The Argyle Quilt Gets Its Argyle Trim...

I've hit a point in the Argyle Baby Quilt that I wanted to update and post pictures. I have finally finished the 2nd of the three panels, including adding the trim that  makes the "argyle" look, and with that addition I now, finally, love the way this quilt looks.

Since my original design had been inspired by totally different colors, I was slow to warm up to the lavender & purple of  this quilt. I still really want to do the pink & black version, I just need a good excuse, but meanwhile I've added the sweet floral criss-cross and now....now this quilt sings to me.

As I still have one more panel to go --- eighty more pair of triangles to cut, pair up, sew into rows of 20 pair each, join those 4 rows into a panel, add the trim and, finally, join that 3rd panel to these 2 panels --- it's good I'm loving the quilt so I stay motivated to finish. I am WAY past my self-set deadline, which means I am going to have to fly on the quilting portion, but so be it. Either that, or the recipient will get it at the end of my US visit instead of the beginning. Time, and my ability to focus and get to work, will tell. Wish me luck; I am going to need it!

Oh, and cheer me on, 'kay? Isn't it looking lovely???

the 2 panels all laid out on the dining table.
No, I have not squared it up yet. Yes, I will before I add binding. 

close-up of it all laid out, before the 2 panels were sewn together

and a closer close-up of the focal section, once the 2 panels were sewn together.
the 3rd panel will be identical to the one on the left, completing the argyle look. 

The Reader Tries to Make Art....

I've been sewing away on a baby quilt (updated pictures coming soon, I promise...) and watching some quilt show DVDs while I sew. A technique featured in more than one of the DVDs is fabric collage, where the quilt artist layers fabric in an interesting way, using glue or basting stitches or even fusible iron-on stuff to hold the fabric in place before quilting over the top of it.

As I sat home on the 4th of July, with The Chemist away on a business trip, I did a lot of reminiscing about past 4th of July celebrations we've had.

There was the time that The Chemist, The Writer and I (while pregnant with The Artist) went with my dad to watch the fireworks over the St. Louis Arch, and had quite an adventure driving home. I adore the pictures I have of The Chemist and The Writer, a wee little toddler at the time, watching the fireworks together.

Or before that, the time I watched fireworks over the river in New York City, the summer I spent there during college. I have a picture of a young family -- mom, dad, daughter -- watching together. The father has his daughter on his shoulders, and all their faces are pointed at the sky watching the splendor explode above us. I look at that now and then look at photos I have of my Chemist and Writer from that first 4th of July in St. Louis (visiting, not living there) and it makes me smile that the same scene that so warmed my heart when I was but a young college girl was later duplicated in my very own life with my very own husband and child (and later, children). Such joy.

Then there was the time we went with friends, our last US 4th of July before moving to Brazil, and it poured. I'm talking soaked us to the bone, drenching, pouring, rain. The pocket of dry weather that  a certain someone said would be over us during the fireworks? Apparently the pocket didn't get the memo. We sought shelter under a thatched roof structure, watched through the pouring rain, and laughed our fool heads off all the long walk back to the ferry that took us back to the car and back to our friend's house.

There was a bittersweet memory of the first 4th of July living here in Brazil, when homesickness swept over me totally unexpectedly. And then a very dear friend called, her laptop video camera rolling, from the fireworks show she & her kids were watching. She laughed with delight to realize just how huge a gift she was giving me, I cried with joy to realize what a precious friend she was, and then she turned her laptop so that the fireworks were front and center and for 15 minutes the boys and I were able to watch fireworks with some of our best friends and for just a moment to feel like we were home again.

There was also the first 4th of July after losing Kelly, when I sat down to put on 1776, a musical on DVD that Dad & Kelly gave me as it was their traditional viewing choice for the holiday, and had since become mine as well. Except that year I couldn't watch it and instead went to my room and cried.

After that, we worked harder at making memories for the boys so that despite growing up here in Brazil, they'll still have a fondness for this celebration of American Independence. Last year we made strawberry/blueberry pancakes for brunch, and every year we put up random decorations that the boys color, draw, create. All year long we have various red, white & blue tributes to Texas in our home, but for The Fourth we remember we're celebrating the USA, not just Texas, and try to shift our focus accordingly.

So this year....with The Chemist away on business, what could I do? We decided our celebration would wait until he returned, but I wanted to somehow mark the occasion. Which brings me back to the beginning -- fabric collage. I pulled out  my bucket of scraps, a small piece of scrap batting, and some washable elmer's glue sticks and I just began layering until the emotions of remembering seemed to be properly expressed before me.

Ode to America, original fabric collage
approximately 8" x 11"

I was going for a general fireworks kind of feeling, not representational but abstract; the general idea being splashes of color lighting up the night. I layered, and glued, and stitched, and just did whatever felt right. Then I put some fabric on the back and began to quilt through all the layers, tracing various lines through the fabric (which completely don't show up, but that's okay). Then I wrapped the edges in binding, surveyed my work and smiled. 

My boys asked what it's supposed to be; I gave them the only answer I could: "Pretty."  Hard to put into words all the abstract feelings that went into the piece, but there it is. I like it, and while my original intent was that it would become a permanent part of our "4th of July Decorations" stash, I decided I like it year-round so now it's on the mantle over the fireplace where it will live, until. Until when? Until I tire of it or make a new one, I guess.

So, what about you? Anything ever move you to create something just on the spur of the moment like that? 

And now, for some fabric....

The day I took my machine to the machine doctor, I also got to pick out some quilt fabric as my Mother's Day surprise. I wasn't expecting The Chemist to pay for my selections, so I was a bit more conservative than I might have been otherwise.....maybe that was his plan all along!

I got a few "just for fun" fat quarters (small pieces of fabric that are a quarter-yard, cut wide instead of long) (or something like that....), but the fabric I'm going to show you today I got meters and meters of!

First, I chose this for the back of The Writer's quilt -- perfectly fun & funky for a teenage boy, I think, and busy enough to hide what I'm sure will be imperfect quilting stitches when I reach that stage of things.

The Writer loves it.
Said it reminds him of puzzle pieces. Which makes him think of Lego. Which makes him think of Minecraft.
Which all makes me smile, because my brain makes the same seemingly random jumps & connections.

And then....then I saw this. My eyes nearly popped, my jaw hit the floor, and I knew I had to have it.

The sidewalks of Brazil, in fabric.
Which just so happens to be what inspired my entire "coming soon" Brazil quilt.
The sidewalks, I mean, not this fabric.
Match made in heaven, I tell you. 

This, my friends, is a rendering in fabric of the sidewalk pattern that is so famous here and seen alongside nearly every street I've ever walked in all of Brazil.

This, my friends, is the exact pattern that inspired my Brazil Quilt design. This, my friends, is serendipity at its finest, the perfect fabric to back my Brazil Quilt, when it ever gets its turn to be made.

I will likely tea (or more likely, coffee) dye it so that it becomes off-white/beige/tan instead of stark white, but other than that it is absolutely perfect. I was, am, so excited to find this! My crafty-sewing-quilting friends will get it; I hope all of you understand.

Have you ever found something that you knew you "just had to have"? What was it? How did you know? 

Can't stop yet....

I have finally finished the first section of the baby quilt I'm working on -- yay!!!

The sewing machine doctor was unable to get my sewing machine up and running, or, at least, not in a sustainable fashion that continued working once I got it home. I think my machine doesn't like me very much, as it tends to work fine for other people. I'm following all the instructions in the manual, but clearly I just do not have a way with this machine. It was working at the machine doctors; he showed me. But once home, it was back to Broken/Breaking Thread City again.

I've temporarily given up, will wait until I can get her to an authorized Bernina dealer and try again, and meanwhile will keep on sewing by hand. I actually enjoy working by hand, as it is so much more portable. I can bring my sewing to the dining room table and stitch while the boys do school, or while the family watches a movie I'm only half interested in. I can bring it out to the sun room and sew in the sun when I'd otherwise be freezing (there are no outlets out there, so I couldn't take my machine to the sun room). I can come to the empty desk in the computer room and hang out and chat with the boys while they compute. In fact, when I do get my machine up and running, I will likely take over the empty desk as the perfect spot for my machine, here with the family rather than off in my sewing room in the back of the house.

Still, going by hand is slower. I'm not complaining, at all!, because I do enjoy the hand work. I did my whole first quilt by hand, right up until I had Kim quilt it for me. So, I can do this. It means that The Writer's quilt is on hold until I finish the baby quilt, as I have an August deadline on that one. To finish the top, get  it backed and get it quilted. By hand. But I think I can do it, if I stick to my schedule.

And here, in its internet debut, is the first third of the top. Four vertical rows of triangles, each row consisting of 20 pairs of triangles. All identical, except the 8 triangles that make up the purple diamond. Just two more sections just like this and the top will be done! I can do it.

"Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend" -- or, in this case, just one diamond so far!
(and, no, triangles are NOT a hand quilters/piecers best friend! LOL!)

close up of the 1st diamond.
I am grateful that 1 - the recipient will not notice that even the lines of the diamond
don't line up exactly straight all the way around, and 2 - the rest is all one fabric and the
print hides the seams very, very well, and the quilting will hide 'em even better.
'Cause hardly any of those seams line up properly. Triangles! Sheesh!! What was I thinking?!

It takes me about a day's worth of sewing to go from a stack of 40 triangles to a row put together. And then about a day or so to get the 4 rows joined together, and I'm guessing another day to get the 3 sections put together once I have the other 2 sections done. Which is NOT to say that in a mere 10 days I'll be done with the top, because of course real life interrupts and all, but I do plan to, hope to, finish the top no later than June 15th. That will give me 2 months to quilt it.

Wish me luck, and keep me accountable. Ask for progress pics. Often. By Monday I should have the next third. And the Monday after that the last third. And the Monday after that, it had better be all together and quilting started. Come here and check, 'kay?

Christmas in May

Some people who love me (they know who they are) sent me a package last week. I knew the package was coming, and what was in it, and I was anxious for it to arrive. When it did, I disappeared into the computer for a few days, coming out only to feed and clothe my family (or so they tell me) while I played with my new gift.

Two days later I remembered to call the gift-givers and let them know the package arrived safely and I was having fun with it. Not the most prompt thank you ever given, but it's not my fault I was distracted.

What did they send me? Only the most amazing quilt designing software ever, called EQ7 (Electric Quilt 7).

This software is amazing. Let me just say that again -- Amazing. Basically, this program takes all the math and technical aspect out of the equation and just lets me create. I can even draw my own blocks and designs, with never a care to "If I make this piece this big, then what size does this need to be?" and so forth and so on. No maddening graph paper and pencil and calculations. Just drawing, and pointing and clicking. From my heart and head to the computer, in a few clicks. And from there, all the information I need to go from drawing to sewing, all the fabric calculations done for me. Amazing.

To put it another way, it lets me do this:

...And Read All Over
the final layout for The Writer's comic strip quilt
(except the red parts of the border will be centered...)

Flora and Fauna
a design I played with for a website challenge

and, last but not least, The Brazil Quilt
I'm not 100% sure of the final coloring, but this is the quilt I've been drawing for ages,
based on the cobblestone sidewalk designs here.

Like I said, amazing. I've never been so happy to receive a Christmas gift seven months early. Thanks again to the gift givers!

One-third + one-sixth + one-half = Progress!

I'm working on three different quilt projects right now, and I'm at a good progress point for updating on all three. yay!

The first is the still on-going Diary Quilt; I'm busy adding what are called setting triangles to all the blocks I finished earlier. What that means is I take each small square and put a triangle on each side so that each block becomes a square within a square. I of course do not have pictures of this yet, because my camera batteries are, as ever, dead. But, I'm done with half the blocks! Yay!!!

The second is the Comic Strip Quilt for The Writer. He created this hilarious comic strip, Mt. NeverRest, when he was quite young; maybe 9 years old? I forget. Simple but so funny. In an effort to preserve his comics for him, I decided to turn them into a quilt. I bought printable fabric and will photograph several of his comic strips, print on the fabric and they'll make up the middle of the quilt.

The outside of the quilt will be in all blacks (on the left) and all white (on the right). The middle two columns (it will be 6 columns total) will alternate white and black, so that the overall look is interlocking teeth, similar to this design:

Which is Which quilt, by Mamacjt
originally seen on Pinterest, traced back to
this Flickr photostream (though not that page)
The maker of this quilt knows I'm inspired by hers and making my own, altered, version.

Today I finished assembling all the black squares. Hooray! That's one-third of the blocks, ready to go. They aren't joined yet but just having the blocks done is a big accomplishment for me. Each block is roughly 12x12, just to give you an idea of size.

for the Comic Strip Quilt
this will be the left third of the quilt when done

The third project is the Argyle Baby Quilt; I showed you recently the first column full of triangle pairs. I've finished another column's worth of triangle pairs since then. Woot! Making progress! It's a fun little project to work on, as the little triangles go together quickly.

I'm debating how to back it -- I originally bought enough of the lavender dot fabric to be the backing, but over the weekend I saw a lavender microfiber/microplush baby blanket that is the right size & color to serve as backing if I want. I'm researching how hard or easy it would be to use that, and thinking it over. On the one hand, it might make it more likely to be used, which is a good thing. On the other hand, I'm reading that it can be finicky fabric to work with, which is not so good. So, mulling it over. Anyone have thoughts on that? I believe it will behave similar to minky fabric, if that helps you. 

Today I'll be starting the white squares for the Comic Strip Quilt. Cold weather has arrived with a vengeance here, and I'd hoped to have the quilt done for The Writer at least before the end of our winter. Must get moving! The Diary Quilt has no deadline whatsoever, as it's just for me, and the Argyle Baby Quilt doesn't need to be finished until September-ish or maybe August, so I'm bumping the Comic Strip Quilt up in the line and working full speed ahead on getting that finished for my boy. Wish me luck! I do so want it to be done in time for him to enjoy it this winter!

Time to get to work! Happy Thursday, everyone!

Ready, Set, Argyle!

Well, it's begun! I spent quite a while a few days ago cutting little fabric triangles so that I can begin assembly of the argyle baby quilt I'm making.

I'm following this tutorial, more or less.

Except my triangles are 4.5" x 3.5" cut size. And then I'm making vertical columns instead of horizontal rows of triangles, because I want my diamonds for the argyle to be horizontal instead of vertical.  Yes, that makes sense; trust me.

But I did use the tutorial to understand how exactly to line up the triangles when I get ready to sew them into pairs. You can't line up point to point, or they won't be right when you unfold them. You have to scoot the top triangle down just a bit so that your seam allowance falls in the right place. I only had to read that three times and look at the photo for five minutes and then scoot, measure, scoot, measure something like four or five times before I got my first pair lined up correctly. The mechanics of sewing do not always come easily to me, what can I say. Luckily, once I got the first one I figured out what to do so that the rest of my triangle pairs are nice and properly pointy when unfolded.

What I didn't see in the tutorial is a much needed admonition to make sure that if your left hand triangle points up & your right hand triangle points down, that you keep it that way throughout. Because if you just go all willy nilly, grabbing a triangle, plopping one down the opposite way, without paying attention to if you have a Down-Up or an Up-Down arrangement, you wind up with pairs that don't go together.

on the left, an Up-Down arrangement;
on the right, a Down-Up
See how the Up-Downs cannot be paired with the Down-Ups? Oops.

Fortunately I only had 5 pins in my little needle book at the time, so I only sewed 5 pairs of triangles together. Three of them wound up as Down-Ups and the other two were Up-Downs, so I quick decided the rest of that row would go with majority rule and be Down-Ups and set the errant two couples aside. I think I can use them in the next row if I do all Up-Downs for that row, though I'm not 100% sure that will work and I'm a little afraid to risk it.

However! I got enough triangles paired up to make the first row. Woot! This is double exciting because I needed that so I can figure the math that I messed up earlier.

all 20 pair; 40 triangles
takes most of the length of my dining room table
pardon the mess....

See, as I was deciding on size for this baby quilt, I remembered to subtract seam allowance and shrink each triangle from the cut size of 4.5" x 3.5" down to what will likely wind up being 4" x 3". Which means my rows, or rather columns, will each be roughly four inches wide, and depending on the size I make my argyle diamonds, I need either 12 or 18 columns.

I was originally thinking 12 and used that to determine -- aha! Twelve columns times four inches per column equals a width of roughly 48 inches. Perfect!  I say roughly because I learned on my first quilt that my seam allowances tend to be a smidge wide and thus my quilts tend to shrink a bit and be a little smaller than intended. Since this is not a pattern anyway, it's whatever I decide, so no problem.

Then I figured the length. I think I want somewhere around 45" x 60" more or less, so I divided that length of 60" by the width of each triangle, three inches. Lovely! I need 20 triangles per strip to have a strip that's 60" long!

Except, no. Because the two triangles go together topsy-turvy, so the base of one overlaps the base of the other. So the two triangles together are more like 4" (and really this will shrink more, I think, as each pair goes together....) when all is said and done. So I need forty triangles, twenty pairs. To make my sixty-ish inches. So I have a LOT more triangles to cut and then sew.

But! Still and all, today I paired up the first twenty pair of triangles (does one say pair or pairs for plural???), including the one that will be the point of the very first diamond for the argyle. Does it give you enough to see how the quilt will go together?

close-up of the bit that has the 1st diamond point
and so you can see the coraly-orangey-salmony color that I might match

I'm not planning to assemble the rows/strips/columns yet, as I'm still undecided on exact size of each argyle diamond, and also the color of that pesky center diamond. I had ruled out the green, thanks to a friend's suggestion, but then the more I look at it, the less sure I am that using the 2 purples I have will be enough contrast. So instead I might go with a perfectly splendid coral sort of color that matches the orangey-coraly-salmony color dots in the background, and is the print of the green floral I posted before. I'll post pics of that later; I forgot to take pictures of the fabric while I had the camera out.

Whew! My brief little update got really long! Sorry 'bout that! Wish me luck as I keep cutting and sewing, cutting & sewing. My machine goes to the machine doctor this weekend and hopefully I'll have it back soon, which will speed things up considerably. Meanwhile, it's fun handwork and easy to do a bit here & there.

Stay tuned for further updates as things progress! And soon a picture of The Writer's quilt progress, too.