Making It Up As I Go Along

The hardest part of blogging lately is actually making the effort to write the post. I usually don't wanna these days! Then, deciding what to touch on, what to highlight and even more importantly, what to leave alone. Ughh. Does anyone even care about quilting these days? Such crazy, crazy days indeed. Oh well. Quilting is what makes me happy, so here goes!

Strippy Triangles

This is the quilt that was started impulsively back at the first of May. Mostly I just wanted to chain piece and not think about design. It's now a completed quilt top, so yeah. Really fast finish for me! I've had the fabric stacked up together and simmering though, for well over a year. That was during a time when I purposefully dove very deep into the red stash tote in response to the Red is a Neutral AHIQ challenge. The first two fabric pulls of red didn't end up quite making the grade {here's the challenge quilt with the fabrics that won out} but I couldn't just dump these straight back in. Oh no. There was just something about them that pulled on my heartstrings.

A completed quilt top!

Maybe it was because there was a small piece of a leftover plaid from my youngest sons baby years {do you know how little fabric is in a long sleeved toddler shirt?}. Regardless, it was the 'go-to' fabric stack when I recently wanted something simple and low-key to immerse myself in.

Loving the soft, mellow look to this one

I am so very satisfied how successfully the lighter areas of the quilt turned out! I consider this quilt a victory because... one of my worst default decisions is usually to pick a whole stack of fabric in a similar color with very little variation in tone or pattern. Something I'm working on changing, little by little! This time, I deliberately stretched and made sure to have better range of colors, albeit in the light to very light spectrum. There are creams, lighter pinks, light grays and in addition, very light blues. If you look closely, you will also see that on the rare occasion, medium-dark pink fabrics from the darker areas were purposefully used in place of a light triangle. But overall? The lighter area definitely reads 'light' {without being choppy}, even though up close there's more going on than perhaps is normal with my efforts.

Definitely got an old fashioned look and vibe!

I kind of love the energy and depth it adds to this sweet looking quilt! Those unexpectedly placed pink triangles really aren't dark enough to fully stop the eye from perusing the quilt. None of that, 'Hey! Those are in the wrong spot!' moments, it just adds an amusing utilitarian touch. I like to think of it as whimsical, unstudied, and kind of old fashioned looking! Basically, I just divvied the cut triangles up into 18 stacks of half light and half dark and started sewing, one light triangle to one dark triangle, one after another. And then once in a great while, threw a darker pink over into the 'light' pile just for the fun of it!

Don't what I'd do without the railing to hang my rows on
and keep them sorted! 

After I got the initial pairs sewn up and ironed, then I started joining those pairs together. Then four with four, until a whole row was able to be sewn together. The most important thing being that there was no repeat of fabric sewn closely together. Otherwise I just grabbed and sewed. Once I got larger sets together then I quickly laid them out of the floor to see if the row looked okay, then sewed it up and moved on to the next row!

The page you see pictured below has been in one of my inspiration binders for close to a decade. Though I didn't closely follow the pattern directions  {my triangles are larger for one}, it's from the 2009 July/Aug. issue of  'Fons and Porter' Love of Quilting magazine. For a rough idea of how to make a similar quilt to mine, cut out approx. 100-5" squares of dark fabrics and 100-5" squares of lighter fabrics. {I think I had to go back and cut just out just a few more when I decided to add extra rows!}. Cut them on the diagonal and then cut on the diagonal again. Sew light triangles to dark triangles in sets {iron with a light touch!}, until you have 16 rows measuring 85" plus. Sew 2 rows measuring approx. 65" for the top and bottom of quilt.

Cut 15 strips @ 2 1/2" x 82" in whatever alternate strip fabric/color you like. The fabric that worked best for me was a woven so I intentionally cut my strips on the lengthwise grain for better stability. Since I had slightly less than 2 1/4" yards available, this meant that I had to cut an extra strip and sew length to length, then later measuring and cutting each strip at the desired 82".

Lay out all the pieced rows in the configuration shown below {light triangles to the outside} or perhaps like I did, {dark triangles to the outside}. Though the quilt is very scrappy, I did try my best not to have identical fabrics lined up in rows exactly side by side. This meant of course, that I had to change out pieced rows here and there until the color flow to the quilt worked the best.

Seeds of inspiration

As most of you know, my piecing isn't ever strictly precise, and so I took the {deliberately} extra long pieced rows and fiddled with them a bit at this placement stage. Moved them a little up or down so as to further distract from the fact that they were never going to match up in straight lines at the point of the triangles all across the width of the quilt. That meant that I cut a little off the top of some and a little off the bottom of others, whatever it took to make them all 82", but still have a good 'mismatched' flow overall. The one thing that I did NOT want to see happen was for them all to start out with an intact triangle at the top of the row, and then end up cut off willy-nilly across the bottom of the quilt! Then it would be altogether too obvious that I was a failure!

The top and bottom pieced rows ended up being cut at 62 1/4", but really, it's best if you measure the width of your quilt in three places, and then take the average before cutting. One thing that you might like to know too, is that I did not trim all the pieced rows to an exact width of 2 1/2". What I did do is take a ruler and trim a straight edge alongside both sides, just eyeballing things as I went. After all, it is a utilitarian look quilt, so who really cares? The original quilt in the picture dates back to the late 1800's. What do you want to bet that it isn't perfectly square either!

Cutting up shirts from the closet

On a different note, the new AHIQ challenge has been issued! For the first time in a long time I haven't even finished up the last challenge, but that won't stop me from thinking about the new one. This one is called 'Positive Thinking' and one of the ideas is raiding our closets for the start of a new quilt. Making do is something I love so of course I promptly went looking to see which shirts of mine and my husbands could be spared. Shh... hopefully he won't notice the empty spot in his side of the closet...

Positive Thinking in the works

Then I looked sown at my choices and had to smile. Me thinks this latest quilt top has greatly influenced these particular choices! {Not that I had very much to choose from as we do need to have things to wear} Whatever, I went ahead and ditched the darkest fabric {for now} thinking to uplift the color mood {positive thinking?}, and went looking in the stash totes for another spark. I guess that's going to be orange. Instead of putting the cream stripe {used in the Strippy Triangles quilt} back into the totes, I added it into the stack too. Grabbed a white/clue/orange/pink vintage fabric that never seems to find a good home and just kept flitting around in the stash totes till I felt that little hum of satisfaction. Okay. That's a good start. Will leave it there to marinate until some more definite ideas for a design gels! Will probably end up calling this quilt 'My Happy Place', but only time will tell how it turns out....

A New Basket Project and The Fabric Stash

Perusing all of the previously made basket quilts made me think a lot about the obvious, making basket quilts.  And I started wondering. Why haven't I ever made the 'Patchwork Garden' quilt? It's a pattern that I absolutely drooled over and finally relented and bought the pattern many, many years ago. Jan Patek is that good. Her patterns can resonate for years!

A new project

I think there was too many cuts of fabric that needed 22" length or something? and I normally tend to buy fat quarters. Plus, making from pattern directions has not ever been my strong suit! Okay, fine! I give.The pattern will never quit haunting me otherwise! I decided it was now or never and went and dug through the stash totes for a quick fabric pull.

Looking at some possibilities

Of course, being me, I couldn't make it in the color range shown on the pattern. Oh no, have to be difficult! But you know how it is when certain colors are wistfully calling out to us. Hey sweetie, why don't you ever come play with me? The first fabric pull is shown above. Then you can see below where I started trying to match up colors with pattern directions. That's the point where I decided to throw in a little green to spark things up a bit. 

And yes, there was pattern re-writing involved too. Like mentioned earlier, I generally have smaller bits and pieces of fabric than suggested. Why? Because I love scrappy and so tend to buy in smaller yardage amounts or have a lot of cut into fabrics that aren't very long anymore! And more importantly, because I always, always try to shop from the stash first which good or bad, can create limitations.

Definitely looks better with the green!

'Tricia' has commented on my blog a number of times lately. Hi Tricia! If people don't have a link back to their email, I rarely ever comment directly back to them here on the blog. It probably feels like I'm ignoring you, but its not personal. That's just where I draw the line, responding personally by way of email or not at all. Otherwise it can be crazy town around here trying to track everyone down and responding here and there and unintentionally leaving people out regardless! 

Anyway.... one of Tricia's comments has been floating around in my brain and causing deep thoughts. 'I never cease to marvel at the depths of your stash totes. You always talk about pulling all of these (seemingly ugly) fabrics for dozens and dozens of quilts out of your stash totes. Seems like a biblical miracle along the line of the loaves and the fishes--only better!'

There are small totes and large totes

Oh my. Where to start? I started out quilting in the 'Build the Stash' era. Oh yeah, I've been at this for a very long time {20+ years}, though I started out very slowly. Only buying for a project and stashing the leftover. Buying a couple fat quarters extra in case the original choices didn't work out as well as planned, buying with gift cards, splurging on vacation, etc. You can read here, here and here where I talk about buying fabric that we love or using fabric that is personal to our tastes. I happen to believe that having a solid, personal stash is vital to generating the best kinds of creativity in regards to quilting!

Most are full or close to full

Never, ever do I suggest that this would be an excuse to use any money that simply isn't there for just those purposes! In fact, part of the reason my stash got to this size is simply this: I developed an open door policy with all family and friends in regards to accepting unwanted fabrics. You would not believe how many bags and boxes of fabrics that I've been gifted throughout the years! It's a joy {mostly} to sort through and make a little stack of fabrics to keep and then move the rest on down the road to another grateful quilter/crafter. The unexpected treasures make the entire experience totally worthwhile and slowly expands my fabric options. All without costing a penny!

15 in all just so you know...

As time has went by and my love for quilting hasn't diminished, I've had to come to grips with a few things. First, that here is very limited space in my quilting room and secondly, I have to deal with lots of direct sunlight. So yeah. This is about as big as the stash is ever going to get and boohoo! it's not ever going to be displayed beautifully! 

The best solution for storing the stash ended up being basic solid totes. So ugly. When I see the lovely open arrangement of fabrics that so many are able to have in their quilt rooms? I have such stash envy. There is serious amounts of quilt room envy too. {I'm human.} But that's not beneficial at all, so I tamp it down hard. Forget that garbage! What I want is to feel grateful and thankful. It's a blessing to have this kind of creative outlet in my life and I don't want to forget that for a minute.

And one on the counter which is a pain to lift up and down

Back to the acceptation of unwanted fabrics. I would say that policy is responsible for well over half of my stash. Seriously! I'd love to say all the fabric in the quilt room is stuff that I'm in LOVE with, but that's just not so. Sorry. It's not a magic kingdom of all the best fabrics! There's a lot of super usable blender types. Lots of fabrics I'll probably never.ever come to hate but aren't exactly fabulous. Plenty of lovely yardage that make my heart melt into a squishy little puddle. Handfuls of wonderfully challenging to me prints. Layers of oldy moldy fabrics {constantly trying to throw something new on top or beside in order to spark new love}. And yes, even those ugly bits and pieces that I'm slowly incorporating into all the improv. work as is color appropriate. Sometimes even cunningly cutting very small and disappearing them, one little fabric at a time! Larger 'less loved' fabrics get stuffed onto the backs of quilts on a very regular basis. There are creative ways to use most all fabrics! Anything truly offensive to me will end up being thrown away or given away. I won't willingly ruin a quilt, you know that!

Totes are sorted into Dark Green, Med.-Lt. Green, Oranges,
Lavenders & Purple, White/Cream with colors, Christmas fabrics

It's all mine though. MINE. And you know how personal that can be. Mary Fons has an article that I've read a few times through the years and thoroughly enjoyed, 'Consider The Stash' . In it she writes: 'If you have a stash, you made something. You’re still making it. If you have a stash, you have created, fabric by fabric (in the case of quilters) a physical manifestation of your style, your approach, your world. Stash as painting. Stash as symphony. Stash as quilt.' Later in the article she writes this, 'But I will make quilts. I always will. And just as a painter needs paint, so does a quilter need her fabric. And each fabric is a memory. And each fabric is an idea. And each fabric was brought into my home, by me, for a reason. I made my stash. And my stash is just the beginning.'

Black & Gray, Reds, Browns, Creams & Light Tans

Not to say that every single quilter will need or want to work in just this way. There are those who want to pare down for reasons of money, waste, space or even personal conviction. People who feel guilt and shame at the excess or hint of obsession? Quilters who are ready to get rid of a very old, unloved collection. Those who feel that for whatever the reason, having a stash is holding them back or causing stress in their life. Perhaps they want to upcycle and recycle more than they desire to incorporate newish fabrics into their quilting. Whatever works. Quilters can be in any number of different seasons of their quilting lives, so I try not to judge. There's definitely things to be learned from every method.

Pinks, Dark Blues, Yellow & Golds, White & Lt. Cream,
Lt.-Med. Blues

As for me? A hard and fast rule is to shop from the stash first.  Always. Have you heard this before? lol  The stash represents my old loves, my new loves and everything in between. It's my quilting voice. If something runs out or runs short? Make-do. If at all possible. And sometimes I'll try to make-do over and over before I cave and go buy something deemed essential. Have I totally quit buying new fabric? Absolutely not. Are you crazy? 

I am definitely choosier these days and don't tend to buy fabrics just because it's a good deal or I might feel sorry for it. I've learned to be much more specific in buying for the 'holes' in my stash or particular needs of a certain project. And again, I tend to buy small. Quilters have taught me to look at shirts and used clothing for possibilities too. It fits so well with the way I make and also, those stash totes? That's it. I'm all maxed out. There is literally no more space in the quilting room for any more totes. If new fabric comes in, old fabric has to go out. One way or another!*wink  Best get to quilting! There will be no hoarding and stashing in out of the way places from this quilter, 'cuz I'm not ashamed and I'm not hiding. So what about the rest of you? Stash or no stash? We'd love to see some pictures.....