Hand-Dyes & Lone Stars

Once again, I am playing hooky from Jane Austen.  In times past (when my gray cells actually worked properly), I could really focus on ONE thing exclusively and get it done.  Nowadays, I find myself getting distracted by all sorts of new ideas and I want to work on that new idea RIGHT NOW before I forget it.

I don't particularly care for working on many multiple projects at a time because it clutters up my brain but I've been thinking lately that if I don't do something to capture the idea, it's going to be as elusive as a puff of smoke.

Therefore, when a quilting buddy of mine commented on how much she liked the pack of 10 hand-dyed fat quarters, which were sitting on my cutting table, I decided that I really ought to do something with them RIGHT NOW before they got lost in the morass of my sewing room.

I had purchased this pack at a quilt show a couple of month ago.  I had them sitting out in the open so I could see them and try to figure out what to do with them that would properly show off the gorgeous colors.

I wanted a pattern that would take advantage of the 10 hand-dyes, use UP as much of the fat quarters as possible and not be another Forever Project.  I paged through my quilting books and pages of ideas.  I kinda/sorta narrowed it down to a French Braid or a Lone Star.

I liked the French Braid idea because right there in the book was a pattern that used TEN fabrics!  All I'd need to do is find a fabric for the border.  But I had just finished a French Braid not too long ago (well, the top is finished; it still needs to be quilted).  Making another French Braid, while seeming to be a perfect match with my criteria, didn't excite me too much.

The problem with the Lone Star was that I didn't have a pattern that specifically used fat quarters.  I wasn't sure how big of a Lone Star I could make with 10 fat quarters.  Electric Quilt said I could get a 30" Lone Star using 1-1/2" strips, but I had no way of knowing how much of the fat quarters would be left over.

So, I dug through my stash and emerged with 10 fat quarters of fabric that I wasn't emotionally attached to and that I would be willing to sacrifice to the experiment.  I didn't particularly care if the fabrics "went" with each other or not .. and they sure don't!

Cutting 1-1/2" strips, I indeed was able to make a 30" Lone Star.  I also had a LOT of the fat quarters left over.

I then thought a slightly bigger Lone Star could be made but needed another set of fat quarters ... diving back into my stash, I came up with a second set of 10 fat quarters that had absolutely nothing in common with each other (!!) except that I discovered that I could cut 2" strips for a Lone Star and only have a modest amount of the fat quarters left over.

I sewed just one point together, so that I would remember (in the future) what the sequence was supposed to be.

Both of the experimental fat quarter Lone Star results are quite ugly.  :-)   There is absolutely nothing to recommend them except that they served their purpose.

With courage in hand, I began to cut 2" strips from my hand-dyes.  The 2" strips were assembled into strip sets: 6 colors per strip set.  Six strip sets were needed per point, each one from a different sequence.  When I learned how to construct Lone Stars, I was taught to stagger (offset) the end of the strip set by the width of the strip.  This resulted in a stair step look on the ends ... BUT ... since you were going to cut the strip sets at a 45° angle anyway, why waste the fabric on the very ends??  In this manner, I was able to cut at least 6 crosscut strips from each strip set.  Since I needed 8 crosscut strips (one for each point), I had to construct a partial strip set to obtain the extra 2 strips. 

Eventually I made my hand-dye Lone Star and was pretty happy with it. 

Most Lone Stars simply have corner squares and setting triangles to fill in the star.   I wanted to do something a little different .. something that would also use up the remainder of the fat quarter strips.  Using Google image search, I found a number of different layouts for Lone Stars, but the one that caught my eye was one that used New York Beauty (or similar) blocks. 

So, I drafted a New York Beauty block consisting of rays and Flying Geese, which use up the remaining hand-dye fabric and have a black background to set everything off.  I only constructed 2 of the New York Beauty blocks (and still have to sew the rest of the background to them) before the Guilts attacked me. :-)

I really needed to return to Jane Austen and not fool around with other ideas!  The longer I work on Jane Austen, the sooner I would get done and the sooner I would be able to play around with all these other ideas without feeling guilty. :-)

Here is where the hand-dyed Lone Star sits right now.  It's pinned to a maroon sheet (so ignore that color!).  The curved part of the New York Beauty blocks have been sewn, but are just pinned to the sheet.  With my graphics program, I colored in the black background ... it gives you an approximation of what the final result should look like.

Don't mind the wiggly part of the Lone Star .. that's due to the sheet underneath.  :-)

Not too bad.

Jane Austen quilt, part 8: moving right along

As of 5/21/11, here is where I am in the construction of my "inspired by" the Jane Austen quilt.  The top right triangular portion is sashed and I've just sewn the longest sashing of the quilt.  Woo hoo!!  From now on, all the sashings will be shorter ... and thank goodness for that!

The portion of the quilt to the left of the "empty" diamond space in the middle is just pinned to my design sheet.

While I am enjoying seeing how progress is being made on this top, it is simply tedious sewing. I am trying to keep all the short sashing segments aligned with each other so they don't look like they are wiggling all over the place.  Mostly, I think I've done a good job.

I'm beginning to ponder how on earth is this top going to be quilted????  An edge to edge would just destroy the look.  I'm thinking that a very simple stitch in the ditch along the sashing seamlines would be appropriate ... with no other quilting in either the sashing or diamonds.

The big diamond space in the middle is going to contain an embroidered letter.

Any comments or suggestions as to quilting?

NQR: our pirate chickens

I might have mentioned that, although we lived smack dab in the middle of suburbia, we have a large lot ... almost an acre of flat land.  It's mostly undeveloped, as Mr. Pirate & I just aren't the landscaping type.  Landscaping requires constant attention and we'd, quite frankly, be doing other things.

There aren't restrictions as to backyard chickens, except for the number of roosters.  Mr. Pirate likes chickens.  I tolerate them because Mr. Pirate likes them.  In the beginning, they were something "educational for the children".  Yeah, right.  ::sigh:: 

Well, the children are all grown up now and we still have chickens, so it's *really* Mr. Pirate who likes the chickens. :-)  He would have stuck to boring white Leghorns and Rhode Island Reds, but if we were going to have chickens, I wanted something interesting to look at.  :-)

This is our current flock ... we have 22 hens and 1 rooster.  He was a mistake because the chicks we got weren't able to be sexed ... you got what you got.  :-)   The flock is a blend of an old flock and the new chickens.  I suspect that the older hens aren't laying too much, but the younger hens make up for it.  If they were all laying, we'd be getting, on average, 22 eggs a day.  Oh. My. Gosh.  There's just no way we could eat all those eggs!  As it is, we generally speaking, get between 8-14 eggs a day.  And THAT is more than we need. 

Thankfully, we have neighbors who buy our excess eggs.  And our daughters take some back to their apartments.  Which still leaves a LOT of eggs for Mr. Pirate & myself.

When we got the newest chickies (last Spring), I knew which breeds I was getting because the feed store thoughtfully segregated the breeds.  But by the time we got home, all the name tags had been removed by those stupid chickens.

Yes, I am just kidding about the name tags.  :-)

Rhode Island Red

Barred Rock

Mostly, I can remember which breeds we have because they are different from each other.  We have some of the more "standard" chickens: Barred Rock and Rhode Island Red. 

But, thanks to me and our Dear Daughters, we also have some ::cough::  ::cough::  "novelty" breeds: Polish, Welsummer, Lakenvelder, Barnvelder, Americauna, Marans, Orpington, Astrolorps, Black Jersey Giants.

Only a few have names at this point.  When the girls were little, they were very prompt to name every single chicken because "if they don't have a name, they'll get eaten!".  These days, the chickens get names as one is suggested to us.

For example: the Polish.  ::giggle::  they really are such silly looking birds. :-)   The original Polish chickie that we got had a cute little yellow cotton ball top knot.  Dang, if he didn't look just like Dennis Rodman!  So, we called it "Dennis".  Turned out that Dennis was a hen, so she was re-christened "Denise".  And since we had a Denise, the other chickie had to be DaNephew.  :-)

These days, when we do have white crested Polish chickens, *one* of them is always named Denise (DaNiece).  The others are called .. as circumstances dictate ... DeNephew, DaMoose, Doofus, or Nutsy.   The rooster?  Heck, there's only ONE name you could POSSIBLY call a Crested Polish ... Einstein. :-)  :-)

Golden Lakenvelder (I think)

The chicken I *think* is a Lakenvelder (remember .. they took their name tags off, so how I am supposed to remember who is who???) is the flightiest little chicken we've ever had.  If she had nine lives, she would have used up 15 of them.  :-)  We call her Roadrunner because she looks *exactly* like the cartoon character, as she runs for her life!

The Barred Rocks (we have 2 of them) are the Old Biddies.  They are from the older flock and they tend to be very, very bossy.  There's a funny story that shows how one's mind works.  When we first got these chickens, I hadn't seen their breed in print.  Mr. Pirate just said they were Barred Rocks.  OK then .. how interesting .. a chicken named for Shakespeare.  :-)   How the heck did I make that connection?  Well, Shakespeare is known as the Bard (storyteller).  Bard and barred are pronounced exactly the same!  I never thought to associate our Barred Rock chickens with their striped feathers .. which is where the "barred" comes from.  Barred = striped.

Buff Orpington

The Buff Orpington is called the Raptor.  Why?  Well, when she was a chickie, she'd look at you EXACTLY like the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park.  It was scarey. :-)  

The black Astrolorp is an Australian breed that comes from the Orpington stock .. and sure enough, our black Astrolorp looks just like the Raptor, except it's black.

Astrolorp

We have 2 other black chickens .. the Black Jersey Giants.  Interestingly, they are called Black, not because of their color, but because they were developed by the Black Brothers, who lived in New Jersery.  They were looking to develop a larger breed. 

How do I tell the Orpington/Astrolorps from the Black Jersey Giants?  Well, the Orpington/Astrolorps have *very* *fluffy* butts.  :-)

Americauna

other Americauna

The Americaunas .. which could be true Americaunas .. or they could be just mutt "Easter eggers" .. I don't know.  The store sold them as Americaunas.  Frankly, I don't much care.  We have 2 of them, each differently colored from the other.  What matters is that they both lay green shelled eggs.  :-)

our broody Marans

And then there's the Marans.  She looks VERY much like a Barred Rock, but upon close inspection, her feathers look somewhat more "blurred".  Currently, she's being a broody hen.  She thinks she'd like to be maternal and will sit on anyone's eggs.  We gather the eggs everyday and don't let her sit on them to hatch.  But that doesn't bother her .. she just sits anyway.  She becomes very disgruntled with me when I fuss around under her feathers to get the eggs. :-)

Our chickens have a nice chicken coop, with 6 roosting bars and a nesting box that will comfortably hold 6 hens PLUS 4 buckets (sitting on their sides) below the nest boxes to provide space for 4 more hens to lay eggs.  Turns out that the hens don't care to have individual nesting places .. they prefer to 'hot bunk' a spot.  Somehow they all decide that a particular spot is THE SPOT OF ALL SPOTS to lay eggs and EVERYONE wants to lay eggs there.  That's why the Marans hen is able to sit on 6 eggs at a time!

Barnvelder (I think)

They have a large chicken yard that is fenced in.  They are able to come and go in and out of the chicken coop as they wish.  Around 1-1/2 hours before sundown, we open up the gate tot he chicken yard to let them out onto the lawn and undeveloped areas.  This lets them be a free range chicken for a while.  :-)

I'd like to think we have very contented chickens.  Who are also very stupid.  :-)  :-)

Current Forever Project: Dress Me Up, dress 12

oh hooray, hooray!  The last of the hand-embroidered dress blocks is finally finished! 

This is dress #12 and although I don't *think* the 12 blocks were supposed to be a Dress of the Month sort of thing, this dress is definitely Christmasy.

There's no fancy stitching to give you a close-up of  ... just the stitches that I've used all along .. a whipped backstitch, embellished here with French knots.

Now that all the hand-embroidery is done, I am now thinking about what kind of setting to put them in. 

The pattern calls for a 3 x 4 grid with narrow sashing.  A perfectly fine layout, to be sure, but I'm not overly enthusiastic about it.

Garden Lattice sashing

If it's going to be a grid, I'd like to put a different twist on it.  I've always like the Garden Lattice sashing (and have used it before)

But ... I've *used* this sashing before and perhaps I'd like something similar but still different??

"Spanish Tiles" by Deborah Peterson

In my wanderings around the internet, I came across a new book, "Living Large 2" by Deborah Peterson.  One of the quilts in this book is titled "Spanish Tiles" and looks like a Garden Lattice variation.  I really like it!

Or maybe an Attic Window format might look nice.   I haven't done an Attic Window in a while.

BUT .. since I used an overly large piece of fabric to embroider on, I have quite a bit of background to play with.  Another possibility is to put the dresses in an oval shape, rather than a rectangle. 

Hmmm ... maybe I could find an ornate machine embroidery and put some fancy machine embroidery at the tops & bottoms of the ovals .. kind of like a Victorian picture frame.

There are lots of different possibilities open at this point and I'll need to ponder on the problem for a while.  I'll put it on the back burner and let my subconscious work at it.

In the meantime, I need to find a new Forever Project!    They sure don't make Forever Projects last as long as they used to!  :-)

Oz jelly roll quilt, part 1+

Note: if you've read this entry before, please be aware that I've added an addendum as of November 2011. (section is below; just scroll down)

I've mentioned the Oz Jelly Roll quilt in passing in other posts, but it really deserves its own set of entries.  It all started when Dear Daughter #2 was in Perth, Australia for a semester at Edith Cowan University.   I had mentioned to her that should she buy some fabric in Australia, I would make her "something" from it.  She bought this jelly roll, produced by Fabric Editions from their "Fabric Palettes" line.

After looking through a LOT of patterns and ideas, she finalized her decision on "Zen and the Jelly Roll", designed by Laura Paulu from the book, "Jelly Roll Inspirations".

The pattern calls for 1 Jelly Roll.  We have one Jelly Roll.

The Jelly Roll in the pattern should have 40 strips.  Our Jelly Roll has 20 strips.  oops.  It's not like we can dash out to the store and buy some more.

Design decision: our quilt will simply be half has large.  :-)   The original design has 20 blocks in a  4x5 block layout with borders, which results in a decently sized quilt at 66" x 78".  Since I have half as many strips, I could only get 10 blocks ... and there is exactly one reasonable arrangement for that ... 2x5 blocks ... which results in a very long, narrow, skinny strip.

Not to worry, VERY WIDE side borders will fix it.  :-)  Several arrangements of side borders were presented to DD#2 and with her decision, this is where I am right now.

This quilt will finish around 44" x 60".

 DD#2 likes vines, so in each side border, there will be an appliqued vine with flowers (flowers not shown at this point).

There are many techniques to making and appliquing narrow bias strips for vines.  This is the method I am using for this quilt:

1. cut bias 1" wide
2. fold in half, wrong sides together and seam at 1/4" from the raw edge. (Yes, *wrong* sides together).
3. trim seam allowance in half
4. place raw edge of bias against the placement line, previously drawn on the base fabric
5. stitch over seamline stitching to attach bias to base fabric
6. pull the folded edge of bias over the seamline and cover the raw edge. Hand stitch in place. Alternatively, you could machine stitch the folded edge with top-stitching or blind hem stitch.  In this case, I am preferring to hand-stitch.


 November 2011 edit:

oh my!  I received a lovely comment from Laura Paulu herself  (designer of this pattern)!   Sadly, Laura is 'anonymous' so I couldn't contact her directly.  I hope she comes back to read this addendum.

When I reviewed this post, I was appalled to see that I hadn't posted the completed top with all of the applique!  No, it's still not quilted (along with a boatload of other tops) but it's on the List!  :-)  So, without further ado, here's the finished top!

The first appliqued flower was the traditional sort ... constructed of individual, small pieces and hand stitched in place.  I realized this was going to take me beyond forever to finish.







 

Then I remembered a long-ago technique called "Broderie Perse", which essentially is fussy cutting a pre-printed image and appliqueing it onto a different base fabric.

I combed my stash for appropriate floral fabric and came up with a number of candidates.  These flowers were cut out and hand stitched onto the wide borders.  It didn't turn out half badly. :-)

As I was creating the wide border strips, it occurred to me that it would be a Very Cool design feature of the cut off points of the blocks on the edge would actually emerge into the border itself.  I carefully and PAINFULLY pieced each little triangle into the gray border.  What an utter nightmare.

When it came to the print borders, it occurred to me .. what an idiot I was! ... I could have had the same effect but easier construction if the triangles were *Prairie Points*!  Well, I wasn't about to undo then re-do the pieced triangles already in place, but I did make Prairie Points to extend into the print border *and* along the outer edge of the quilt.  I'm going to need to be careful when I quilt this part of the quilt!

During the construction of the top, I collected some perfectly nice but small triangle units.  Not being a person to waste a lovely pieced segment, I made a box throw pillow to coordinate with the quilt (whenever it gets quilted, that is!).

Here's the front of the throw pillow.

and the back.

As is usual with my throw pillows, this one also has a concealed zipper in the bottom boxing strip so the cover can be removed for laundering.

And I'm especially pleased with the way the corners of the pillow turned out ... they are SQUARE.  It really annoys me when I see throw pillows with dogears for the corners.  It's such an easy adjustment to the corner of the pattern to make sure that the finished pillow has square corners.

I'm *pretty* sure that I've already given the throw pillow to Dear Daughter #2 .. the Lover of All Things Purple.  At least, I hope I did.  Because if I didn't, I'm not sure where the pillow is!

Jane Austen quilt, part 7 - and the beat goes on ...

Or .. now we get down to the real nitty-gritty.  It's simply diamond after diamond ... sashing segment, diamond, lather, rinse, repeat.  Ad infinitum.

I was originally thinking that this was going to be a Great Ordeal, some arduous task, mind-numbingly boring.  It turns out that I am only partially correct. :-)

It *is* repetitious.  But as with all things that are this way, I get into a sort of Zen state of mind.  I have a procedure .. a method .. a technique .. that breaks everything down into steps .. rather like painting the Golden Gate Bridge (to use a local comparison!).  Looking at the task as a whole, it is daunting.  But, broken down into its piece parts, it's quite manageable.

Even so, I find my mind wandering onto other projects that I could be working on or ones that I am thinking about working on.  I find myself playing hooky on the Jane Austen quilt to work on other projects.  :-) 

Like the Oz Jelly Roll quilt.  Dear Daughter #2 (the same one for whom the Jane Austen quilt is made) spent a semester in Perth, Australia at Edith Cowen University.  She purchased a Jelly Roll whilst there and upon her return home and after looking at many Jelly Roll friendly designs, decided on one.    I've been working on that design, off and on. 

Currently, it's long and skinny.  There is a pieced border on the top & left sides.  I'm working on the other two sides, as you can see by the gray strip of fabric in the top right corner.  There will eventually be more borders on the sides only.  The length is good; we just need more width.

You can see that the Oz Jelly Roll contains purple.  The Jane Austen quilt is purple.  I hope you are sensing a trend.  :-)

Jane Austen quilt, part 6 - third time's a charm

Happily, *this* sashing fabric choice made the cut (uh .. oh, a pun!).  The ribbon stripes have been removed, pressed and put away for some other project, yet to be determined.

The *REAL* sashing is now being sewn to all those hundreds and thousands and inkle-dillion diamonds.  (Not really, but it sure feels like a gazillion.)  The setting triangles for each diagonal row are cut out (since I hadn't done them previously), I stack all the diamonds for the row on top of each other then chain stitch them to a sashing strip.  They look rather like a banner.  :-)  The seam allowance is pressed towards the sashing strip and they are then cut apart and re-stacked on each other.

Then the diamonds (which now have a sashing segment sewn to them) are sewn together to form the diagonal row.

The diagonal row is sewn to the previous sashing strip. I'm trying to be very careful to align the seams of the sashing segments to the sashing segments of the previous row.  I'm doing pretty well on that score (see the red dashed line).  They aren't all 100% perfect; there are some alignments that could be better.  But from the back of a galloping horse at a distance of 5 miles while there is a 10 mph breeze, it looks doggone good.  :-)

The seam allowance is pressed towards the sashing.

A new, long sashing strip is cut and sewn to the newly sewn diagonal row.  I have reached the point where a single WOF cut from the sashing fabric isn't sufficiently long enough for the diagonal row.  I need to piece the sashing.  The seamline should (ideally) align with  the sashing segment seamlines for visual continuity.  My first attempt (the green dashed line) was almost good enough.  I think next time I'll try Sharon Schamber's glue basting tip.

Continue onwards, ad infinitum.  This sashing fabric looks very much like the original sashing fabric (of which I didn't have enough), so DD#2 is pleased.  I'm pleased that she is pleased.  We are both pleased with each other.  Isn't that nice?  :-)

deferring Jane Austen

When last we were working the Jane Austen quilt, I had discovered that (according to my calculations), I was actually going to run out of the chose sashing fabric before I reached the end of the center section.

A trip to my local quilt store lead me to two delightful choices ... but Dear Daughter #2 wasn't with me, so with the shop's permission, I took pictures of them, emailed them to her from my cell phone, called her to let her know she had incoming .... and waited.  And waited.  And waited.  Dear Daughter said she never received the pictures.  So, I emailed the same pictures to myself and discovered the same thing.  The internet pipes must have been clogged that day, as the emails never came through.

Once home, I implemented Plan B and manually transferred the pictures from my cell phone to my computer and emailed the pictures to Dear Daughter from my computer.  And awaited her decision.

At home, waiting, I was twiddling my thumbs.  I really, really, really can't stand being idle in the sewing room.  All the leftover diamonds from Jane Austen were staring at me and I decided to fill the time until Dear Daughter said either yay or nay to the sashing selection by "doing something" with some of those diamonds.

Looking at Fig Tree & Company's pattern "Jelly Parfait", I realized that I could use (some) of the diamonds in this layout.  *Perfect*!  I even had some fabric already in my stash that I could use for the setting triangles!

On a Monday, I began to sew the diamonds together to form the triangles for Jelly Parfait.  Four large triangles per row, 6 rows = 4 large triangles.  Each triangle needed 15 diamonds plus 6 setting triangles.  I managed to complete several large triangles by the time Dear Daughter decided that she liked the replacement sashing fabric.   Back to the quilt store to the store to buy it, as they had put it on hold for me.

However, even when I brought the replacement Jane Austen sashing fabric home, I knew .. I *knew* ... that the in-progress Jelly Parfait was going to nag me.  The Jane Austen quilt is going to take a substantial amount of time and I just didn't want to put Jelly Parfait on hiatus for the duration ... because I was concerned (knowing me) that I wouldn't get back to it for a while.

Sooooo ... work continued on Jelly Parfait during the that week until it was done.   By the following Sunday (that is to say, 7 days later), the top was done.  Man, I was happy about that!  It was getting awfully B-O-R-I-N-G sewing those diamonds into a large triangle.  [Which ought to say something about the sashing process for Jane Austen.  I may lose what is left of my mind.]

There are some differences in my rendition of Jelly Parfait from the pattern ... firstly, I used the diamonds I already had.  They are *weird* diamonds, somewhere between 45° and 60° diamonds, so the dimensions of my Jelly Parfait are NOT the same as the pattern. 

I used a linear ribbon stripe for the sashing between rows.  I had saved this absolutely, terminally cute gingham "embroidered" ribbon print fabric for "something" and the sashing between the Jelly Parfait rows was exactly the right circumstance!

I also changed up the border treatment.   I determined that with the addition of a 5" wide border, I could have a queen size quilt.  I wanted to use up as much of the gingham ribbon stripe as I could, so I decided to use it as part of the border.  Alone, it wouldn't have been wide enough.  Fortunately, I had *another* purple ribbon stripe in my stash that I had been saving.  However, the combination of the gingham stripe and the purple ribbon stripe *still* wouldn't be 5".  (In the picture above, the green lines are where I cut the ribbon stripes apart.  The red stripes in the dark purple ribbon stripe doesn't show up in the quilt, since I have incorporated it into the seam allowance ... there was no red any place in the quilt and I thought that having that red show up in the border would look at bit odd.)

Again, fortunately, one of my quilting buddies had traded me some purple Jinny Beyer yardage and it was a perfect companion for the two ribbon stripes!  I put the Jinny Beyer fabric between the two stripes to create the 5" wide border I wanted.  I really like using stripes, either printed or manufactured, for borders since I can then miter the corners.  Striped mitered corners look soooooo nice!  :-)

Now that the top is complete and I finally *looked* at it, I can see that I used a very dark fabric for one of the setting triangles in the pieced triangles.  Hmmm.  Kinda looks out of place with all the others.  Hmmmm.  Too bad .. it's gonna stay.  I don't feel like ripping out the sashing, the 6 setting triangles, re-cutting new ones and putting the replacements back into the quilt.  Tough luck.  (On the other hand ... the one without the warts .. maybe when I pull this top out when it comes time to quilt it, I'll be sufficiently annoyed by those dark little triangles that I'll reconsider replacing them.  Maybe.)


On the other, other hand, this top turned out rather nicely.  It joins the others in the Pile of Tops to be Quilted (someday). :-)

And NOW!!! that all my procrastination activities have been completed, I can return to the real Jane Austen quilt ... remove the small amount of original sashing fabric that has been sewn in the quilt and replace it with the new sashing fabric.  Sash on, sister, sash on!  :-)

messing with Jane Austen

Sometimes I swear I have the attention span of a flea.  *Usually* I can be very focused and successfully concentration on a project until its completion.  This is advantageous when you are working on a project that is going to take a long time ... like the Jane Austen quilt.

But, as I work on a project, there are times when my mind wanders to other things that could be done with the very pieces I am currently working with.  aaiiiieee!  That way lies madness!  I start thinking about other projects to do and other layouts and then, before you know it, I find myself absolutely, positively NEEDING to do "that thing" just to get it out of my mind!

Take for instance ... the Jane Austen diamond.  Looks pretty good, huh?  When pieced with it's sashing and combined with all the other Jane Austen diamonds, it's going to look doggone fantastic.  I had cut a *boatload* of diamonds in preparation for the Jane Austen quilt ... not knowing precisely how many I'd eventually need.  As it turned out, I cut quite a bit more than I need.  :-)

So, what do do with the leftover diamonds?  Well, a star immediately comes to mind!  A most excellent idea!  I like making stars .. they look so good.  And if I do say so myself, the centers of my stars are absolutely, positively flat-flat-flat.  No volcanos or D-cup mountains for my stars!

I dry-fitted my Jane Austen diamonds together and immediately realized .. Houston, we have a problem.  See, the Jane Austen diamonds aren't a 45° or even a 60° diamond.  They are some weird angle.  And they just DO. NOT. FIT. TOGETHER. in a star.







Fortunately, I happen to have a 60° template that was given to me by a quilting buddy.  I re-cut the Jane Austen diamonds using the template and proceeded to make some stars.

Don't they look purdy?  :-)

I have no idea what I'm going to do with them.  But, at least for now, that particular bug about 'doing something else' with the left over Jane Austen diamonds has been dealt with.

And yes .. the center of my stars are flat-flat-flat.  :-)

Jane Austen quilt, part 5 - oops.

Happily, I've pinned all 464 diamonds to my design wall around the place-holding center medallion.

I've begun sewing the sashing fabric to the diamonds, starting in the top right corner. 

Looks pretty spiffy so far, huh?  I kinda like it. :-)



And then, I got to thinking.  This center section is big.  Big enough to cover the top of a queen sized mattress ... roughly 60"x80". 

The sashing is narrow; it'll finish at 7/8" wide. 

I have about 2-1/2 yards of sashing fabric.  Surely, that is enough to cut all the sashing I need?

But wait!  It would be simply HORRIBLE if I got 75% of the way through the top only to run out of sashing fabric! Truly, a fate worse than death!  Since I have NO idea when or where I got this fabric, it's not like I can run right out and buy additional amounts.

I figured it would behoove me to actually calculate how much sashing fabric I had, in terms of linear inches versus how much I really needed.  So, with my trusty tape measure in hand, I began to measure how long the various sashing pieces were.  Luckily, the length of the short strips between the diamonds was a constant amount and the length of the long diagonal pieces increased by a constant amount. 

If my figures were correct, I was going to run out of sashing fabric before the top was done.  Holy moley .. it's a good thing I was cautious ... or suspicious.

Sadly, this does mean that I will need to rip out the small corner that has been done .... but much better only that than nearly an entire top!  I'll go out shopping tomorrow, cross my fingers and see if I can find a suitable substitute. 

Jane Austen quilt, part 4 - diamond placement begins

Painstakingly, all 494 464 (I miscounted!) diamonds required for the center section of the quilt have been cut out.  These are the light and medium values of purple.  Jane Austen (apparently) simply random scattered her pieces.  Admirable and it turned out well.

Except that *I* don't do random well.  I like plans.  Even guidelines.  But pure random?  iiiieeeee!!  I've done the "pull the next piece out of a brown bag and use it" approach.  I *STILL* micro-manage it!

However, pandemonium may have been averted. Dear Daughter #2 (the purple loving daughter) has decided that she'd like a kinda/sorta/maybe/almost colorwash effect .... starting with the lighter shades next to the center medallion and shading out to the darker values. Hmmmm ... I think, maybe,  I could do this.

So tonight, I spent a good amount of time grading the color values of all the light shades.  Well, I graded them as well as I was able to .. heh .. I even remembered to pull out my Ruby Beholder to even out the color playing field!

This layout is (obviously) an on-point layout.  Furthermore, the very center .. the part that looks white ... is going to be a big embroidered medallion on a single piece of fabric.  The diagonal rows surround this center medallion.

For this reason, I think it would be just about impossible .. for me ... to simply start at a corner and build from there.   After all, I have absolutely NO idea just which shades of the light & medium values are going to be exactly where.  I have a *general* idea, but no specifics.

Therefore, I decided to build it on my design wall as it would look in real life.  This means that I need a placeholder for the center medallion, since despite my calculations, I don't want to chance cutting the center medallion fabric the wrong size.  Knowing me, it would be 1/2" too small all the way around. :-)

So, I made a paper placeholder, measured on my design wall (a queen sized sheet) where the center medallion "should" be and began pinning the diamonds to the sheet according to my color plan, as shown above.

And here we are, so far.

Not too exciting.  The bright green start at the top is where the top/center of the quilt "should" be.  I measured down from that spot to the mid-point of the center section (I hope) and began the placement of the light diamonds.

According to the color guide, I have 3 rows of lights then 6 rows of mediums before it starts with the lights again.

The real thing may or may not look vaguely like the graphic ... mainly because it's easy to color a row of shapes the same color ... using the actual fabrics is a different story!

The final result may not be so controlled and concentric.  It may have a tendency to become muddled ... simply because of the fabrics I have to use.

I was, however, gratified to see that in the first row around the center medallion, the number of diamonds that I place around it *does* match the number of diamonds in the graphic!  woo hoo!!  I'll sure take those small victories!  :-)

The placement of diamonds continues onward.

Jane Austen quilt, part 3 - cutting the diamonds

I am now able to return to the pieced project that will be consuming my time for the next unforeseeable future ... the purple Jane Austen quilt.

Because I was Utterly Stupid, I used a homemade diamond template to cut a LOT of purple diamonds to be used in the Jane Austen quilt.  I didn't realize at the time that my homemade template (this was the one I used for the Diamond Pillows) was NOWHERE near the size it should have been.  In fact, it is doggone tiny compared to what it should be.  Which means that I am going to need a GINORMOUS amount of purples.

I am sooooo lucky to have some wonderful quilting buddies over on About.com's Quilting forum. In response to my plea to swap [something] for purples, they came through in spades.  Well ... not spades precisely, but with 13-5/8 inches of purples!

At this stage in the project, I am busily engaged in cutting diamonds.  Lots of diamonds.  Tons of diamonds.  Probably more than that because the finished quilt needs to cover the top of a queen sized bed plus 23" of drop on 3 sides.

Good thing I have lots of TV shows queued up to watch. :-)