Jacob’s Ladder goes Barn Raising

I had already begun to write this post when I found a link on Sharon’s blog, Vrooman Quilts, about the Scraptastic Tuesday party going on over at She Can Quilt blog. If there’s anything I do know, It’s scraps; so joining in sounded like fun. When you've finished reading here, why not take a few minutes to pop over and see what other people are doing with their scraps?

Over the weekend, I cut and stored all the orange scraps shown in my last post. I pressed the contents of three of those shopping bags screaming at me from under the ironing table.

For now, they are in two trays, waiting to be cut and stored.

  

Before class on Monday, I decided to sew some small scrap triangles together – my container of triangular off-cuts (from flying geese, braids and string blocks) was getting quite full.

I’m thinking I’ll make some blocks called “Cotton Reels” but don’t hold me to that!

picture from http://blog.shopmartingale.com/quilting-sewing/quiz-how-many-quilt-block-designs-have-you-made/

I began to put together the four-patches to make what I thought was the Jacob’s Ladder block in class on Monday. Traditionally, the Jacob’s Ladder block is a nine patch, consisting of five four-patch units and four HST units.

http://www.quiltivate.com/quilting_block/15-jacob-s-ladder

In Scrap Quilt Sensations, Katherine Guerrier uses a four patch block to make a Jacob’s Ladder quilt.

I didn’t think to take the book to class and my teacher and I ended up having a long discussion about how the block went together. In the end, my block is a four-patch but not the one Katherine Guerrier uses!

 

Now, I had several choices:

1. unpick the sixteen blocks I had done and make them up correctly according to Katherine Guerrier’s diagram – no way!
2. add units to my four-patches to make a traditional nine-patch JL block – maybe!
3. go with a different layout using the four-patches I had made – yes!

When ‘mistakes’ happen, what happens next comes down to two things: is the resulting quilt of an attractive design, and is my time being used wisely?

Option 3 was not only the easiest but also satisfied both my criteria. When making quilts for donation, quick and easy but effective is often a good route to take given that I spend a lot of time in preparing scraps for use in the first place. The less time I fiddle around with unpicking and re-making, the more time I have to make other items.

In lieu of a fixed design wall and tired of crawling around the floor, I decided to be inventive! I still have the flannel-backed tablecloth that used to be my design wall (hanging in front of a wardrobe/closet) at our previous house. The rivets WM had attached to insert shower curtain rings are coming adrift and it’s fast outliving its usefulness as a hanging system. But those shower curtain rings gave me an idea – my design ‘cloth’ now hangs from our bathroom shower rail. The bathroom is used infrequently by WM and I so it seemed like a great idea and WM approved (at least as a stop-gap measure)!

See how the second, third and fourth rivets are pulling away from the doubled-over-for-additional- strength fabric?

Here is my design wall in use: with the ‘barn raising’ layout of my Jacob’s Ladder quilt; possibly not traditionally but it works!

I'm letting it sit for a while before I start putting the blocks together. In the meantime, I’m using leftover four-patches and HST units to make a panel to widen the the backing fabric.

What do you do when you make a “mistake”?

• Turn it into a ‘design feature’?
• Throw it in the naughty corner?
• Toss it?
• Or resolve it in some other way?

"Earth and Sky" quilt

One of my focus projects for February is to turn some (or all) of my improv blocks (made 2011-2012 in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge over at SoScrappy blog) into a quilt.

I spent quite a long time on Saturday fiddling with different layouts. Because we don’t have many quilts that are suitable for men, I decided to focus on the brown blocks and work around them.

This was the first layout I came up with, using brown, green, teal and blue blocks. I christened it “The Dog’s Breakfast” quilt.

Here it is again in black and white – look at those values: all over the place!

It didn’t look good in colour and looked even worse in black and white!

I tried other layouts but wasn't happy with any of them and couldn’t be bothered fighting with my camera to take photos (my camera has some issues with batteries, even though I use rechargeable batteries if I turn the camera off – even if I only took two photos – the camera will tell me the batteries are flat! We’ve tested the batteries in other items – it's not the batteries!) 

Every layout I tried was still “a dog’s breakfast”. I even tried setting the blocks on point but that didn’t help. It did, however, give me an idea, which led to the layout I have settled on!

Sorry about the angle, it was the only way I could get it all in! And yes, since I took the photo I've turned that bottom left block in the central blue square to point to wards the centre!

This layout used all my brown improv blocks, and all my brown nine patch and string blocks! Of course, I have more brown scraps so there’ll be more blocks when brown comes up in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

The name of the quilt is obvious, it comes from the two colours used in this layout. Now you have to use your imagine a little bit. Imagine a light-coloured narrow sashing around the central square, then around the brown square, and separating the top and brown rows from the blue.

What's that? Can’t see it? Well you’ll just have to come back when I’ve made further progress, won’t you? LOL

But for now, I’m off to work on Older Grandson’s birthday present, I have less than two weeks to get it done!

Oh yeah, I’m a bit late but I’m linking this up with Scrap Happy Saturday. Sorry, it’s not purple, Angela, but it is progress!

quilting projects stalled (momentarily)

I didn't think I would get to this point so quickly! I have more than one quilting project on the go at one time! That's normal for my knitting but I have been a monogamous quilter (except for side trips into small projects) for the eighteen months I have been quilting.

Now I find I have three large projects on the go and another in pieces (while I decide on a layout) on the floor about a metre behind my computer chair!

My Country Houses Quilt has stalled because I am not happy with the one row that's complete and want to talk to my teacher this morning. The backing doesn't lay as flat as I would like and, before I undo it and re-stitch it, I want to make sure that it's not 'loose' for a reason!



The blocks for the Wonky Strings quilt are, as reported in this post, ready to be joined. I didn't have any fabric for the sashing or binding but yesterday I received an email from The Big Box Store informing me that they are having a "30% off all floor stock sale" today and tomorrow so guess where I am going after class?

I have lots of strings cut for my Scrappy String Quilt and, between us, DD and I have made twelve blocks! But I have run out of pieces of batting so I will have to buy some tomorrow while I'm at my LQS or the Big Box Store!

DD's three blocks

The fabric that I showed you (in this post) for the man's quilt is still in piles on the floor. It was the focus of my thinking over the weekend while I was away from home!

Thanks for your suggestions, I really appreciated them and enjoyed reading them. I think I'm going to make a modular quilt following the tutorials on Wanda's blog. I like to try new things and this looks like it would be the right choice for this fabric. Besides, the whole concept tickles my mathematical sensibilities!!

The deer fabric doesn't really work with any of the other fabrics which all have more naive style prints on them so, I will either save it for something else or put it on the back.



At this point, I am thinking of using the bear block as the focal point for the quilt - after I chop off that moose head on the left and leg on the right!


Would you put this block in the middle of the quilt or on the "magic" one third line (the "golden mean" of the art world!)?

And what do you think of the blue border on the bottom (there's one on the top too)? Would it look ridiculous on the top and bottom of a tall, skinny block?

Quilting Adventures in Knitterland problem solved

As mentioned in my post yesterday, DD and I were having trouble finding a satisfactory layout for our blocks from the sampler quilt. The yellow dominated the blues - despite the fact that there are five times as many blue and purple blocks as yellow blocks.

 I stayed up late on Saturday trying to find a solution; drawing grids on scrap paper looking for the answer then trying the layouts with the actual blocks. At 2am, I called it quits and went to bed; I was cold and very tired (it had been a long day including the six hours at the quilting workshop, an hour and half's driving in each direction plus more quilting when we got home). 

First thing yesterday morning, I pulled those screaming yellow blocks out of the mix - the other twenty-five blue and purple blocks fell into place in less than five minutes (after a couple more hastily drawn plans on paper).



laid out on the floor because we have no design wall (yet)
ignore the navy sashing - it's still pinned on from Saturday

DD and I got some quilting time in the afternoon after our trip to the quilting exhibition (Wednesday's post) and have pieced two of the five rows of blocks together.

The two blocks second from the right look like the same fabrics in this photo
- they're not; the upper one has a strong geometic pattern in yellow; the horizontal sashing will separate the apparent tonal similarity

 DD thinks the resulting quilt might be a bit boring but I see it with a narrow inner border or binding in yellow so that will lift the whole quilt.

Just in case you think I've abandoned it, I knitted while watching the final episode of the current series of Midsomer Murders - the last episode for Sergeant Tom Barnaby (played by John Nettles).

And wouldn't you know it, the sock I was knitting was yellow!