Walk the Walk

As a quilt teacher one of my more popular classes is all about Scraps. It is a fun class to teach because people really do embrace their scraps in new ways. They’d been ready to give up and are suddenly rejuvenated.

I’ve actually taught Little Scraps, Big Options many times this year. When I prep for the class I’ve been digging in to an IKEA bag of random strips and pieces for a heavy handful. This comes with me for demo purposes and the leftovers thrown back in the bag. After my last trip I decided that I needed to walk the walk and tackle the sorting of that bag.

To be fair, I have scrap bins for fabric and they are used as I cut fabric all the time. I dig in to them regularly too. Little bits go in a special basket, triangles in another. But this huge IKEA bag keeps getting filled in the night. Like the opposite of the Shoemaker’s Elves, adding fabric instead of making with it.

So I poured a glass of wine one night last week and dove in to the big blue bag. In less than an hour I had piles of colours making my sewing table pretty. Yes, less than an hour. Sorting scraps is one of those overwhelming tasks that when we finally tackle it we wonder why we procrastinated. It ends up being not so bad, and in the case of scrap fabric, inspiring.

That was certainly the case for me. I immediately set to sewing some of those strips together. Okay, I might have been inspired by my Values Plus students. I taught that class a few times on this last trip too. And boom! In 4 days my orange and purple scraps are nearly gone in a stack of fun blocks.

Working on these blocks is a great scrap buster. As I go I am sorting out any trimmings in two piles. One is for my mini log cabins and the other for a different scrap project I’ve got in my head. It is putting so much order in to my scraps and that feels so, so good.

Scraps are a lot to deal with. Not to mention, working with them gets messy too. It can drive the organized person crazy. That’s why some folks like to cut everything to the same size and store them in neat piles. I get that. For the rest of us, sorting and using them in a planned manner gives us that same order. And 3 different scrap projects.

Tie One On Fabrics Blog Hop with Lilla Quilt Variation

A new version of Lilla. I just don’t get tired of this pattern. That’s because it is a guide more than a pattern. Plus, it includes 25 different block ideas! Use one or use them all! Or, in my case, use 21 plus 1 made up block.

Scott Hansen over at Blue Nickel Studios asked me a few months back if I would play with his upcoming fabric collection. Feeling motivated by the lush colours of his collection, Tie One On, and having some time in my schedule I said yes. The timing also seemed ripe to make another Lilla quilt.

My original plan was a straight remake of the pattern. Same layout, same queen size, but in different fabrics. The second version I made was random, put together from my test blocks. But I wanted a new version of the original. Best laid plans…

I was sent the Sedona colourway of the Tie One On fabric. Gorgeous! These are all batiks from Banyon Batiks, a division of Northcott Fabrics. Really, they are gorgeous fabrics and wonderful to work with. I don’t shy away from batiks as many modern quilters seem to. Beautiful fabric is beautiful fabric! I will use any fabric if it is the right colour, truthfully. Getting the Sedona colourway seemed serendipitous, I always think of our trip to Arizona and the dessert three years ago. With no vacation for us this past summer I planned to live vicariously through this quilt.

Fabric in hand I made a plan. And 20 blocks in (the queen size quilt in the pattern makes 100 blocks) I realized I would run short of the Tie One On Fabric. Banyan Batiks were wonderfully generous and sent me more fabric when I asked nicely. Unfortunately, it was the wrong colourway. Well, wrong for my plan. By now I was 40 blocks in.

This is the part where some quilters would panic. I figured I had 2 choices:

• Throw in the towel. Finish the quilt with the blocks I had at this large baby size and move on. It would still be a good quilt, so no loss.

• Figure out a solution that reflected, at least, my original plan.

I went with the second option. You see, when you embrace improv piecing the spirit of saying yes, of making things work permeates all your quiltmaking. It gives you creativity to figure out a new design solution to a problem. So I took the yellows and oranges and the green from the second bundle, putting the pinks and purples aside for something else, and figured it would just brighten up my dessert sunset thing I had going on.

My plan for the background of the blocks was rather formal. I sketched a colour draft to keep on track. I thought I was brilliant. Then two things happened. One, even with the new fabric I wasn’t going to have enough of the Tie One On Fabric to make 100 blocks. Okay, so it will be a 9 x 9 quilt, not 10 x 10. Easy fix. But two, it looked like utter crap when I laid it out like my sketch. Really, not good - busy and not in a good, fun, scrappy way. The block designs were completely lost.

When in doubt, sleep on it.

Or, try to sleep. The idea hit me around 1 am when back pain was keeping me awake. I should have got out of bed and laid it out right then and there. I waited until 7 am and in the light of day I realized my new idea was brilliant. It gave order, but was still interesting. It respected what I’d done so far and my colour inspiration of Sedona. It shows off the fabric and the block designs. Success!

Scott Hanson and Banyan Batiks have done a wonderful job with these fabrics. Gorgeous colours and were easy to work with for both improv work and precision piecing, as the Lilla pattern has both.

If you want a little bit of the fabric yourself leave a comment below. On October 1, around 1 pm MST, I will pick one random commenter to win a bundle of Tie One On Fabric! Please leave your email address in the comment itself so I can get a hold of you. Then the fabric will be mailed to you direct.

Visit the rest of the blogs on the tour for your chance to win more. Not to mention some great ideas with this lovely fabric.

9/22 - Teri Lucas                 https://terificreations.com/

9/23 - Robin Long               http://robinruthdesign.com/blog/

9/24 - Sue O'Very               https://sueoverydesigns.com/blog/

9/25 - Cheryl Arkison          http://www.cherylarkison.com/diningroomempire/

9/26 - Linda Sullivan           https://colourwerx.wordpress.com/

9/27 - Sheri Cifaldi-Morrill   http://blog.wholecirclestudio.com/  

9/28 - Debby Brown            http://higheredhands.blogspot.com/

9/29 - Blair Stocker             https://wisecrafthandmade.com/blog/

9/30 - Kim Niedzwiecki       http://www.gogokim.com/

Pattern available wholesale and retail through C&T Publishing.

From Demo to Quilt - Improv Curves

As a quilt teacher I need to be constantly demonstrating techniques and ideas to my students. You can show a million quilts and quilt blocks, but nothing replaces the actions. A couple of years ago I had the brilliant (in my head) idea to keep a set of fabrics for each class to use for demos. Everything coordinated instead of random scraps. That way, I would eventually have a set of blocks to turn into a quilt top without having to actually stop and make a quilt top.

Frankly, it really was a brilliant idea. The main components of many quilts have come this way. Like this one for slabs. Or this one for for Improv Log Cabins. Or even this one for Slabs and Low Volume work. Because I teach technique more often than specific quilts I only get a few of the blocks or components done each class. But in time, they add up. That was exactly what happened with these bits and pieces.

With so much potential the exciting part came - not that I don't love teaching, I adore it. What gets me jazzed in the sewing room is the challenge of taking seemingly disparate parts and finding order and balance in them. Playing on the design wall to find just the perfect composition will always be my favourite part of quilt making.

It took about a week of mornings and the odd evening to get something together. There was seemingly endless futzing to get a balance of colours, shape, and pattern. One can do that truly forever, with a solid fear of commitment. My strategy is to hone in on a part that I love and definitely don't want to change then work my way around it to show it off. It isn't always as perfect as I hope and you have to keep that Tim Gun refrain on constant repeat: Make it work. Make it Work. 

The whole quilt wasn't as big as I had hoped. I have such a hard time not making at least a double sized quilt. Alas, I ran out of fabric. No more background, no more of the orange, and only a bit of the purple left. C'est La Vie.

And now I get to pick a new set of fabrics for when I teach Improv Curves/Fun Ways with Drunkard's Path! Let me know if you are interested in a class.

CMYK - Another New Start

Another new quilt start. Smitten from the beginning.

The Mighty Lucky Quilting Club is running again this year. I am signed up for a turn hosting in a couple of months. This year, however, the Club will work together to make an entire quilt. That is, each month plays well with each other and the whole thing is designed to give you a quilt top at the end. Still regular challenges, but with a different end goal in site.

The other difference this year is that the entire thing is about colour. So by the end of it you will have a quilt top and a deeper understanding of colour for all your other work. All without making a colour wheel.

Carolyn Friedlander kicked things off in January with a discussion about creating a palette and translating colour inspiration to picking fabric. I love her piece. I will admit, however, to be to being stuck on what I wanted to do. I've never been stuck for picking a palette before! New territory for me. But I didn't stress. Instead I pet some fabric and lived my life, confident that something would tickle my fancy eventually.

Enter the latest issue of Uppercase Mag. Devoted to CMYK - Cyan, magenta, and yellow. The base colours for printing. As with all issues of the magazines I had to wipe up my drool as I read it. Then I knew exactly what I was going to do for this Mighty Lucky Quilting Club challenge.

So I picked a stack of fabric in these intense, pure colours. Not stressing too much about whether this pink perfectly matched that one. If I went that detailed then there would be no point to piecing! You need a bit of contrast in value, texture, and hue to have some depth to your piecing.

Then I printed off the templates for Carolyn's rows. She is a paper piecing master and it was good to work with her pattern. Pretty straightforward as paper piecing goes. Do not be intimidated at all! It takes me about 45 minutes to make 1 block. A beginner would probably take about an hour or more. Don't stress, just do it one seam, one block at a time.

While I usually like to use freezer paper when I paper piece, this time I used Carol Doak's Foundation Paper for my templates. They print right on my home printer, are thin, and are easy to remove. The print at home factor was big as I didn't want to draw out the templates for 12 blocks. (No affiliation, I just like it.) 

In a week I have 6 blocks done. I will plug away on these then start the next round - it's improv!

To sign up to receive the bimonthly challenges, and the templates for this particular block, check out Mighty Lucky Quilting Club. It is $50 for the annual subscription.