Strip Lattice Block

Inspiration for this block came from Elizabeth Hartman’s book, The Practical Guide to Patchwork. The quilt she shows in this book is called Valentine.  There are numerous differences, but I don’t claim what I am presenting here as original.

To start with, I prefer to freezer paper piece.  I used Word to create a 6.5 inch box, inside of which I put a 6 inch box.  I drew diagonal lines either side of the center diagonal.  This is the starting strip.  Hartman then has you adlib the remaining strips, but since this block is part of a virtual bee, I decided to preordain the strips and continued drawing them in – 5 strips on one side of the middle strip and four on the other. You can chose to have a few or as many as you want.  The template for this block is available as a PDF file via Google documents. I printed the template onto freezer paper. The following instructions are for using it to foundation piece each quarter.

To create the full block, you will make four quarter blocks. The middle strip will be the same color in all blocks (labeled BG on the template).  I chose black.

Since this is the tutorial for a blue themed bee, lay out five fabrics that range from light blue to dark blue and cut them into strips of the appropriate length and width to exceed the corresponding strip on the template by at least ¼ inch on each side. See picture below.

Cut the middle black strip long enough to go a little beyond both ends of the drawn strip and wide enough so that at least ¼  inch of the strip extends beyond the drawn sides.  Place the strip face down.  Place the template wax side down over the strip so you can see it beyond all the lines.  Iron it down to the strip. 

Fold back along the line on the side that has five strips and trim the fabric that shows to ¼ inch, if needed.  Take the lightest blue strip and put it right sides together with the black strip.  Place this under your sewing machine needle, with the folded back freezer paper on top.  Sew with the needle as close as you can to the fold, but do not sew through the paper. ( Next 2 pictures)

Fold the light blue strip out and iron on the right side (freezer paper is still folded back).  This ensures you have a crisp, tight seam.  Flip over to the wrong side, fold the template over the fabric and iron down. Next 2 pictures.

Now fold the template back along the second line.  Trim the exposed fabric to ¼ inch, as needed. 

 Take the second strip, right sides together with the strip just sewn on and once again sew right along the folded template edge.  Press the new strip out, flip over, iron down the template.  Fold back the third line.  Repeat until you have filled the template on the five strip side.

Now do the same thing with the four strip side, making sure you add the lightest value blue strip to the center and go darker as you proceed to the corner.  If for some reason one of your strips isn't quite right for the drawn strip, there's no problem changing the width of that strip - as long as you end up correctly at the corner.  I did that with one strip I had cut a bit too narrow.

When the template is full, trim just a bit outside the drawn ¼ seam allowance line.  Freezer paper does shrink and no matter carefully you remove it, the block will distort a little.   

After this trimming, carefully peel the freezer paper back, starting at one of the black strip corner and pulling parallel with the seam lines.  Starch and iron the heck out of the quarter block and then trim it to 6 ½ inches square.

Create all four quarters this way – the template can be reused, although it may not be as sticky and may require a bit more ironing.  I have used templates up to 8 times.

Once you have the four quarters completed, spend a little time arranging them to find the most pleasing one.  Sew the quarters into one block, matching the black strip as best as possible and the center seams, too.  Starch and press before trimming to 12 ½ inches.

Below is what two blocks together look like. They aren't sewn together yet - I would want the match the black lattice better possible to create a stained glass look. I am looking forward to seeing all the blocks together – I think this will look really cool!

My New Sewing Studio!

My husband and I are empty nesters who live in a 5 bedroom/2 full bath house that we love. One of the bedrooms upstairs is very large with lots of windows. In its most recent incarnation it has been our main guestroom with a sewing set up in one corner.  It has an en-suite bathroom that it shares with a smaller bedroom, that has actually been my husband’s office for quite a few years.  

Recently I started sewing with a group of 4 fun ladies.  We alternate meeting at each other’s houses.  When we met at mine, we used our dining and living rooms.  Poor hubby was relegated to the basement to wax skis.  The light is lousy and there’s really only enough room for two maybe three sewing machines.  Luckily most brought hand work.

So I decided to do a major rearrangement.  The bedroom set in the big room went into our daughter’s former room downstairs.  The full bed in that room went into this cozy room under the eaves upstairs that has been serving as a spare guestroom for years.  The twin from there is being given away. A chest of drawers from the big room and a small table that had been downstairs completes the little guest room.

 The big room now deserves to be called a studio!  I also found that all those rooms really needed a thorough cleaning, so that happened, too.  Lots of dust bunnies were killed.

I took the second recliner that was in the daughter’s room upstairs that along with its mate creates a sewing, reading nook in the new studio.  I swapped out an old kitchen table that was serving for folding laundry in the basement against a card table to create a second sewing table.  Both of my machines are set up and there’s lots of room for more machines. I also have a folding table that could be set up for more machines. I removed all the curtains (privacy is not really an issue) and have lots of natural light.  I need a few more lamps.

When you first walk in.

View from the reading nook

My design walls - the smaller one is the door to the bathroom.

The reading / hand sewing nook.

 Last evening was the first time sewing in this new space and I just love it.  Hope to have the group over soon – I think they will love it, too. 

Granny Squares

I joined the Old Red Barn Quilt Along a while ago, but this is the first project on the site I have joined.  Granny squares - so easy yet so great looking.  If done as directed, the squares come out at 9.25 inches - which will finish at 8.75 inches.  I have completed 8 squares so far and will do at least 4 more.  I am toying with the idea of making 13 and arranging the blocks into the granny square configuration for the top.  We'll see....

Four of the 8.75 inch grannies

Not a bad size, but I wondered - as did someone else in the discussion group - what sizes were needed to create a 12 inch finished square.

So after doing a little math I came up with the squares have to be cut at 3.25 inches.  Since I prefer the set in triangle method for doing these, the corner triangles are cut from a 3.25 inch square cut once on the diagonal.  For the side triangles, I cut 1 5.25 inch square, which I cut along each diagonal into 4 triangles. (I actually had calculated more like 5.5 inches, but didn't realize I cut it short until I was well into sewing the block.  Since this was an experiment, I kept going.)

I  sewed it together - after trimming, I ended up with 12 3/8 inches, which is 1/8 inch short, but still enough to finish at 12 inches - you'd have to sew a very scant 1/4 inch.  I would recommend cutting the 4 side triangles from a 5 3/8 or even a 5.5 inch square.  Then I think you about guaranteed a 12.5 inch trimmed block.

12 inch Granny Square.

A Workshop with Anna Marie Horner

One of my favorite local fabric stores, The Top Stitch, invited Anna Marie Horner to come to Spokane to teach a workshop on making her Prism Quilt.  While I am not necessarily very savvy of who is who in the fabric world, her fabrics are ones I am very aware of, so I jumped at the chance to meet and learn from her.  It was a great workshop.  I have been working on understanding the role of color and especially of value (shades and tones) in creating effective quilts.  Learning how to work with these elements with highly patterned fabrics was something I had barely worked with, so it was great having 20 minutes of her undivided time to show me how she looks at things.  There were 24 in the workshop, so it was a hectic day for everyone, but Anna took it all in stride, always showing genuine interest in each of us and what we were trying to do.  I came away very impressed and a fan!

Anna and me - she's a genuinely warm and fun lady!

The beginnings of my prism quilt - it's got a ways to go, but Anna and I worked on this part together.

On another note, as a result of that weekend, my scrap stash has exploded!  Time for more log cabins, since they are one of the best ways to use up these scraps.  I recently bought the book 101 Log Cabins from House of White Birches.  In it I found the “Drunkard’s Path Log Cabins” I had made templates for – goes to show, there’s very little out there that hasn’t been done before!

Anyway, I liked the Rolling Log block, but it was at 7 inches.  So I made new templates for 5 inches and 6 inches finished blocks.  I am making a rainbow themed log cabin quilt and thought these would make great corner stones.  I also think this would be an effective block if you used all one color, but either start dark and go to light, or the reverse.

I have WAY more scraps than I can use - but I'll find a way!

5 inch Rolling Log block

April in Amsterdam

Last April my daughter spent several weeks in Rwanda as part of a charity mission called Healing Hearts Northwest.  On her way back, she and several other nurses spent a few days in Amsterdam.  They visited tulip gardens and she took this stunning picture of the sun shining through tulips.  

 Since mid-January I have been taking a two part on line course on designing nature quilts from EllenLindner.  I have taken one her courses before (Instant Art Quilts) and have some of her publications.  Anyway, for one of my quilts, I decided to try to interpret the tulip picture.

I do fine with composition but still struggle with color and value, especially as they apply to scale, distance and depth.  I first did an 8 by 11 sketch of my proposed quilt on a transparency.  After I had it the way I wanted, I put it on an overhead projector and drew it full sized.

Ellen is big on doing stuff freestyle.  So the background was chunks of green fabric arranged to create the first indication of depth. Rather than pinning them to muslin, as Ellen does, I fused them to French fuse, a tricot fabric that has a light coating of fusing compound on one side. I added borders, because I really like these sort of quilts to have the subject cross out of the interior and into the border – seems more 3-D to me.  Then I started to build the tulips out of yellow, orange pink and red fabric.  The object was not an exact replica, but to convey the feeling of light and springtime.  All the cutting was freehand.  The sketch was merely a rough guide to placement and size.  Ellen thought the tulips should be tilted rather than as straight as they are in the photo.  After adding stems and leaves, I decided a few buds would look good.  Some of this was pinned, some glued.

I then layered the top with its batting and backing, pin basted the whole thing and started quilting. The quilting has to be dense enough to secure all the edges, but I didn’t necessarily have to sew along each edge.  For the background, including the borders, I used a free motion wandering leaf design.  The tulips I outlined, echoed and added a few spirals.  The quilting was a challenge, because the fabric wanted to shift and pucker.  My free motion foot also frequently caught underneath the pieces, so I had to really pay attention.  I found starching and ironing the areas before quilting and really keeping things smooth between my hands while guiding the quilt under the needle worked best. I used about 4 different colors of thread, mostly Isacord and Sulky embroidery threads.  These are my favorite for quilting.

After looking at it, I decided it needed one more bud and added it.  I blocked it and bound the edges as usual.  Then I washed it.  I am always surprised that the raw edges hold up so well, even without fusing.  A wall hanging needs washing every once in a while (at least I think it does), and I like the extra texture that the slight batting shrinkage give the quilt.  

Anyway, I am pretty happy with the results, learned a ton and am now working on a second, quite different quilt for this class.  More on that later…