upsizing

somebody is waiting for me to come party. 

actually, this is how i found my flimsy shoddily stored up off the floor, 25th birthday party balloon for s1 inexplicably partnered with it.

this looks inviting to me!

last saturday, i entered the blue doors with the intention of finishing off the "farmer oak's flocks" top and, if i was lucky, basting and echo quilting it before the day was out. there was only one row left to attach, which would be easy enough.

that was quickly done, but i found when it was all put together it was entirely too small. it looked like a little baby quilt at something like 42" x 48", which doesn't sound so small but looked it. i was disappointed. i knew all along after i miscut the cornerstone blocks and sashing in the beginning that the quilt wasn't going to be the "cuddle size" lap quilt i intended it to be, but seeing it all put together confirmed that it was, indeed, too small.

what to do?

another row and column of blocks would upsize the quilt satisfactorily. that would equate to 12 more blocks added. originally, i made the nine patches from pairings of fabrics, one set of pairings each. i liked the symmetry of that and was loathe to change up my plan. i get irrationally attached to ideas like this. but i didn't know another way around it if i was going to add that many blocks. 

i knew i hadn't used a couple of the fabrics in my fall stash, so i decided to start there, make some pairings, and then decide which other original blocks to make extras of. i took out my fall-colored liberty box, the one i used as my fabric pull for "bathsheba" to see what else was in there. i found i'd only left three unused, which surprised and confounded me. (well, i hadn't used the "sea blossom" print either, but i was sick to death of it and refused to put it in this quilt.)

so i made a desperate dig through my entire liberty shelf to see if anything else at all filed under a different category would work. 

to my great surprise and pleasure, i found another ten acceptably colored prints in the correct color palette. most of them were colorways of my favorite classic prints and one or two were hiding in recent orders i'd made that hadn't been properly put away yet. shame on me because they would have been really nice in "bathsheba," too. then again, i do rather like when companion quilts have mostly the same elements as each other, but some fabrics unique to each. 

either way, i now have this nice thick stack of leftover 2.5" strips that will probably make an entire other quilt when paired with a crossweave or woven. my brain is already working on a setting for them as my third fall liberty lap quilt. maybe some sort of scrappy trip around the world? at this point, it'll be filed away for next fall because the season is nearly over and i have one finish left in me before getting out the christmas fabrics.

i found a dark green "capel," a monotone gold "betsy," a deep green and a navy blue "betsy," each with gold and brown tones in them, a dusty purple and a steel gray "mitsi," an "ianthe," and two fall-toned "wiltshire" prints i hadn't included.

i mixed and matched them several times before being satisfied. then i got sewing.

the very last pairing was the green "betsy" with a "wiltshire," that i loved separately, but no so much together. however, it's okay in a quilt to have some less-attractive parts because the whole makes up the difference, so i was willing to put these together so that the other pairings looked their best.

but more than halfway through the block set, i recalled some of the mostly-blue ditsy prints i used in the original blocks and wondered if there wasn't another such fabric i'd overlooked. i looked through my red-white-and-blue liberty box and found a print with blues and browns in it that would work. sold!

i unpicked all the pieces i'd sewn, put the beautiful green "betsy" squares aside for another project, and worked the blue "empress" pieces into the nine patches with the dark "wiltshire" squares.

yes, it all took extra time, but i might as well get it right. i recently read an interesting post about "perfectionism vs. integrity" in sewing. this was one of those "integrity" moments for me and effort well expended.

here are the new pairings.

i'm quite happy with them. the bottom left block is a little brighter than the rest, but i believe it blends well with the rest of the blocks in the quilt overall.

i pushed through getting all the block sets made and the sashing and cornerstone pieces cut. that was my days work. i didn't have a basted quilt ready for handquilting at the end of the day, but i was well on my way to the project being in a state which well pleased me.

since the rest of the top is already put together, my plan was to add the new blocks along the perimeter. this goes against my normal "mix it up well" way of laying out quilt blocks, but i wasn't going to be unpicking all those delicate fabrics and resewing everything. i spent quite a while deciding on the layout of the new blocks before walking away from it for the evening.

the next morning, i was enjoying a morning cuppa on the stairs and looking over the pieces all still laid out on the floor when i decided to move just two blocks from the perimeter so i could mix things up just a little. it was a good compromise although it would require some nasty unpicking and some y-seam style repairs to put the new blocks in where i was taking the original ones out.

in the end, it'll be worth it. no one else was probably ever going to look at this quilt and say, 'hey, all these blocks along these two sides of the quilt are only on the outsides and were probably added on after the rest were put together. that's not good mixing! what a fabric sudoku fail." but it's going to please me that i did it.

the quilt is now properly sized and (mostly) well mixed/balanced in block layout.

at the end of the day, it's myself i have to please.

gypsying along, learning as i go

bordered dbl sq-in-a-sq (economy) block and kitty in the corner, block 1

i've been inspired to pull out the old gypsy wife lately. maybe it's because liz (mostly)finished her top (but decided to add a border to fit her bed), sarah's blocks are killing me on instagram (@sarahscraw), and megan is working on hers again. maybe it's because i really just like it and i'm mad at my other wips at the moment.

i've given up on the quilt along schedule. partly because it's over and partly because i like the idea of going at it section by section better. i was beginning to worry my colors wouldn't be spread out evenly enough over the quilt if i didn't see what went next to what. besides, getting one little section sewn would look like an actual quilt as opposed to the piles of blocks i've got.

however, although i completed all the blocks for section 1, i don't have all the strips ready for it! so i've hit another temporary snag and just kept making whatever blocks i liked for the next two sections. i do have lots of strips cut, but i've been cutting from the fabrics i'm using as i go. consequently, all the strips i have cut are the same fabrics in the blocks i was hoping to sew together. i need to cut other strips so i don't have identical fabrics in the blocks and strips for each section.

the bird block on the left is a bit of an improvisation on my part. first of all, i wanted to use that bird in a specific location in the quilt, so i had to switch two blocks around. i have two other animal blocks, the elephant and the goat. i wanted the animals spread out over the quilt but the bird was going to be next to the elephant, so i had to find a different block of a similar size so i could switch them. i found a bordered sq in a sq/econ block in a different section that i could trade, but the center was the wrong size for the bird so i just made up my own block altogether. maybe this block has been made before or maybe i invented a new one. i shall name it "bird in a cage" and leave future generations to guess at what it has to do with a bird like i wonder over "kitty in a corner", which doesn't even seem to have a corner for the kitty to be in.

so i made up my own block to feature the heather bailey bird from her up parasol collection. it was just going to be a multi bordered sq in a sq/econ block, but then, i used some scraps for the red-and-aqua eiffel tower second square border. i had just fussy cut an eiffel tower and had four hsts on hand, which i liked with the bird, so i used them.

unfortunately, they weren't all quite big enough. i did a stitch-and-flip to add some red triangles to the tips to ensure at least the corners were right.  the sides i could make up for in the seam allowance.

in the spots where the seam allowance was really lacking i simply sewed right next to the seam three or four times to strengthen the area. i'm fairly certain this will work. even though it's under 3/8" i don't see it unravelling with all that stitching over it.

then i had outer boarder troubles. originally, i used the icy blue boarder you see on the butterfly block (on instagram for anyone interested), but it seemed to make the block sort of fade out when i wanted it to have a really strong outer edge against the surrounding strips. also, the red corners looked weird and totally out of place. i took it off and put the red on instead. i like it much better now. my bird is well contained.

old maid's puzzle and perishing blocks

each of these blocks has a been a mini exercise in technique and fabric placement as i deal with bare-bones instructions in the pattern and think about each little piece and layer of the block, how it plays against or interacts with it's neighbors. it's like a lot of individual projects that will add up to one eventually.

i've been going a bit crazy with the lack of directions in the pattern but it's also forcing me to figure a lot of it out on my own, which makes for more memorable learning. thank goodness for rachel's angled class so i have some clues about triangles and how they interact! this was incredibly helpful when it came to the old maid's puzzle and the perishing block.

i'd been hung up by the perishing block for months. it was the next big block i was supposed to do for the quilt along (and maybe the reason i fell off the wagon) but i kept hearing how difficult it was. having done enough economy blocks now, i was ready to tackle it. (i was going to talk all about what i've learned about sq in sq/econ blocks, but i think i'll just make a separate post. that'll be easier. since i have many a sq in sq/econ block to go for this quilt, there will be lots of opportunities to talk about them coming up.) with the fabrics i selected,the perishing block is not my favorite but i like it well enough and am so glad to have it done! i didn't put a lot of thought into each fabric but i did pay attention to value when selecting them, which really helps the individual layers either blend or stand out. value-wise, i'm please with my results.

the old maid's puzzle i basically had to figure out all on my own with little help other than a diagram and inaccurate measurements in the pattern. i'll be writing a separate post on that process, too, in case anyone else needs some help. i really liked all the fabrics going into it but the results feel quite flat and dull to me. however, the quilt could use some quiet places so it will remain as is. there is another one of these blocks in the quilt so i have a second chance to jazz it up on round 2.

i knew this quilt would push my skills, and my oh my, has it ever. i now feel like i can take on anything with a straight line. (curves coming up soon!) i'm getting less upset when i make a mistake or something goes wrong because these just become opportunities to learn or to improve, to do something even better.

and when i have completed this lady, i will feel i can absolutely, with out a doubt, call myself a real quilter.

linking up with lee's wip wednesday at freshly pieced

patchwork

we have binding! handwork in progress

my lovely 2 week staycation has come to an end. i now have many other obligations to keep my occupied for the next month or so. consequently, sewing will slow down tremendously. it was a pleasant period of intense industry of the sewing kind. but it's over. my blogging will probably slow down, too. but in the meantime, there are all the bits i recorded but didn't post yet to keep me going. and maybe i'll get some sewing squeezed in, too.

the other night when i was squaring off "romance in the garden" i came across a small problem. one of the panels was short about 1/4" to 1/2" or so. it was too wide for the binding to comfortably cover. i didn't want to cut down the whole side of the quilt to make up for it, especially since the hst points extended to the edge of the quilt. so i decided to do a small patch.

 i had a few strings from where i had trimmed other sections. i found one wide enough for a patch.

however, when i sat down with the quilt to sew on the patch, it had disappeared. i could have sworn it was on the quilt (not pinned) when i sat down but in the shifting of the quilt to position it under the needle, the string disappeared. i didn't think much of it until i had looked the entire quilt, the sewing table, and the whole area over a time or two. then i started feeling a bit baffled. where on earth had it gone? i began removing everything from the table, pulling out everything from under the table, searching high and low to no avail. it was just simple gone.

finally, i happened upon the project box for the quilt and found a large scrap of the fabric inside. hallelujah! it must have been quilting providence because the piece was a better size for the patch spot and matched better, too.

 i folded down the edges to hide the raw parts and sewed the patch on. simple. my first estimate of how deep to sew in was insufficient, so i moved over further into the quilt a touch. that did it. no need to unpick the first seam, either, since it would be hidden.

 then i pressed the patch outward and trimmed it up to the edge of the quilt. it wasn't a perfect match up of the pattern, by any means, but the colors were the same as opposed to the string i was going to use, which was more of the yellow. it's good enough for me. patch completed.

now here's the really crazy part - as soon as i got up from photographing the patch, i looked at the edge of my cutting mat and there was the missing string! it was almost as if my quilting angel was saying to me, "see, i just wanted you to find a better patch than your original idea." apparently the string never left the cutting mat. strange that i didn't notice it when i came back over with the quilt. a quilting mystery, to be sure.

the binding is now on the quilt, being tacked down by hand, and you can see the patch just a tiny little bit. i don't think it's noticeable, which is great. i saved over 1/4" on the quilt and the trouble of trimming an entire side, too. i call that good.

linking in with plum and june's let's get acquainted hosted at quilts in the queue today.