Monday, August 15, 2011

Do I really need this book?

I love buying & reading quilting books, but I think I'm going to take a pass on this one:



Sunday, August 14, 2011

Farmer's Wife Quilt-Along Week 8

Farmer's Wife Quilt Along - Week 8

Hmmm. It seems that I have been doing more sewing than blogging. I'll try to catch up, but I'm not sure how much I even remember about putting these together now!

#17 - Cats + Mice (2nd try)


FWQAL 017 - Cats + Mice (2nd try)


I liked the first one I made, except that points didn't match in the middle, and apparently I'm haven't recovered enough from my perfectionism to let it go. This started with 4 QST units, and then paper-pieced the rest.

#18 - Century of Progress


FWQAL 018 - Century of Progress (1st try) FWQAL 018 - Century of Progress


Progress, my size 11 foot! What's so progressive about having 12 seams meet up in the middle, I'd like to know! Feels like there's a dried pea in the middle of my block. grumble, grumble I think I made the first version (on the top) using only templates, and it came out OK, but there wasn't enough contrast between the two background yellows to really see the pattern. I meant to do the next version with the same "pinwheel" layout of the background, but accidentally cut my pieces so that half were reversed. I'm happy enough with the the little kites that came out, and I like these colors better.

#29 - Economy


FWQAL 029 - Economy


I was frustrated after making my first Century of Progress block, so I wanted something Qwik & EZ. This fit the bill. Can't remember if I used the book's templates or if I just rotary cut the pieces, but either way it worked up nicely. I'm a little sorry I missed an opportunity to use larger scale prints, but I like the finished result.

#48 - Homeward Bound


FWQAL 048 - Homeward Bound


Again, I was looking for something quick. I'm pretty sure I just rotary cut this one, although I don't really remember much about making it. I do wish I used fabric with a stronger value contrast for the corner squares.

#53 - Jackknife


FWQAL 053 - Jackknife


Ah, Jackknife! This is my current pride & joy -- all rotary cut, no paper piecing. Same color combo as my first Cats & Mice, but much better results. The QST's were speed-pieced, and the corner units started as speed-pieced HSTs that had corner squares sewn onto them. All the point-matching was courtesy of basting glue-stick, which worked wonderfully.

#103 - Whirlwind


FWQAL 103 - Whirlwind (1st try) FWQAL 103 - Whirlwind


The paper-piecing foundation for this is actually in Anita Solomon Grossman's Make It Simpler Perfect Piecing (under the name "Twin Sisters") so I figured it'd be a piece of cake to whip one up. Xerox, cut, & sew -- what could go wrong? Well, you could cut the pieces backwards, for one thing. It meant I had to skip using the paper foundation, which wasn't so bad, but I felt the finished block didn't have enough contrast between the pinwheel and the background, so I went ahead & made another, this time cutting it correctly & using the foundation.

#19 - Checkerboard


FWQAL 019 - Checkerboard


Paper-pieced, no problems. I never used to care much for orange, but since (mostly) making an orange twinkling star, I seem to have grown much fonder of it.

Whew! OK, that's week 8. More to come as I continue to catch up with my blogging!

Monday, August 1, 2011

Colors & Values

Wayne Kollinger has an excellent post today that demonstrates the importance of values in quilt blocks:

You Aren't Just Choosing Colors, You're Choosing Values