At last the Rippin’ Robins project is finished. I was filling out the form to enter it in the local guild show and needed a name. Hadn’t yet thought of a name for this one. On the spot I decided “fox” had to be in the name and “Fox Trot” was the first phrase that came to me, so that’s its name.
It measures 52 x 72. I’d allowed for quilting to take up some measurement, but it didn’t change it. That surprised me enough to wonder if I had measured it wrong.
This photo doesn’t show the blue quilting well so here’s another two shots, front corner and back.
And because it is hard to see the white square in the middle right, here is a detail view.
I’ve always liked shadow blocks in quilting, and this is the first time I’ve tried it. I could have done the hourglass squares differently to get a better Ohio Star effect, maybe next time. In the other two white spaces I was less elaborate: squares extending the Jacob’s Ladder at the top and Flying Geese at the bottom.
I was looking forward to getting back to posting from my computer instead of my phone, but the editor didn’t open on my new computer. Sigh. I hope I don’t have to buy Jetpack to work from the computer.
Anyway the top is together except for the final border and I’ve looked at it long enough to be sure it is what I want to do.
I’d been debating whether to leave it at 40 X 60 and let the dark blue binding finish it or this border. At first I had placed the blue only in the upper right corner and it looked too dark. So I added more to get a better idea of the look. Overall I don’t think it too dark. And besides, I really wanted the larger size.
If I have enough of the cream I’ll use it for backing; if not I’ll think about what to add to make enough.
Oh, the quilt now has a name. In honor of the fox blocks, I’ll call it Fox Trot.
I got out the Rippin Robins blocks. Idea 1 was to tip them a bit—not on point, not square in a square. I laid them out to see if i needed more blocks.
I thought I might need more 3 X 3 blocks but decided to add the triangles then lay out again. So I drafted the triangles. But before I cut any fabric , I got another idea.
I’m going with this one. The layout is 40 x 60. I may border it to make 50 x 70. Either size is useful.
I left off here with a border plan. However, when I got back to the project and checked on remaining fabric, the idea became unworkable. Not enough red-violet.
My next thought was a 3-inch purple border, and the question was, With or without the dots and dashes. I laid it out, one leg with and one without.
I wasn’t considering the half-inch dots, but they gave the idea of a narrow pieced border (and were available). It just happened that the purple I was auditioning was wide. Looking at it, I saw that wide looked good. But even without laying it out, I could see wide wouldn’t look good on the purple half. I let it sit a bit while I did something else, occasionally glancing at it and thinking. It finally dawned on me that it looked finished and the last purple pattern rows sorta doubled as border. It also provided a relatively easy way to place the “straying ” hexagons. So I stitched it up, and now I have a flimsy.
Carrying the title idea further, maybe the empty borders are places where hexagons have already fled, emphasizing that The Center Cannot Hold. I’m thinking quilting designs now. Leaning toward concentric circles in gold thread.
Now I have a huge supply of cut 1 1/2-inch squares, but they are mostly prints.
And a moderate supply of 3-inch squares. Also mostly prints.
So of course I wondered how it would work with prints–even the white background.
I made a test block.
I think it will work. I’ll have to be careful to keep the mixed light background pieces that light. And I think I’ll not sew the four together until I have a bunch and can lay them out. I think it might be difficult to control the four meeting triangles if I sew them in groups of four before I check combinations. And control the mix of prints is something I would want to do. Not a problem when working with all solids.
This will be a leader/ender project, and the pieces are tiny. So it will be a long time before you see any progress.
This top has been in the background since September. I was using the one-inch-square pieces as leaders/enders, so it wasn’t a fast process, nor was it worth a photo. Then I got to a point where I needed to start paying attention to how many light-top Vs. how many dark-top sets I needed. Once I had the sets of six, I got a little more serious about designing; this was the most random I’ve ever worked. I had a variety of light prints and two medium tans. I ignored the tans and only checked one print on each set and sorted so that the selected print appeared in each of four piles. Two tagged along without planning. That at least got each print on each side.
When sewing I did kind of try to avoid joining two like, but not completely because there was one print I had a lot more of than the others. Mostly I looked at both ends of the growing strip and placed the next set of six where it looked best. Until finally I had all the sides sewn.
The piece measured 51 x 51, so strips of 51 one-inch pieces should have fit. Nope. I removed a nine-patch from each row. So apparently that is how much off my 1/4-inch seam is. Instead of the beginning and end of the rows coming out the same, one side was light top and one dark. Well, I’d not made the nine-patches for the corners yet, so I could adapt to that. Except I sewed top and bottom rows on and then laid out the first side and saw that one had been sewn wrong, so I pulled out the seam ripper. At any rate, the border finally got sewn on.
Next time I’ll move the in-progress pile off the arm of the sofa. This top is getting too big to crop it out of the photo.
I’m debating between 2-inch medium brown border followed by 3-5 inch darker one or just a wide medium border or no more borders. The amount of fabric I have left may be the determining factor instead of a design reason.
Before I add those, I have the last set of Rippin Robin blocks to make by Wednesday. Nancy’s colors are Navy blue, Key lime, and Turquoise.
The greens are not quite so yellowish as this photo. Luckily she supplied fabric because she wants no solids. (I’m an outlier in the group, the only one who likes solids.) I have a batik blue that would work, but that’s all.
ETA my three blocks for Nancy.
I surprised myself when I looked at my scraps by finding an almost turquoise and enough lime green for one of the blocks. So I used only a little of Nancy’s lime green. Variety of fabrics gives a nice effect, so I’m glad I could find them.
Indecision slows down finishing. I left off here with most pieces made. Now the pieces are finished, and I’m playing with final layout. First the planned layout.
I’d planned to have purple next to the other borders and eggplant on the outer edge. I do see where I’ve placed a couple upside down.
It looked so regular compared to the skittery triangles and diamonds. Now I had had one title in mind: Containng the Chaos. (My thoughts were along “attempting to contain,” but that made an unruly title, and “Contained,” No way! This arrangement might work with “Containng. . . .” But another idea. Aternate direction and forget the layering of color.
I liked this a bit better. (It is important to give up first ideas sometimes!) But meanwhile I was having other title thoughts. Those flighty triangles kept drawing my mind to a Yeats poem, The Second Coming (text here if you need it). As the circles enlarged, there was certainly a “widening gyre.” But that wasn’t a promising title. A later line, however, was: “The centre cannot hold.” The poem has always fascinated me, and I have changed my mind many times about what it means, but it seems to fit those triangles. Now to make it fit the hexagons. Here’s a first try.
As of now I’m planning a small red-violet border and a wider blue-violet one and a dark purple binding. I’ll think on it a couple more days.
The Stay-At-Home-Round-Robin top that I started way back in January just informed me it had been on time out long enough. I’d had the Square-in-a-Square blocks and four Pinwheel blocks finished and sewn together. I even had the spacer strips cut out back in April. I even had a plan for the step after that, but no further.
So as I’m shuffling things around in my studio (aka bedroom) I decided I had better attach them before I lost them.
This is the end of the prompts. Now I’m on my own. I’d already planned that the next three borders will be checkerboard, but I have no plans beyond that yet.
Looking at it assembled I now see something in the design so far that I’d not been aware of when the idea was just sketched and mental. It is as if I had enlarged the center block all these rows and this “last” border begins the borders. I’m thinking to balance that would take really big treatment to finish the look.
I’d started out thinking to make a 45 x 45-inch or smaller top but just decided to add borders and see where I ended up. It’s about 50 x 50 now. So if I go with design I’ll end up with king size or bigger. If I go with practical I’ll end up with twin. Time will tell. Meanwhile, I’ll keep working on those 1-inch squares for the checkerboard.
Linking with Midweek Makers (button on side) a week late.
This project has evolved considerably from its original plan. Plan A was partly explained here. Besides the scraps I’d selected to use, I’d planned to alternate rows between things I’d learned in the Geometricks class and directions in the Dreamline project (see Brenda Gael Smith). What prompted the log cabin setting was that many of the Geometricks blocks involved making two, a light and a dark. So that just suggested log cabin arrangement. Well the first border was the August Dreamline, small dots. Worked fine. But when I turned to the next row, Floating Triangles from the class, Plan A fell apart. I didn’t have enough squares or strips with appropriate contrasting colors even for one round. Plan B arrangement followed. (I didn’t take a photo till border 4.) Back to Plan A for the next Border from Dreamline, Fine Line Bars (April). As a log cabin grows, each border takes more fabric. It was clear I couldn’t do any more with the 3 1/2-inch squares, so I turned to the strips and the Dreamline Twiggy Lines (July). And selected colors.
I started out like the directions: light for the background, colors for the “twigs.” And the light gold is the one deviation from using up solid scraps–still scraps though. And I didn’t have enough of any one color for the twigs, so tried the recommendation: match values if you can’t match colors. I looked at that for a while, not quite liking it. I finally realized what was wrong was the lightness of the gold, and then I decided to reverse light and dark. I also realized I needed a corner treatment. I suppose I could have found a way to bend the twigs, but it seemed more effort than I wanted to spend.
Better, but not quite. The gold yelled too loudly. I have finally learned that yes, sometimes one has to rip, and switched out the yellow square and finished the border.
It measures about 23 inches square, and I think this is enough. I’ll think a bit on whether I want to do another border. I’m running out of colors I can use from the solid scraps, so I hope it’s finished.
I’ve been a bit more timely on my Rippin Robins project for this month, slowed down only by needing white print fabric. I showed the blocks I received near the end of this post.) Liz has used creative naming to get the palette to work with her initials: ecstasy bright orange, antique white, harlequin bright green. Plus she requested NO SOLIDS. Finding a white print turned out to be quite a challenge; actually I’d expected each color to be a challenge as I don’t use a lot of bright orange or green. However, a stash dive produced enough of them, barely enough.
The three strips of green were all I had; luckily two were 2-inch strips, which were perfect for making 1 1/2-inch squares. But that did decide which shape got which color in two blocks. I didn’t have time or energy to get to the shops that would supply appropriate white prints for the background, so tried online ordering. These two were labeled white, but I was disappointed to see they looked decidedly creamy next to the whites that had been used already, so I tried again. Better luck on the second try. So here are my blocks with one of Liz’s own.
I’m hoping she accepts batik as print, especially the orange in the upper right. She also requested all 9-inch blocks.
And the second project. I signed up for Brenda Gael Smith’s Dreamline project, only I signed up late and got in it in August. Still the directions for each month were available. It is an improv type project, and ways to arrange pieces will be addressed in the last lecture. Well, I also got information about three upcoming classes and decided to do them as well. Geometricks has come and gone. I was planning to do nothing except the practice pieces in each class till I had all the possibilities and could start planning. (Improv is a varied mix of random and planning, I think. At some point there is planning in arranging all the pieces, but sometimes for me the planning enters sooner.) Class instructions involve cutting squares and rectangles to work with, and she recommends solids. As I prepared for the first class, I remembered a stash of scraps left over from this project. I’d used a bunch of the leftovers here, but there was quite a pile of 3 1/2-inch strips and squares left. Now most of the pieces to be cut for the class were 6 1/2-inch widths, and it turned out that was to avoid fiddly. I figured I’d see what I could do with fiddly after working larger. Second thought: the drive for doll quilts (18-25 inch square) for the Firefighters’ Toy and Joy project was coming up. Perfect for my shrunken version of the shapes. And I’d arrange them like a log-cabin block.
So here’s the start, using Small Dots instructions from the August Dreamlines.
It measures 6 inches now. On to the next round. which will include floating triangles from the Geometricks class instructions.
knitNkwilt 