Tuesday, November 12, 2013

penny patch sudoku

my favorite penny patch block so far
 friday afternoon,  my baby seester, katee, texted us other 4 and asked if anyone wanted a last-minute girls night out since her husband was insisting she get herself out of the house for the evening. i told her i was sewing and she was welcome to bring over any craft projects she had going, knowing full well she always has something up her sleeve. she was happy to come join me, but she didn't have anything going for once. my offer was for her to help me quilt. i thought it was a perfect opportunity to get some artistic input with the layout on my penny patch and also to maybe pique her interest in quilting. she accepted my offer. when she arrived, i showed her the penny patch layout and explained how it was to go together, then stepped back and let her work.

 i was going to complete the quilting on "twirly", but ran out of thread! so i worked on penny patch squares instead. despite the fact that katee got to witness several of my home ec moments of sewing blocks backwards or cutting too short, it was a peaceful, relaxing evening of sewing and chatting with my seester in a way we don't get to do often.

katee, like most of my siblings, is an artist with many interests, and did a beautiful job on the layout. unfortunately, there was something off with it that was niggling away at my aesthetic sensibilities. it wasn't her, it was me, for sure. so on saturday, i tried moving a few blocks around - something she fully expected me to do and completely endorsed. that didn't work. i felt like i was playing fabric sudoku all weekend.

in the end, i printed off a few photos of rachel's original "vintage tangerine" quilt and studied it, actually broke it down into charts and lists. i am completely entranced by the original and wanted to know what the difference between the quilt along recipe and "vintage tangerine" was. how i wish i could see inside her head as she made all these choices the first time around. that would be a real lesson in quilting!

rachel, quite understandably, simplified the original pattern a bit since the quilt along is designed for beginners. ever one to change a pattern even slightly, i did just that, even with her excellent recipe. i noticed that in the original, there are actually 3 kinds of blocks, not just 2: 6.5" simple square, 4 patch of 3.5" squares, and the penny patch square. also, the placement of the blocks alters by row: simple blocks and 4 squares alternating, then simple blocks and penny patches alternating.

i quickly realized i needed more fabrics. i pulled over a dozen auditions and even cut a few. in the end, i only added 3. i also culled at least 2 from the original pile. i added two more modern meadow fabrics that incorporated both the orange and blue in the pattern. i also added an orange floral katie jump rope print that was hiding away in my stash.

the cutting recipe was a bit different, too. i broke that down and assigned some of my fabrics for hers, then laid out blocks using her exact pattern (almost). maybe it was a bit much for me to invest so heavily in understanding the original design, but it taught me a whole lot along the way. it was quite a fascinating exercise, actually. i learned a lot about design, color, and placement, that changed some ideas i have held for a while now. i originally chose this pull because it reminded me of the "vintage tangerine" colors (and the pull had been waiting on a shelf for over two years), but now i see how very different they are despite having similar colors.

after studying her quilt, i realize that working with fabrics from the same line, which i enjoy doing, doesn't allow for a certain quality of contrast or "pop" that mixing does. i don't know how to describe this exactly other than when the values of the colors are all the same, that contrast is missing. this is neither a good or bad design choice, but one i am aware of now. i would not have chosen the fabrics i did for this quilt after studying "vintage tangerine". i'm not saying they are wrong or i don't like them, but they don't produce the effect i was going for. that's okay. i'm moving ahead with what i have and look forward to trying this again with my second pull (that joel dewberry floral and those blues).

 so here are rows 1 - 7, out of 10, for penny patch as it stands. (sorry for the chairs in the phtoto, but someone was sleeping and i couldn't move them because of the noise factor!) for now, i'm following that first quilt's layout exactly, as stated. once i have it all in place, i'll decide if i want changes. i still have lots of penny patches to sew, but not quite so many now that i'm doing half penny patches and half 4 sq blocks. i'm really looking forward to finishing this quilt.

d4 has shown interest in it and i just might give this to her instead of a pillow sham for Christmas. that's not a final decision, but i'm considering it. that would kill two birds with one stone.

linking in to Rachel's penny patch quilt along link up at stitched in color and wip Wednesday at freshly pieced.

20 comments:

  1. I love your blog post... LOVE it. I'm afraid when I put mine on the design wall it's going to be sudoku for me. I do have a question though. Someone else had commented on one of Rachel's posts that she used a simple 4-patch. She said they were only the two kind of blocks, that some of her low volume was so low that it looked like a 4-patch. So are there 2 or 3 kinds of blocks? ;\ Inquiring minds are curious..

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  2. Your penny patch is looking absolutely beautiful!
    I did a similar thing, there was something about Vintage Tangerine with the 3 types of blocks that I loved so I have a bunch of 4 patches in my quilt as well. I finished sewing all my 4-patch and penny patch blocks last night and have been re-arranging and marking some of the for some un-sewing and rotation. It's funny how obsessed we can become with creating perfect balance on even a scrappy style quilt huh? :)

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  3. This is looking so great! I loved reading about your process. I'm excited to see what you end up adding/changing.

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  4. "Fabric Sudoku" is a great term, and your blocks are beautiful!

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  5. Oh you're so thoughtful. It makes my head explode. I agree on the mixing up of ranges though. It definitely creates more depth. Not that a charm pack doesn't have it's place in quilting! Looking good. I have been ridiculously busy since the weekend, but hopefully will be catching up on emails soon :-)

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  6. I enjoyed reading about your process on your Penny Patch! The fabrics are lovely and your blocks look great. Your quilt top is going to be gorgeous!

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  7. oh wow - it looks so amazing. My fabric is still sitting uncut - along with a few other 'needing to be finished' projects. But I do love this one so much :-)

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  8. I like the look of adding a few of the 4 patch blocks. It certainly does make the blocks go together faster

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  9. Very colorful! I often joke that I take more time with the decisions than actually sewing something. Some quilter's make it seem so natural and easy, but I think most of us do a lot of re-arranging - especially when getting into the scrappier quilts. Your Penny Patch is quite pretty!

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  10. Love your color choices - this is coming along nicely! :)

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  11. Looks beautiful so far! I too thought about adding in some of the four patches, i wish i had of now. I still have a bunch of penny patches to make to replace some i've taken away! I thought this was going to be a quick up on the design wall, stitch it up and finish it off kind of project... I've spent so much time deliberating over where everything is going to go!
    I can't wait to see yours finished, i just love the colours you're using!

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  12. I am so glad you wrote this detailed post of your process! Your mind is just like mine!! Only I don't have the patience to actually study the original quilt. :-) Will you do a follow up post about all you feel you learned in your study?? Is be interested to know.
    Your quilt is going to be beautiful, by the way. The sudoku is clearly working well.
    I think you have a good pint about working within one fabric line. The prints are all designed to go together, so they blend together. You don't get that pop. Sometimes that's a good thing, the pop can be jarring, but sometimes we need to mix it up a bit.
    E xx

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  13. Looks like your Penny Patch in the final photo is coming along nicely. Thanks for discussing your challenges with the color and value placement and your issues with contrast. You may have heard the expression, "Color gets the credit but value does the work." Sometimes there's just not enough value contrast within one line, and that's where supplemental pales and darks from stash come in handy. Your version here is looking good!

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  14. The Penny Patch is coming out very pretty. I do like that last photo best and it is clear that there are more than 2 different blocks, unless the size does not matter? Anyway, love this quilt and I've been seeing it around a bit. I like your fabrics and colors.

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  15. I love the colors you chose. That is going to turn out so beautifully. Glad you got to hang with your sister too! I know I love to hang with my girlfriends and craft!

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  16. Great post! You're so smart to take the time to understand what you like and why. Ending up with a quilt you like in the end (and understanding how you got there) will be so worth it.

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  17. Hmmm, this is such an interesting post and I enjoyed reading it so much. I did notice that Rachel's original quilt had the 4 patch blocks and at first I was confused when I started cutting/sewing where they were. I debated adding some in, but in the end I decided to do it the way she outlined it for the quilt along. After seeing yours, I wish I had added them in. They add another dimension to the quilt that makes it so visually interesting. I also like what you say about mixing/matching fabric lines. When I first started quilting I always used fabrics exclusively from one line, but I agree, they fell flat. I think it has something to do with using slightly clashing colors, I think I saw it called the "ugly factor" on someone else's blog. I think whenever I include two colors that are close but not the same (clashing I guess you could say) the finished product looks so much better. I love where your quilt is going and can't wait to see it in the next link up!!!!

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  18. My colors are all over the place. I don't have a design wall and was working on the floor.
    I put them down, picked them up, switched them around over and over. I finally had enough and said it's going to do.
    I'm just happy as this is my first quilt a long.

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  19. Love the tangerine and blues together! Sometimes I feel like smoke is coming from my ears with all the analyzing over layout. Loving my design wall to make that a little easier, I like to walk by it for a bit and see if it still suits. Sometimes I just gotta sew it together and move on:) Thanks for sharing your process! Fun to know how we all go about it.

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  20. Oh, what a great post! Your process of studying and cutting new and rearranging is very much like mine. I adore the investigative and experimental part of quilting so much. Thanks for sharing your perspective!

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