One Quilter's stash is ....

If there is one thing that is common among quilters I am willing to bet it is 'the stash'.. the piles and piles stashed fabric.  The reason for that, I assume is that we have all worked on projects where we just need a tiny bit of fabric to complete our design or our quilt plan; an eight of a yard of that certain shade or perhaps there was a fabric that you just loved working with so you wanted to use up every last bit of it.  In my case I pick up a lot of small amounts of fabric at the Fat Quarter bins.  I wait for sales and buy up a whole bunch to save for when I might need it.  One of my favorite on-line fabric suppliers has sales all the time. some fabrics she puts on clearance for $1 a yard, in that case I usually buy all she's got left.  Even at the fabric stores, like Joann fabrics the quilt fabrics, although omitted from the '50% your purchase' that come in the mail, they're usually fairly cheap and the colors and designs most often complement each other very well when they are already bundled and they're easy for little 'scrappy' projects.  When you buy up fabrics like that, like I do, you need to stash it in bins and it needs to be organized... husbands (mine in particular) hate the fabric stash!

A few reasons I suspect my husband hates the fabric stash is that most often I need to ask for his assistance in pulling the giant rubber maid bins up from the basement when planning a  new project.  I've got a giant bin of seasonal and holiday fabric, another bin with specialty non-cotton fabrics, another bin of novelty fabrics (like Disney characters and Marvel Comics licensed fabrics) and then there's the super huge bin of all quilting cotton that doesn't fit into the mold of the aforementioned categories.  Dragging them up the stairs of our house is a chore and every time I ask him to do this for me he and I have the same discussion.. goes a bit like this...

Husband - "seriously? do you really need all that fabric? why don't you go through it and throw away what you don't need."
Me - "Yes.  I need it all."
Husband - "... but you're not using it all, every time I bring the bin up it is the same fabric"
Me - "One day I will be looking for a specific scrap and I will remember it is in here."

This usually is followed by a sigh and some eye rolling.  Funny thing is that we have the same type of conversation when we discuss the basement, garage and all his power tools.  We had this discussion last week while cleaning out the garage, went a bit like this...

Me - "Seriously? do you really need all these tools, nuts, bolts and junk? Why don't we donate them or have a yard sale or something?"
Husband - "Yes.  I need all of them."
Me - "... but I have never seen you ever use half of it.. like that giant drill press.. why would we keep it if you never have anything that needs drill pressing?
Husband - "One day you will ask me to fix something and you will be happy that I already have the right tool for the job and won't have to go out and buy something new."
And again... repeat the sighs and eye rolling.

Well, this week the challenge that I had for myself was to make a quilt completely from my stash bins, no newly purchased fabrics, except for the batting the complete project right from the bins.  In order to do this I had to choose a design that lends itself to many different fabrics as a stash bin rarely contains fabric in quantities large enough for a whole project, at lest mine doesn't.  It's bits and pieces and some small baggies of tiny, already cut, leftover  triangles and squares.  I have done this before when I made a small lap-sized Log Cabin quilt for Glenn's Dad for a Christmas gift.   However, this time I wanted to make a large, bed-sized, project.  So I chose to make a twin sized project with many different greens offset by a creme color.

This pattern is from The Thimbleberries book of quilts and the individual square design is called "Paddles and Pinwheels".  This has been one of my favorite patterns because I just love the way that the creme color, the pin wheels, sometimes pops out and becomes the focal shape and other times you look at it and see the paddles, the greens.




Anyone who knows me or has read my blog before knows I am really, really bad at doing things randomly and even when something looks random it is usually very calculated.  When I try to create a 'random' look I usually line up all my colors and assign a letter or a number to each one.  I then draw a grid with the matching number of blocks that the quilt will have and play a little game of Sudoku with the letters or numbers.  With that I verify that no block color is repeated too often, is in line with another, touches another block with the same color or is adjacent to... STOP THE INSANITY!!

For this project I didn't want to do that.. so this time I simply laid all my cut paddles down and moved them around until the variation looked pleasing to me.  I will say, it was a much more enjoyable activity playing with the fabric colors then re-inventing the fabric equivalent of Benjamin Franklin's mathematical magic squares.  I also had different amounts of each fabric, so the same color repeats different times than another, some paddle fabrics I only had enough for 2 blocks, other fabrics I had enough for 4 or 5 which helped with getting away from a repeated pattern of color.

For the boarder of this quilt I simply created stripes of the pin wheel creme and the forest green paddle fabric as those were the two that I had most of.  To make the corners a bit interesting and to save me the trouble of matching the stripes perfectly within a mitered corner, I created a 9 patch and used it to interrupt the two boarders where they met.

These photos are of only the quilt top as I am holding this one aside for finishing on my new Hinterberg quilt frame and Viking 17 inch long arm machine!! The big brown UPS truck brought it to me today and hopefully this weekend I will be able to get it put together and finish all the projects I've got waiting in the wings... watch my blog for updates and photos once we figure out where to put the darn thing!!

Seeing Stars

If you've been on my Christmas list within the last few years you may have received a small sofa quilt or a wall hanging made with one of my very favorite quilt patterns, the Bethlehem Star.  I've researched this star design a bit, as I usually do for most of the traditional patterns that I attempt, and in my research I have discovered that this star has been known by many names.  This star, made of same size diamonds in gradient colors has been called 'The Mathematical Star', 'The Lone Star', 'The Star of Bethlehem' and known by Native Americans as 'The Morning Star'.

I like this design for a few reasons, it's a bit of a challenge to put together and have the intersecting, cascading diamonds line up exactly on their points, and for the fact that you can build this pattern with as many diamonds and sizes as you want.  I also like this design because it is a very dramatic looking and can be an exciting focal point.

As soon as the last quilt project was finished and the cutting table empty I started to think of my next quilt.  I had been wanting to put together a small square quilt for the wall in my dining room behind where I set up my cutting and ironing table.  The wall is a good size with a big empty space between two windows, approx 54 inches.  The space is begging for a small quilt because when you come into my house from the front door and walk up the stairs you can see through the kitchen to the dinning room it would be the very first thing your eye catches.

Most of the time when I'm planning a new project Glenn sneaks in his $00.02 cents worth of input and since this will be on the wall and something that we both will have to look at all the time, he wanted to assist in choosing the color pallet and the fabrics.  Of course, our ideas for both were heading in two completely different directions.  I had a green, muted color pallet in mind and he insisted that it needed to be bold and exciting and a color that would be unexpected, like purple.  So, I started to dig through the bins of fabric, took my 6 year old to a few fabric stores to pick up a few additional  fabrics and laid out two piles; one purple and one green.  I figured I could use the practice, so I'd build two stars and we can then choose the one we all thought worked best.  Trouble was... I got carried away and made the first star gigantic!  Not only did it not fit the wall space, but when I measured it on the diagonal it was 60 inches wide, as wide as a queen size mattress!  It was obvious what I had to do next.. keep on sewing!!!  So, one project will end up on my bed and the other on the wall in the dining room.  A perfect plan, and we both get the colors that we wanted.  So.. that's just what I did.  Funny thing is that these two projects were put together in just a few days because I was so excited to finally be putting a project together for myself.. I just kept sewing as if it was a good book that I just couldn't put down!

One star turned into a star on a diamond, surrounded by 4 stars..

Which then turned into a queen sized quilt..

Still in progress... My two tables pushed together happens to be about the size of a queen sized mattress.  This one is not yet quilted together with a backing and batting.  I'm saving this one for my new long arm machine and quilting frame that I am anxiously waiting to be shipped to me... which is a post for another day!






As for a star for my wall... I love the colors, although I will admit that it looks a bit like a Christmas Tree skirt.  I also compromised with  Glenn and made this one an octagon which will be challenging to hang on the wall, but interesting to look at.

...... you will find more information about this star design and step by step instruction within the previous post "Bethlehem Star - 03/12/2012 - Block of the Week".

Bethlehem Star - 03/12/2012 - Block of the Week Instruction

"The Bethlehem Star" is a quilt design that looks particularly complicated and although it can be tricky to line up each pieced diamond that makes up the larger diamond design, it is a fairly easy project when you break it down step by step.

The finished design will look like this and be made to have any number 'rows' of diamonds.  For my stars I use a total of 5 different fabrics and I like to do so in a star burst type of layout, going from light to dark or dark to light.  There are obviously no wrong answers when choosing fabrics so this design can create an extremely creative and visually exciting result.





For those of you who follow my blog you know that I like to simplify when ever possible.  There is a simple way to achieve this design using strip piecing.  I'm a bit of a strip piecing broken record, I know.  However, I figure I'd show the old fashioned way of piecing these together as well as the easier strip piecing method as I've seen both within quilting instruction and pattern books.

After fabrics are chosen, the basics of this design is to build a 45 degree diamond made up of other 45 degree diamonds.  This is done by piecing three rows of diamonds [as noted by the three arrows within this photo] and then piecing the three rows of diamonds into one 45 degree diamond.  This is then repeated 8 times and those larger diamonds will form an 8 pointed star.  I'll explain both ways to achieve this, traditional piecing and strip piecing.

Step 1

Traditional Piecing Method

Step 1 - When using traditional piecing you would cut all your fabrics into 45 degree diamonds.  You'd then be tasked with piecing each 'row' as noted above one diamond at a time.


 

Step 2

Step 2 - When piecing together diamonds [or any of the 45 degree cuts in this design] the tendency is to want to lay both edges exactly together.  However if that is done your diamond points will not line up properly.  The method for making these shapes connect with a straight line when the connected is to off - set the point of the overlapping diamond by 1/4 inch.  Which is the same as your seam allowance. See small overlap on the top left of the two fabrics.
 

Step 3

 Step 3 - Join the two diamonds making certain that your seam allowance is exact and that you maintain that seam through the whole project.  The success you have with this project will depend on how exact you are with your seams here.  The photo on the right is a bit difficult to see, but the seam begins at the intersection of the overlapping fabric, this will ensure that when the fabrics are pressed that they form a straight line.

Step 4

Step 4 - Press the seam and your result, if you have off set your piecing by the proper 1/4 inch and maintained that seam allowance properly will be that the pieces fit and form a straight line across the top, which will become the joining point for piecing the strips of 3 pieced diamonds together.

Step 5

Step 5 - Repeat with all three diamonds for each row and use the same overlapping method for piecing each strip of 3 connected diamonds to form a larger diamond.




Strip Piecing Method


Step 1- When strip piecing your first step after choosing your fabrics is to, as the name implies, cut strips of each.  With a star of this size, that contains 3 rows of fabrics.  If you were to number your fabrics by color it would illustrate a bit easier the number of strips you would need of each color.  For example; the first set of 3 strips that you would join would be colors 1+2+3, you would then join colors 2+3+4 and finally colors 3+4+5.  So you can see that you need more yardage of the most prevalent fabric in the group of five, which in this size star is fabric #3.  To avoid too much wasted fabric I suggest sewing the strips together with each consecutive strip off at the top edge by the same number if inches as is the width of the strip since you'll be cutting these on a 45 degree angle.  I've taken this photo with my blue 45 degree template to show the placement of the strips in relation to the top edges.

 Step 2 - Once the three strips are sewn together creating the sets of 3 are as easy as cutting the joined strips on a 45 degree angle.  A common mistake here is to measure the width of your cut on the outside of the joined strips.  The actual measurement is the depth of the cut and that can be achieved by placing your ruler at 45 degrees, make the first cut, then measure the cut edge in by the width of your diamonds.

Step 2 - 45 degree cuts

Step 2 - completed strips, getting ready to assemble the star

Step 3 - Assemble the three strips in much the same manner that we pieced the diamonds above using the traditional piecing method.  This includes leaving an overlap the same size of your seam allowance of 1/4 inch.  Continue and create 8 star points.  One thing that I do during this step that you may not find in any other instruction is that I press every other diamond opposite each other.  I do this for a few reasons; first that my sewing machine has an easier time powering over those seams, secondly seams that go in opposite direction are less bulky in the end and it I certainly have an easier time viewing the seams and where they will intercept prior to sewing them.  Since I've gone through the trouble to press my seams from 4 pieced diamonds opposite to the other 4 before I continue with putting the star together I do somewhat of a dry run and lay each diamond out to plan assembly.

Star points arraigned  upside down on my cutting table.

Alternating seams.

Step 4 - Assembling the star is the next step, and as you can see in the photo at the top of this post I've created the green star with diamonds rather than creating a square 'block'.  However, for instruction sake I will demonstrate putting the star within a square block.  With an 8 pointed star there are 4 corners which require squares be pieced in and 4 sides which utilize right triangles.  The order of the assembly is to piece the square corners first, followed by the triangles.  This I suppose is not a hard and fast rule, but it is what has worked best for me.  When joining the three shapes; two star points and one intersecting corner square, you first need to join the star points leaving at least your 1/4 inch seam allowance at the top of the connecting seam.  When that seam is complete do not press it yet, instead separate the two and sew in the side of the intersecting square,flip it over and continue to do the same for the other side of the square.  This is intersection is one of the most tricky parts of this project.

 

Step 5 - Now that you've got all 4 corner squares attached the same method is used for the side triangles and in the same seam order.  First seam joined should be down the side of the pieced star points leaving at least a 1/4 inch corer at the top to accommodate the corner of the triangle and to allow for enough seam allowance for each side of the triangle to be sewn to the top of the pieced diamonds.

To prepare for the final assembly, attach a triangle to each star half.








The final result....