Snow Day!!

If you visiting from the GROW YOUR BLOG hop, thanks for stopping by for a read!! 

As I headed into my studio early Sunday afternoon, the snow was falling and the neighborhood came alive with the neighbor boys playing in the snow while the men fired up their snowblowers and carried on shouting conversations across the street to one another.

The beginning of February finds me  closing in on a finished quilt top that has been in progress for perhaps 8 years?  I grabbed hold of the 2015 UFO Challenge over at http://www.allpeoplequilt.com/how-to-quilt/finishing/2015-ufo-challenge and my double/queen size version of my pattern, Marie's Scraps was the number drawn for January. 

 I wrote the pattern in the mid-1990's, revising it in 2005.  The inspiration was the quilts of Marie Cermak.  I never met Marie, but after she passed her family donated a pile of her quilts to a local hospice resale shop and one of my students brought them to my attention.  At once, I loved the spontaneity of her quilts!

Forgive the picture quality -- 20 year old pics!   The one above is symmetrical in layout but I guess it was too short and so she added that jumble of squares to make it work!

 

 I've created a story about Marie that I hope is close to the truth.  She was a prolific quilt maker (I recall the family donated 37 quilts to the shop) during an era, the late 40's through the early 70's, when piecing wasn't very popular, cotton fabric was becoming more difficult to find, and in an area of the country (suburban Cleveland) where quilters were likely far and few between.  Her style was practical and improvisational.  She used everything she could find and all her quilts were very similar -- vertical bands of simple patchwork blocks.  If she used templates to cut her pieces, they must have been cardboard which wore down as the size of the pieces was quite variable even though they were meant to go together.

My first sample of the quilt was made as a display sample for King's Road Imports of California in 1993.  And here it is.  Actually, I made two -- and happily I was able to keep one of them!

There are two aspects of this pattern that have contributed to its' success -- first, it's a great scrap quilt and second, it's a terrific skill builder.  There are lots of pieces to cut and to stitch and the simple repetition of those processes builds skills automatically.

 

The pattern is written to use with triangle paper or with Marti Michell's basic templates (Set A, or Set B, or Set Q -- depending on the size of the quilt) and the three different sizes are achieved by changing the size of the pieces, so the crib/lap robe size has the same number of pieces as the double/queen. 

 

I pieced this crib/lap robe size with a completely different fabric palette with a more controlled assortment of cheerful prints and white with black prints.

 

And so we come to the current version.  It is the scrappiest of the three.  It started life as lots of cutting and stitching demos during quilt shows and workshops.  That meant it came and went, came and went, came and went.  But a couple years ago, I stumbled across a border print which brought everything together and inspired the colors for the vertical sashing strips.

 Marie was pretty casual about joining the patchwork bands together.  I have spent too many years building my piecing skills to be quite so carefree so as I build the bands, I compare the length of them to one another and make slight adjustments as needed so they are all the same length.  It seems no matter how accurate my piecing is, the variety of fabrics and cross grain vs. lengthwise grain makes this necessary.

I use one band to check all the others (remember how garbled up the whispered message gets in the child's game "telephone"?) for more consistent results.  The pieced band on the right in the first picture today was my "guide" band.   You can see that I'm off a bit in the photo below!!  Taking a slighter deeper seam ever so often will adjust the band of flying geese at the top of this photo so it will match the "guide" band.

Once I've added the vertical sashing strips to each band, I use a ruler to mark the edge of the sashing to help me align the bands and sashing as I join them together.  You can see two of them along the upper edge of the periwinkle sashing strip to the left and to the right.  I use a ruler lined up with the seams (along the center of the picture) to do this marking.

Opps!!  I must have forgotten to compare it to the guide band before adding the vertical sashing strip but now that it's on, I'm reluctant to undo it.  So this band will be trimmed off at the end -- a little tribute to Marie who made everything fit together by trimming!

I'm ready to add the final borders this afternoon and make the backing!  This quilt top is going out to be quilted after which I plan to gift it to a local organization to be auctioned at their annual fundraiser this summer. 

 

Now I can go see which number is up for the month of February over at All People Quilt's challenge.

During the month of February, I'm also participating in the 4x7 Challenge over at http://www.berrybarndesigns.com/ -- I have 3 workshop projects in progress and working 30 minutes everyday is a good goal for me because I know once I sit down at my stitching, I always stay longer.  I don't expect to finish any of them since they will be "step" samples, but they all need to be farther along than they are at this moment!!

Enjoy your stitching today!!
Mary Huey
www.maryhueyquilts.com

 

 

 



Adapting Patterns -- Part III and Bonnie's Mystery Reveal

What a nice surprise on New Year's Day morning to find that Bonnie Hunter had revealed the blocks and the layout for the Celtic Solstice Mystery!!  I've been stitching the blocks together a few each day since and so far there are 15 on the work wall.  What do you think?

 

 

Oops, I can see that I have a couple mistakes to fix -- all the orange squares are suppose to be going the same way -- well, the blocks aren't set together yet, so I'm okay.   Since I intend to donate this quilt, I'm undecided whether to make a twin (5 by 7 blocks) or two crib (3 by 5 blocks) size tops. 

 

I'm not sure how I looked at the layout for Bonnie's Birthday Girl block and reversed the direction of the green chevron units . . . . la, la,la . . . . but I love the large light star  that is created by alternating it with 54-40 or Fight blocks.  It would make a great setting for any star block based on a 3 by 3 block grid.  All I can think of is Ohio Star without pulling out my block books, but I'm sure there are others. 

 

 



I'm really looking forward to seeing all the color combinations this week as quilters who've been working on Celtic Solstice for the past month "link up" this week!!  And mine will look a bit different because I flipped that one unit.  hmmm!  Better make a note to myself on the instructions I've printed out.  

  

And that brings me to the third part of my series on "adapting patterns".   I often change the size of a quilt by changing the size of the individual blocks rather than changing the number of blocks.  And Bonnie's Celtic Solstice is a perfect candidate. 

 

These blocks finish at 9" and I used Marti Michell's Sets A and C to cut all my pieces.  Those two sets have a variety of basic shapes designed to make 3" finished units which can be combined to create a wide variety of blocks. 

 

 Had I used Sets B and D, I would have the same shapes but the finished size of the units is 4".

 

And if I used Sets T and R, the units would have   

finished at 5".  So each block of the quilt would have been 15" finished.  That size block would bring a king size quilt top together pretty fast!!

 

I first did this 15 years ago with my pattern, Marie's Scraps.  Each size of the quilt uses the same number of pieces, but by using Set A I made a crib/laprobe size quilt.  Set B is used for the twin size and Set Q for double/queen. 

 

 

More recently, A Trip to the Stars, which I designed to introduce my students to Marti's Sashing Star Tool Set follows the same principles of changing the size by working with a different set of templates for each size quilt. 

                                  



 So take a second look at those quilts photos you love -- could it be made larger or smaller simply by changing the scale of the pieces?  If you love small pieces, you can translate those king size blocks into a small scale quilt and vice versa.  Don't let a pattern limit you!

 

Mary Huey

www.maryhueyquilts.com

 

Pressing Basics for Piecing -- Part 3

It's Tuesday again already!

Today I'm going to share my thoughts on pressing blocks and they are simple.

If the block has an odd number of units -- 3 by 3, 5 by 5, etc. -- and you are setting them together edge-to-edge, half the blocks should be pressed exactly the same way and the other half should be pressed exactly opposite.  Then when you lay the blocks out, alternate a block from the first half with a block from the second half.

These are 9-patch and shoo-fly blocks for the double/queen size version of my pattern, Marie's Scraps.

This is my crib/lap size version of Marie's Scraps.

 

If the block has an even number of units -- 2 by 2, 4 by 4, 6 by 6, and so on -- and you are setting them together edge-to-edge (no sashing or alternate blocks), all the blocks should be pressed exactly the same way.   The photo below shows the lower edge of one block (with seams pressed to the right) as it comes up to the upper edge of the adjacent block (with seams pressed to the left). 

These blocks are the 4 by 4 blocks of my pattern, Mississippi Mud.

 

This scrappy red version of Mississippi Mud is brand new -- maybe it should be called Red Velvet Mud?

 

Following these two rules will assure you that as the seams come together along the edges of the block, they will automatically mesh together with no lumps or bumps.  It's a no-brainer once you eliminate helter-skelter pressing!

When setting blocks together with sashing or alternate squares, I prefer to press all of the blocks exactly the same.  While it doesn't have an impact on the setting-together process, I think it has a beneficial impact on the quilting if all the blocks are the same -- I know where to expect the lumps and bumps as I move across the surface of the quilt.

I told you they were simple!

I don't know if there is another "part" to the pressing series -- there might be?  Be sure to check back next week and see.  And watch for a progress report later this week on my 2013 UFQ challenge -- there has been progress!!!

Mary Huey
www.maryhueyquilts.com