Grace is Back in the House . . . . .

A present for me!!

I picked up State of Grace from the quilter, Dawn, at The Sewing Basket, right before I left for vacation.

I could not be happier with this finished quilt.

I went back and read my posts from when I was making this top, back in March. As my daughter loves to say, "You're a doodle, Mama". I was a nut! Remember how I got all worked up about the fabric, the placement, the block size...to the extent that I even renamed this top "State of Chaos"!

Well it was worth every new wrinkle and every gray hair!.

The quilting is amazing.

It's hard to describe, but Dawn outlined all ends of the buzz saw blocks to make hst's and give the quilt an interesting motion that flows diagonally, from corner to corner. This formed two blocks set on point. In each block she quilted a whirly gig pattern spinning out of the pinwheel.

Here's a view from the back, I think you can see the detail a little better with this shot.

This is why I do not quilt my tops, even if I could have come up with this design, I know I would not have been able to execute it this perfectly. Isn't it amazing how a good quilter can really make the difference in the overall look and feel of the quilt?

This was the first quilt where I added a flange accent to the border. Remember how I called it a peeper, and couldn't figure out why there were no tutorials on the web for a "peeper border"! Well I still call it a peeper, and it makes me smile every time.

This is the quilting design in the border, from the front, I think it has the look of a bumble bee, flying from flower to flower.

I made the buzz saw blocks smaller, from 8 to 6 inches, so this quilt would fit right here.

Ah, perfect fit, and perfect timing. An ideal quilt to have out as the season transitions from late summer to early fall.

This is lifetime quilt number 56, it has 732 pieces and finished at 61" X 72".

Read more

State of Chaos . . . .

I'm renaming this quilt, right now I'm leaning towards State of Chaos instead of State of Grace, but it's still open to debate.

So as soon as I got some strips made I threw them up on the design wall. The pattern calls for a totally scrappy design. I immediately started having the same problems with this design that I did with Toulouse......I thought it looked messy, sloppy, not me. "No place for the eye to rest" someone said last time...so true!

If I could talk to a fabric designer, I would be curious to know if when they create these families of fabrics, do they really expect all the fabrics to be used in one project? Because if it were up to me, I would pick some of the fabrics for a top, but never all of them. In the past I just figured the designers had different color ways in the same pattern to please everyone, the browns for the fall folks, the reds for me, the blues and greens for the pastel folks. But all in one quilt, really, that's what they had in mind?

So this is what the design looks like all scrappy.....uhm I don't think so. This family of fabrics is heavy on the greens and light on the reds. So if I went with this design not only would it look messy, it would have a strong green presence.

At this point I still didn't have a design in my mind, but I did know that I wanted an equal number of reds, browns, greens, and blues. I like things even Steven, I'm a debits equals credits type of girl. This required more strips......this required me to raid my Shangri La purse!!

There it is, setting on my shelf, empty!! I think I'll make a round tuffet to put in there when I'm done with this project. Hopefully then the purse won't look as sad. But really, the fabric is too pretty to spend its life in a purse!

So here's the polar opposite of scrappy, each buzz saw block made up of like colors....... another no, I don't think so.

So then I decided to go half brown and half red in one buzz saw and half blue and half green in the other buzz saw, an improvement but I still think no.

This time I continued to separate the pastels from the bolds but I intermingled the red with the browns and the blues with the greens. This I liked.

So then I took it one step further. I mixed my mixes, a predominately red, brown, blue and green in every buzz saw. I think this pattern makes the buzz saws look like they are moving.

So a little mix on the left, a little more of a mix on the right. I couldn't decide which design I preferred, so I combined the above two,

into this. A pastel buzz saw, a mixed buzz saw, a bold buzz saw then another mixed buzz saw.

One thing I know for sure, the 6 inch blocks will be a mix of blue, green, blue, or red, brown, red, or green, blue, green or brown, red, brown. That I know I like, other than that I'm not so sure.

Ok, hit me with your best shot......what should it be:

Choice # 1, bold buzz saws and pastel buzz saws (second to last picture, square on the left).

Choice #2, one mixed block, of each color, in one buzz saw (second to last picture, square on the right)

Choice #3, last picture, combination of #1 and # 2.

Choice #4, can you come up with anything else?

THANKS!!

Read more

On the road to Shangri la . . . .

It was hard taking Faceted Jewels down from the design wall. I'm usually tired of looking at a quilt by the time I finish piecing it, but I wasn't tired of Faceted Jewels. Maybe because I had cut and pieced some of it last year. But it's down and the design wall is ready for some Shangri la by Three Sister for Moda.

So I packed up the batik scraps, dusted my sewing table, oiled my machine, changed the needle, and then started on State of Grace.

I bought this kit from Lisa/Stashmaster last year. I thought the purse was so cute with that jellyroll in it that I bought another jellyroll to actually use for State of Grace, I just couldn't bear to think of that purse setting on my shelf empty.

The kit came with this fabric as the background fabric.

It reminded me of the background I used for Toulouse so I decided to use something else for a different look. I checked my stash for a nice tone on tone beige or cream and found this....

The cream tone on tone from Shangri la! What a surprise! I frequently buy reds and creams from a family of fabric because I like to collect those colors. So there it was, just waiting for this quilt!!

The original size of this pattern is 80" x 96" and is made up of 80 eight inch blocks. I wanted a smaller quilt and thought perhaps the eight inch block was a little too big for my liking.

Here's my first attempt at trying to get the pattern downsized and accurate. I wanted a six inch finished block and that meant I needed 2 inch strips.

If you follow the line I've drawn you'll see my first guesstimate was off by a quarter of an inch.

See how the top point in row two should align with the bottom point of row three?

I got it on the second try!

One of the aspects of this pattern that did not appeal to me was drawing 400 lines to piece the angled strips. I researched buzz saw blocks and found a couple of different ways to make them, but the methods required yardage, not strips. The last time I whined about drawing the lines a few of you commented about using the Angler 2.

I saw this demonstrated at a quilt show, thought it looked like a time saver, bought it, threw it in my template/ruler drawer, then forgot all about it. I had no trouble getting it on my machine, but I couldn't figure out how it worked.

I even drew a line down fabric where I was supposed to sew....still nothing. Those edges don't line up with anything and how do I sew a straight line without one drawn on the fabric?

I resigned myself to the fact that I would have to draw the lines. After it was all said and done, it only took me a couple of hours to draw all the lines, and I talked on the phone for most of that time.

Do you trim your pieces from the back before cutting off the extra fabric?

See that little smidgen of beige fabric peeking out.

I trim it off.

It gives each strip such a nice straight line. My fabric usually hangs over because I move my needle to the right one position when I sew down the line. Yours may not. I'm not sure what I would do if the fabric was too short on the front.

So here's all the strips, ready to be sewed together......

but how......

that's tomorrow's dilemma.

Read more