilting the whole quilt and get the two sections sewn together.  They lay so much flatter that way and i never have to measure the outside!

Genesee Valley Quilt Club May Meeting -- Part III - Part II of Beverley's Trunk Show

You can begin to see Bev's transition from more traditional structures which she had touched on briefly before.

This was a self portrait done in a class!

Beverly does lots and lots of machine quilting in her pieces which you can see if you look closely here.  

She uses all of her hand dyed pieces which obviously have numerous techniques applied to them.  She is emerging from a straight rectangular set as well!

This was one of my favorites and is really part of another series.

This actually is a piece that is split in 2.

This is her last piece and isn't done yet!

It was a great show and the group really enjoyed it!  

Beverly commented that she has to have her hands busy and that is me as well.  I can't watch tv without doing something!

 

Genesee Valley Quilt Club May Meeting - Part II -- Beverly Kondolf Trunk Show

It was really a delight to see Beverly's journey from very traditional quilting into art quilting.  She and I joined the quilt club just about the same time and soon were leading up a committee that spent several years documenting the quilts at the Rochester Museum and Science Center.  She credits me with getting her into the art quilt goup which had recently formed (around the year 2000!).  Most of her older quilts were hand quilted and she has done a lot of hand piecing as well and taught it to club members on Saturday.  She mostly does art quilts now using her own hand dyed fabrics.

This is the beginning! 

This was done with blocks from a Suzie Payne workshop -- a lot of us learned piecing from this local lady.  Suzie was the one that encouraged her to join the guild.   

Here she is starting to move toward art quilting with this lovely composition.  I don't remember seeing a lot of these quilts!

 

Really seeing the beginning of transitioning to art quilts here.  The trees were made of some sort of twisted fabric that she hand sewed down.  

This is the back of the following quilt.  I noticed Beverly constructed many of her backs.  She is beginning to use more and more of her hand dyed fabrics and said she mostly uses purchased fabrics for the backs.

Here you can see her movement to more improvisational quilting.  

Using only her hand dyed fabrics here in a piece called Vesseks (I believe).

 

This is actually 3 pieces which are supposed to be hung vertically.  Again, she used her hand dyes.

This was a quilt which was made as a result of our Mola Challenge in our art quilt group.  Many many of us had purchased molas from Priscilla Kibbee and the challenge was to use one as inspiration.  I believe they all hung somewhere but can't remember where.  I also participated in that challenge.

This was also inspired by a mola but was less literal than the last piece.  There is a chicken on the mola and that inspired the chicken tracks across the quilt.

This is the first in a series of quilts Beverly did.  It was also an art quilt group challenge.  We were to create a quilt inspired by the Almighty Dollar.  This was Bev's interpretation of the E on the bill.  I also participated in this challenge and the quilts were hung in the Rochester Public Library.  My quilt and a couple of others were also featured in a coin magazine thanks to my sister!

This is inspired by the previous quilt.  It was supposed to be dark blue and red but her dyeing resulted in a more purple hue.

Leftovers from the preevious quilt!

The next three are also interpretations of the block in different colors and orientations.