Showing posts with label Collector quilt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Collector quilt. Show all posts

Friday, September 11, 2015

Collector Flimsy

Here's the first Friday flimsy from the sewing I did over the summer. Collector is finally sewn together!


At 77" x 59", it barely fits on my "design wall" (two Ikea wardrobes and a flannel sheet). I laid it out horizontally rather than vertically because it is most likely to be used as a throw on the sofa. I am glad that I didn't make it 77" square like I originally planned! It is plenty big now.

Except the backgrounds and setting triangles, all the fabrics are different.


My mom noticed that the kitties are eyeing the fish!

The layout took me a full day, it was quite a puzzle. The original design by Cosabeth Parriaud in Quiltmania had alternating stars and squares in the white blocks. When I reduced the size I had more squares than stars, so I decided to scatter the stars along the diagonal in a hopefully loose and creative way. Plus, I wanted it to be lighter in the middle, and I had to balance out the really strong prints like those three large circles. Then, when I started taking photos, I noticed that the blue prints really pop, so I had to balance them too. But, I got there in the end, and I was glad to get them numbered and down off the wall! The good thing about a design wall that has to come down at the end of the day, is that it forces you to make decisions. No dithering!


I took my time sewing it together so that everything stayed in order. Probably 75% of the points on the stars are a little cut off, but after all this, I am perfectly fine with that! I think the problem was with the way I trimmed the flying geese units, so I'll remember that for the next one. It's not very noticeable anyway:


When I pulled this project out again last spring, and I saw how much black it had, I thought to myself, "Ugh, I am so over black!" My Sedona Star colourway also had a lot of black, and they were designed at around the same time. I felt like my taste had evolved since then.

But, now that it is all together, I can see that the original concept paid off. I wanted it to sparkle, and it really does. That's from all the high contrast prints, on top of the high contrast design. So, will Sedona Star 2.0 still be black? Yes it will. And sparkly too. :)


Otherwise, it's just fun to remember where and why I bought all the fabrics in the quilt. Many of the darks, like the strawberries, were bought for this quilt, because my stash was low on them. But these tiny red hearts...


...were actually bought for Sweet Hearts, a long, long time ago. The sunflower prints are even older:


Remember Kaffe Fassett's first quilting book, before he started designing quilt fabric? I was very inspired by that red diamond quilt with the sunflower fabric, and bought mine around then. I owe a lot of my inspiration to Fassett, first as a knitter and now as a quilter. And of course, there's a heck of a lot of Kaffe fabrics in this quilt too.

So that's done and dusted. The back is pieced and ready to go, and now it's waiting for its turn to be quilted. It feels good to get one of these old projects done, and it is nice when the theory works out too!

Wednesday, June 10, 2015

WIP Wednesday


Isn't this Jolly Jungle fabric cute? I just adore it. I remember that the local quilt store where I bought it sold out very quickly, so I know it was popular.

I know I have been MIA for the past two weeks. I had volunteered to take over WIP Wednesday at The Needle and Thread Network, but then that weekend our basement flooded, again, So that resulted in a quick change of priorities, and I had to bow out. We've had two more floods since then, so I think that was a good decision! We have a big job now to get it all fixed. But, I am happy to report that my stash is still ok, thanks to the plastic bins I use for storage!

I've had very little time to sew, but today I finished assembling all the rows on my Collector quilt, and I joined the last three to make the bottom corner:


What a relief to get back to some sewing!

My original plan was to make the setting triangles out of solid black. But, when I went to my stash the solids were way at the bottom, and this new colourway of Kaffe's Millefiore, "dark," was sitting on top, so I used that instead. I think it is better. Weather permitting, a couple more days of sewing should get it to the flimsy stage.

I'm also still plugging away at the hand stitching on Down in the Garden (DitG). I took a photo last week after I finished all the flowers on the "blue" birdhouse:


To me, the flowers look like butterflies! The vines are nearly finished now, so hopefully this one will be done soon too.

My resolution to stick with one hand and one machine project at a time is still working. I'm very keen to finish them so I can start something else! So that's motivating. And, I think the balance is also working well, with one "quick" project and one slow. After Collector, I have one more quick UFO to finish up, or maybe two, and then I may start something new!

Monday, May 25, 2015

Last 9 Stars


The fun thing about a charm quilt like this is admiring all the fabrics. I absolutely love this green fabric! I may use this colour scheme in a future quilt. I have no idea where I got it, which is rare. It must have been from a show, maybe back in California.

Most of the Kaffe Fassett fabrics are from Glorious Color. They provide very good service, and I love that they have all the fabrics in all the colours.


I'm pretty sure these are both discontinued now, but sometimes they re-release them in new colours. If anyone from Westminster is reading, I'd love to see the Star Flowers come back! And the Lichen, that looked amazing in quilts too.

Anyway, here are the last nine stars:


Next stop, flimsy!

Saturday, May 23, 2015

In the Groove


This was on the radio the other day, and I've played it quite a few times since then!


I was pretty rock'n'roll when I was younger, but these days I mostly listen to dance music. I like the happy upbeat mood of dance music, and I think I'm too old for all that rock'n'roll angst.

I am really enjoying my new "one at a time" approach to my projects. It's so much easier, and a lot more relaxed. Less angst. As I mentioned in my last post, I've pared it down to one hand sewing and one machine sewing project. My machine sewing project is an old one, Collector, started back near the beginning of this blog in 2012.

In January I was re-evaluating all my UFOs, and I decided to make this one smaller than originally planned. Just nine more star blocks would be enough to finish it up. Here they are!


This one is my favourite. Remember this old Kaffe Star Flowers design?


What an edgy mix of colours!

These went together pretty easily, and I already had so many other good fabrics pulled, so I've decided that I have room for 9 more:


Then that really will be it. The original plan was for 9 x 9 of the light blocks, which would have been about 76" square. I realized that would be an awkward size, too small for a bed and too big for a lap quilt. The new size, with the extra 9 stars, will be 9 x 7, about 76" x 59".

The alternating dark squares are also all cut now and ready to go:


It's going to be fun to see how it all looks together!

Saturday, June 29, 2013

High or Low?

When I started to collect fabrics for this quilt, I had something of a "let's see what happens" attitude. My goal with the quilt is for it to "sparkle," and my theory was that a lot of contrast in the quilt would do that.

So, is this block high contrast, or low contrast?


I think the star almost disappears, but there's still plenty of contrast in the fabrics themselves. Same with this one:


Cute, eh? High contrast or low, they're sure fun! 5 down, 20 to go.

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Three Stars for Collector

After my whining about ironing and cutting in the heat yesterday, I remembered that I have a couple of projects that are already cut. Here are the first three Sawtooth Stars for my Collector Quilt:






I am always telling myself that I hate fussy-cutting, but I realized yesterday that can't be true, because I keep doing it!

There are a lot of scant seams in these blocks, because I didn't cut the backgrounds in the wisest way. I will have to trim out some of the dark colours in the seam allowances where they show through. Live and learn!

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Appreciating Simplicity






Today I have been revisiting my Collector quilt project, and appreciating how such simple blocks can still be so beautiful. This quilt is all about the fabrics, of course. The first four are all Kaffe.

I have been using translucent vellum to foundation paper piece these blocks, which makes centering all the motifs a breeze! Normally I hate fussy cutting, but this way it's fun.

I'm not sure why this quilt has been languishing so long, but I think it is just "out of sight, out of mind." Anyway, now the last 10 square-in-a-square blocks are done, and it's on to the sawtooth stars.

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Even More Collector Blocks

The other day I had reached the saturation point on Sedona Star, but I was still in the mood to sew, so I put together a few more square in a square Collector Blocks.  Do they ever seem easy now!


The ones on the top and bottom right are Kaffe Fassett's Lichen design.  I love this design, and I am very unhappy that it has been discontinued!  I particularly like the way the grey/brown one at the top plays well with the spotted background fabric.

I may make up the last 10 of these later today, but first I want to make at least half of another Month 4 ring.  Lots to do!

Saturday, March 3, 2012

A Few More Collector Blocks

Sedona Star was on my calendar today for the third time, but my dad had already claimed the dining room table this morning, so I still haven't been able to cut the fabric.  No worries though, I had a very satisfying day putting together some more of my square-in-a-square Collector blocks:


They are not all going to be green, it just so happened that I hit the green part of the pile today.  The upper middle fabric, with the zebra, is possibly my favourite fabric in the whole quilt.  It is from the Jolly Jungle collection that came out a couple of years ago.  The whole collection was unbelievably cute, but I managed to only buy a few.  It sold like hotcakes at the local store where I bought it.

This is turning into a really fun quilt.  And I LOVE paper piecing!  I am so keen to get started on Sedona Star.  The dining room table is clear now, so I may still cut the fabrics tonight.  Have a great weekend everyone!

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

New Quilt Project - Collector

Here's a project that's been waiting in the wings for a while.  I finally got going on it yesterday, mainly because I wanted to do some paper piecing practice before I start Sedona Star.  The Sedona Star fabric has arrived, and been washed, so I should have something to show really, really soon now!  LOL.

But in the mean time, here is the beginning of the quilt I've been calling "Collector."  It is going to be a charm quilt, with only the background fabric repeated throughout the quilt.  The pattern was designed by Cosabeth Parriaud and included in Quiltmania's Winter 2008 Special Edition, which is published in French.  I was immediately taken by the graphic punch of the quilt:

Stars and Squares
I spent a long time figuring out what gives this quilt it's sparkle.  I'm discovering that any time I think about a quilt for too long, I have to make it!  The sparkle, I decided, is due to the high contrast darks and lights, both between the blocks and within the fabrics themselves.  That's what I'm hoping to duplicate!

I started with the "square in a square" blocks:


This was my first time ever doing paper piecing.  These have not yet been ironed or trimmed.  Thanks to all the great instruction available on the internet these days, it went pretty smoothly.  Alex Anderson's show about paper piecing on The Quilt Show was particularly helpful.  She suggested that beginners start with vellum paper, which is translucent.  That is what I used, and it is excellent stuff!  With the translucent paper you can see the fabric underneath, which allowed me to "compose" the squares to their best advantage.

In the photo above, the fabrics in the bottom left and right hand corners, as well as at the very top, are cotton Japanese kimono fabrics that I bought at Japan Center in San Francisco over ten years ago.  It is great to finally use them!  The two centre ones with the chickens are from the Folk Heart collection by Connecting Threads.  I love that collection.  Kaffe Fassett fans will have already recognized the green fabric on the right as his Millefiore design.  The pale blue butterfly fabric is at least 15 years old.  You can see why I am calling this quilt "Collector!"  While I was working on these blocks it occured to me that making quilts is really just an excuse to play with fabric.  I think the fabrics are the main event for me!
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...