Happy New Year 2025! My Pity Party Has Concluded; Back to the Pretty Quilts...

 Alright you guys — wanna know how many personal quilts, or personal sewing projects of ANY kind, I finished in 2024?  ZERO.  But 2025 is a brand-new year full of fresh possibilities and lots of pent-up creative energy.  I quilted a quilt for myself yesterday!

42 x 45 Untitled, from Maria Shell Improv Workshop

It’s just a small baby quilt, a way to use up one of the improvisationally pieced striped units I made in my Zoom workshop with Maria Shell back in September, along with some smaller yardage pieces from my stash.  The irregularity of wonky improv piecing looks very child-friendly to me, and that inspired me to use an allover quilting design (Color B2B by Anne Bright) that I’ve owned for several years but was never able to talk a client into using on a quilt.  

Color B2B Quilting Design by Anne Bright with YLI 40 Tex Cotton Thread in Rio de Janeiro

I love how it turned out!  I chose YLI 40 Tex Cotton Thread in variegated Rio de Janeiro after carefully checking that every shade in this rainbow thread was a match to fabrics I used in my pieced stripe unit.  I wanted something with an equal amount of contrast against both the lime green and the cherry red fabrics and I’m very happy with how it turned out even though cotton thread is a linty beast to work with!  My lint brush got to see lots of action.  

Maria Shell Workshop In Progress + Carrie's Traverse Row Quilt

The second half of my two-part Making Prints improvisational piecing workshop with Maria Shell was this past Monday evening via Zoom.  Our assignment from Part One of the class had been to create a palette of solid color fabrics and then construct a bunch of different units using those fabrics and techniques that had been demonstrated in class.  Despite being down with Covid all week, I managed to get a bunch of these chunks made, slapped them on my design wall in the main hallway of my house, and then every time I walked by I either stopped to scowl at everything but left things along, or started rearranging the units.  Here's what I had going on the last time I touched it, on the morning before the last class:

My Design Wall, 11 AM on Monday

In Part Two of the workshop Maria introduced several techniques involving triangles and I might make some of those to mix in with what I've got here so far, or I might make some additional units like what I already have so I can balance things out with a little repetition.  I do want to finish the workshop piece and put enough thought and effort into the composition to get everything I can out of the class, but the danger for me with an open-ended assignment like this -- and no grades or deadlines to rein me in -- is that I could easily go on and on, arranging and rearranging ad infinitum and never actually finish the project!

I haven't moved anything or made any new units in the last two days.  Still feeling low-energy and needing daily naps from the Covid and just decided to let what's on the wall marinate for a bit while I am resting.

However, the portion of Monday's class where Maria discussed different composition structures (grid, row, medallion etc) reminded me of a client's quilt that I long armed about a year ago and never shared with you.

Carrie's Traverse Quilt, Pattern by Tara Faughnan

This gorgeous Traverse Quilt is a kit designed by another modern quilter I admire, Tara Faughnan.  I just checked on Etsy and found lots of options available if you'd like to make one of your own, from complete Traverse kits in these exact fabrics still available, to patterns only, to completed quilts for sale.  (This post contains affiliate links).  

Detail of Traverse Quilt, Designed by Tara Faughnan, Pieced by Carrie, Quilted by Me

Looking at these photos again after taking Maria Shell's workshop, I'm seeing some similarities between these two quilters: Both are working exclusively in solids, and both use a large palette of solid fabrics with a nice assortment of hues and values.  Both are creating print-like patterns in patchwork stripes of fabric.  Maria sometimes sets her pieced strip units in rows like Tara has done in Traverse.  

The Power of a Really Great Stripe: Maria Shell Workshop + Only Murders In the Building

Good Morning, Stitchy Peeps!  I am feeling clammy and gross and drowning in mucus quantities that have not been seen since the ectoplasm in the movie Ghostbusters.  I have an appointment at Urgent Care in an hour and a half, fingers crossed that whatever ick I've got is something that they can treat with medication.  Most likely it's COVID since my son just had it and I started getting sick several days after he tested positive, but my husband is just as sick as I am and he has tested negative for COVID four times.  Blech, blech, BLECH!

Meanwhile, here's what my design wall looks like three days after Part One of my 2-part Making Prints workshop with Maria Shell:

My Design Wall, 9 AM on Thursday

Our assignment between classes was to make a bunch of units based on the techniques/"prints" that she demonstrated in class, and put them up on our design walls.  Students are permitted to cut their fabric with rulers, but encouraged to try cutting without rulers in order to create more organic, irregular lines with their patchwork.  I'm cutting my fabric without rulers and finding that it's more difficult than you'd think to cut crooked and sew crooked on purpose!  

My Design Wall, 9 AM on Wednesday

The irregular striped units above were pieced the first day after class, and they incorporate all of the colors from my palette.  Initially we were told to create a 12-color palette, but I asked if I could sneak in more and got permission to do so during the class.  The extra colors allowed me to have three shades of brown instead of one and a royal blue as well as light blue.  I think I have 15 colors going on.  Anyway, when I did this first exercise of randomly pairing up my colors I was really pleased that I liked how pretty much every color looked with every other color in my palette.  I struggled to sew my strips together, though -- somehow even though I hadn't cut them straight, they were annoying me by looking straighter after I sewed them together and pressed the seams.  

The New Design Wall, Take 2 + Slogging Along With FrankenWhiggish Rosebuds

Good Morning and Happy Weekend!  We've been bustling and busy since my last post.  Bernie and I drove eleven hours back up to Charlotte, North Carolina to move our youngest son Anders into a new apartment at UNC, spent some time with my mom in South Carolina, and then drove another eleven hours to get back to our new home in Naples, Florida.  We drove him up this time because we needed to get his car up there and we had a lot of stuff we were bringing for the apartment, but we'll be flying him home for breaks.  Meanwhile, the new bump drapery interlining fabric for my design wall was delivered from Amazon (this post contains affiliate links) and Bernie and I are both SO much happier with how it looks now!

96 x 96 Design Wall Wrapped with New Bump Drapery Interlining 

When I posted about the first version of this design wall last week a lot of you thought it was fine as long as it was functional, and if it was in a dedicated studio or craft space in my home where no one had to look at it besides myself, I might have agreed with you.  But I lobbied hard to get my husband on board with putting the design wall in a very prominent, public part of our home where everyone would walk past it and have to look at it all day long, every single day, and I promised that I was going to make it look GOOD there.  

There's a Design Wall in My Hallway Full of Deco Blocks! But it Looks, Umm, ROUGH...

First, the good news: there's a 96" x 96" design wall in my hallway across from the entrance to my sewing room, and my Deco Quilt blocks are up on the wall.  Hooray!  This is the project-in-progress that was on the design wall in my old studio in North Carolina right before I had to pack everything up and move to Florida this past December.  It's good to see those blocks out again, especially since now I can see the progress I made working on additional blocks here and there throughout the move.  Woot woot!

My Scandi Deco Bed Quilt Blocks Are Up on My Brand-New Design Wall

Now for the bad news: this new design wall did not turn out anywhere near as nice as the old one, and it's going to require immediate revision.  For one thing, we shouldn't have put it up so high -- my fault entirely, as I thought it might be nice to be able to plug a vacuum cleaner into the bottom outlet socket.  We should move it down to completely cover the outlet so it's centered nicely from top to bottom the way it's centered from side to side.

Bernie Said "Quick, Cover It Up With Your Quilt Blocks!"

Actually, what Bernie said was "I KNEW it was going to look like crap.  Cover it up with your quilt blocks so I don't have to look at it."  

Nann's Scrappy Largesse, Halo Quilt Progress + A Mini Curved Piecing Tutorial

I don't know about you, but when I've been slogging along forever on a project, trying to combine the same old scraps from my scrap bins in new ways to create blocks that don't look exactly like all the others on my design wall, there's nothing like a fresh injection of someone else's scraps to make the work feel fresh and exciting again.  

A month or so ago, Nann who blogs at With Strings Attached mentioned to me that she'd just finished reading a 1932 novel called The Sheltered Life by Ellen Glasgow.  When I expressed interest in reading the book, she offered to mail me her copy -- and she stuffed the flat rate postage box full of fabric scraps!!  I felt like I'd hit the scrappy jackpot!  I've been working in as many of Nann's scraps as possible and having a grand time with it.  Don't you love this sweet Wizard of Oz fabric?  The orange and blue arcs, pink quarter circle, blue and white dot, larger blue floral quarter circle, and the pink mini floral print are all Nann's fabrics in the block below.

This Block Contains 5 Scraps from Nann

In the block below, the yellow floral HSTs surrounding the blue center square are definitely Nann's, and I think that curved tumbler patch at the bottom that has sprigs of yellow flowers on a white background might also be from Nann.

Yellow Floral Print HSTs are Also Scraps from Nann

Although I've been busy long arm quilting this month, I've also had more social sewing opportunities on my calendar lately and that has really helped me keep the momentum going with this project.  Below you can see I have my Jen Kingwell Block Wrap all packed up with six different blocks planned out, ready to piece at a recent guild Sit & Sew event (this post contains affiliate links).  

Ten-Year Projects In Progress: Update on Frankenwhiggish Rose, Jingle BOM, + Deco Quilts

So...  I put my Whig Rose blocks back up on my design wall yesterday morning to see how much work remains to be done on them.  I started this needle turn appliqué project in March of 2014 (you can read about it here) and it's been an on-again, off-again kind of thing.  I'm finding it really monotonous to appliqué the same shapes over and over again.  The reason I haven't started any of the Sarah Fielke 2022 Block of the Month projects I signed up for is that I wanted to finish THIS appliqué project before starting on a new one, and this one ain't finished yet!

FrankenWhiggish Blocks on November 12, 2022

Just for kicks, let's compare today's photo to the one from the last time I had these blocks up on my design wall, back in January of this year:

FrankenWhiggish Blocks on January 12, 2022

So it took me TEN MONTHS to complete eighteen of those wretched little tulips!  AAAARGH!!  And I still have ten more to go.  

Studio Tour: Let There Be Light! And Also, Thread! Upgrades From My Sweetie

You guys, I am SO EXCITED about the wire cable track lighting that my husband installed above my new Bernina long arm last night!  I LOVE IT! 💕💕💕

Wire Cable Track Lighting Installed Above My New Q24

The Bernina Q24 has plenty of bright LED lighting along the throat of the machine head itself, but I wanted the entire length of the frame lit up from one side to the other so I can inspect each section of a quilt as I'm advancing it on the frame.  Bright task lighting enables me to find and remove any pet fur or stray threads before they get quilted in, and makes it easier to notice things like open seams that my hopping foot could catch in if I didn't see them ahead of time.

Bright Lighting Helps Me Spot Problems Like This Open Seam

That photo above with an open seam was my own kaleidoscope quilt, by the way -- I am not a perfect piecer, either!  (When I see something like that as I'm quilting, I like to mark it with a hand stitched tailor tack in contrasting thread so it's easier to find it later when I want to hand stitch that spot closed).

Tuesday Tangents: AQS QAL Complicated and Resized, Under the Stars Kit Augmented, and Block #5 Planned for Beware the Ishmaelites Sampler

Good morning, and Happy Tuesday, everyone!  I spent some time tidying up my studio yesterday, so I rewarded myself with a few design diversions this morning before getting back to work on my Spirit Song quilt.  

First Tangent: AQS Summer Star QAL

First I played in EQ8, redrafting the AQS Summer Star QAL project that caught my eye in their email newsletter.  Here's what I came up with:

The original design by Betsey Langford, shown below, finishes at 72" x 72", which is not a useful size for me right now.  I thought this would make a good baby quilt, so I resized Langford's design to finish at half size, 36" x 36", and then added 3" borders so my quilt would finish at 42" x 42."  I added some red and orange for some summer sizzle.

[In case anyone's interested in the technical details: I imported the image of the AQS quilt into my EQ8 software and used the Easy Draw Tracing Image tool.  So I told the software that the image was 36" x 36" and had a graph paper type grid overlaid on the image, allowing me to designate patches by "tracing" the design with intersecting straight lines wherever I wanted to put my seams).  

But the most important thing that I changed, that might not be immediately obvious, is that I UNsimplified and REcomplicated Langford's design.  If you look closely at her rendering, you can see very faint white lines between some of the fabric patches, indicating that her design is made completely from squares, HST units, and Flying Geese units.  That was probably done to make the project more approachable for beginners and more appealing to the many quilters who would rather jam a needle under a fingernail than sew a Y-seam.

My own personal preference is to have as few seams as possible in a block, even if that means the construction will be fiddlier.  It gives the finished quilt or block a cleaner look, in my opinion, to have fewer seams, and it definitely results in less bulk from unnecessary seam allowance, fewer bulky seam allowances to quilt over later, and perhaps most important of all, I know I can see where the piecing lines are when the quilt is finished and I really like the way that the diagonal seam lines radiate from the center of the star if I piece this with diamonds and Y-seams.  

And now, for the Million Dollar Question: Will Rebecca Actually MAKE This One???

Well, maybe.  The size is manageable and I have bolts of Kona Snow and a orangey-red solid fabric in my stash that would be perfect, so I'd only need to purchase the two blues, the yellow, and some kind of backing.  It would be fun to quilt, too, don't you think?  For now, I printed out the quilt design, yardage requirements, rotary cutting charts, and cardstock templates.  They are paperclipped together and set aside.

Second Tangent: Under the Stars Kit

I recently snapped up a quilt kit that caught my eye -- I have NEVER bought a quilt kit before!  Karen made me do it...  ;-). When I saw this Moda Good Times Under the Stars kit, it reminded me of so many gorgeous star quilts that I'd pinned to my Pinterest boards or admired in magazines over the years, and it was nearly half off in a clearance sale -- I couldn't resist.  

I love the design, but I am going to have to tweak it just a little bit to make it my own.  First of all, the quilt is designed to finish at 88" x 95", and I'm going to want mine a little bigger to more generously fit a Queen sized bed with a deep pillow top mattress.  I'm going to disregard (and REcomplicate!) the instructions for the smaller stars, which are designed as a single applique piece for each star (mine will be pieced from diamonds).  I'm going to add a wider border, or multiple borders of some kind, to get my quilt to the size I want it to be.  But I'm also going to mix in some other fabrics with the ones that came in the kit.

Two reasons for doing this: First of all, quilters who have more experience with kits than I do have warned me that sometimes a kit will be short fabric, or won't have enough extra fabric to save you if you make a cutting mistake.  I ALWAYS make cutting mistakes -- every single quilt.  I just factor in extra yardage now, automatically.  Instead of purchasing additional yardage or precuts from the Moda Good Times collection, exactly like what I got in my kit, I decided that my quilt would have even more vintage appeal -- and I would have even more options if I ran out of something -- if I mixed in some coordinating fabrics from my stash.  The fat quarters and half yards that you see laid out on the right side of the photo above are the stash fabrics that I'm thinking of mixing in with my kit fabrics.  But I'm not ready to start this project yet, so I just crammed those FQs into the box with the kit fabrics and pattern instructions and set it aside.

Third Tangent: Planning Block #5 for Beware the Ishmaelites Sampler

Does anyone remember the Moda Modern Building Blocks Sampler from a few years ago?  Typically for me, I redrafted and resized the whole thing in my EQ8 software, recoloring it in Kona Solids to coordinate with the graphic Italian wallpaper in my son' en suite bath, swapped out some of the blocks that I wasn't wild about, made everything weird sizes that are anything but ruler friendly so I'd have to foundation paper piece and template piece everything, and added striped borders to get the size I wanted for Son the Younger's Queen bed.  Here's my version, renamed Beware the Ishmaelites because it is much more colorful than his older brother's quilt, and it reminded me of Joseph's Coat of Many Colors in the Bible and how his jealous siblings faked his death and sold him to the Ishmaelites for revenge:

I bought all of the fabric and started in on the largest blocks in the quilt back in 2016.  I've finished exactly four of these blocks so far, so I should probably crank out another one, don't you think?!  The next block is thankfully a lot more straightforward than the last few.  It's even ruler-friendly, so I can just cut out the pieces and sew them together.  Imagine that!  Its the yellow and white block in the upper left corner of the quilt, second down from the top.

Since I redrafted the whole quilt in EQ8, I'm not using the Moda instructions at all for this quilt.  What you see in the photo above is the Rotary Cutting Chart that I'm able to print out for any block in EQ, whether it's a block that was preloaded into the Block Library or a block that I drafted from scratch.  What I did this morning is figure out how I want to piece the block and which way I'll press all of the seam allowances to get a flat block with seams that nest at intersections.  I'll be making four of the 5" corner units, four of the 5" yellow and white side units, joining these into three rows, and then sewing the rows together to complete the block.  I might even do this TODAY, if I manage to drag myself away from the computer...

The last time I pieced a block for this quilt was before I started piecing my Spirit Song quilt (on the left side of the design wall above), the one that's currently on my long arm frame and is about 75% quilted at this point.  I've still got the blocks for Ishmaelites on the right side of my design wall because "out of sight, out of mind," and this quilt is one of my top piecing priorities, alongside the baby quilt for the baby who's almost two now...  

That's enough dilly-dallying for today, don't you think?  I'm linking up today's post with some of my favorite linky parties:

TUESDAY

·       Colour and Inspiration Tuesday at Clever Chameleon

·       To-Do Tuesday at Home Sewn By Us

WEDNESDAY

·       Midweek Makers at Quilt Fabrication

·       Wednesday Wait Loss at The Inquiring Quilter

THURSDAY

·       Needle and Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation  

Kaffe Fassett Mediterranean Hexagons Colour Workshop Recap

I took a workshop with Kaffe Fassett and Brandon Mably last week!  The project was the Mediterranean Hexagons quilt from the book Kaffe Fassett's Quilts in Morocco, available on Amazon here (affiliate link).

Brandon Mably and Rebecca the Rebellious Workshop Student

I'm going to start with a quick synopsis so those of you who are crunched for time can just skim through the pictures and be done with it: 

Everyone loved this workshop except me.  

Seriously -- no fault of Kaffe and Brandon whatsoever; they were delightful.  I was miserable.  I couldn't follow directions.  I wasted a lot of money and -- worse! -- I wasted a lot of FABRIC.  But Brandon was nice to me, and I learned to read the workshop description first before stampeding to the front of the line to sign up for a class next time.  By the way, just because I didn't enjoy the class doesn't mean I wouldn't recommend it to others.  If you have a small hoard of fabulous Kaffe Fassett prints in your stash that you just don't know how to use in a quilt, or if you tend to stay in your comfort zone when it comes to color and you want to learn how Kaffe puts his fabulous combinations together, you would LOVE this workshop.  Kaffe and Brandon are delightfully entertaining and I swear I was the only person in the room who was feeling stifled.

Original Mediterranean Hexagons Quilt from the book, made by Judy Baldwin

I shouldn't have signed up for this class in the first place, since it was all about learning how to imitate Kaffe Fassett's color and design style.  I love his fabric designs, but I'm not really interested in making quilts that look like they were designed by someone else.  Also, having worked as an interior designer for 20+ years, I'm used to having to work within a client's parameters as far as how much color and pattern they can live with and which colors they prefer or dislike, but I am NOT used to having anyone walk up while I'm creating a color palette and snatch fabrics right out of my hands or off my design wall...  Honestly, what first attracted me to quilting is that I can put whatever crazy prints and colors together that my little heart desires, without needing anyone else's approval before the project can move forward.  Quilting for me is about total design freedom -- and yet here I was, in a very restrictive class where I had to design a quilt using the same two shapes as everyone else.  Students were instructed to fussy-cut large scale prints from the same color family for their hexagons, and then Kaffe and Brandon helped each student select a wildly different color for their triangle star points that would make their hexagons "glow."  The workshop is ideally suited to anyone who admires the glorious mixes of colors and prints in Kaffe's work, but who doesn't feel confident putting those combinations together on their own.  Although we all brought lots of fabrics to class, the quilt shop sponsoring the event had also stocked the classroom with bolts of fabric from their store that students could shop from to supplement what they'd brought with them, and those were the fabrics available for Kaffe and Brandon to suggest to students whose fabrics from home weren't wowing them once they were cut up and positioned on the design wall.

Kaffe Fassett Explaining to the Class Why He Hates My Project

Okay, so Kaffe didn't REALLY tell the whole class that he hated my project, but he was definitely frustrated with me for Willfully Failing to Follow Directions.  He said my hexagon fabrics were not all the same color family as instructed; rather they were all the same MOOD.  And I knew that; every fiber of my being was resisting the conformity of using the same fabrics/colors/design concept as everyone else in the class.  When I rooted through my stash to decide which fabrics to bring, I was mostly drawn to some Anna Maria Horner prints that meshed with the Melancholy Autumn vibe I was feeling that day.  And whereas most of the students in the Kaffe Fassett workshop were using Kaffe Fassett Collectives fabrics, I deliberately chose different fabrics so my project wouldn't look like everyone else's.  However, the fabrics I'd selected for my star points were all VETOED by Kaffe.  And then I ran into the dilemma of being halfway through an all-day workshop, with no fabrics that I liked for the star points among what I'd brought from home, yet none of the fabrics lined up in bolts in the classroom was doing it for me, either.  

Students Working With Kaffe Fabric Prints Had the Most Options for Coordinating Fabrics

There was nothing in that conference room that looked amazing with my "moody" hexagons -- all of the fabrics that were brought in for the class were too bright and cheerful.  So I ended up settling for these ugly dark teal batiks that you see in the photo above...  And since they are about the same value as my hexagons, those fabrics (which I had to purchase in class in order to avoid sitting there doing nothing all afternoon) just make the whole think look like a muddy mess.  Blech!  I agree, Kaffe; my project is hideous -- and the whole exercise of cutting up my favorite fabrics just so I can put them up and the wall and THEN decide if I like how it looks?  That feels like the DARK AGES to me!!!  Never again!!  You guys, I butchered so many fabrics in this workshop that are not even going into a quilt now.  What a horrendous waste, especially since some of them are treasured discontinued skus!  I wish I'd had a computer in the class loaded with EQ8 quilt design software (affiliate link) so I could audition fabrics like a sensible 21st century quilter, and only start cutting into fabric (or purchasing additional fabric!) once I was 100% certain I was going to love how everything looked together.

The Digital Workshop Do-Over in EQ8

So today, with a little help from fabulous Matt at EQ Tech Support (he walked me through setting up the quilt layout for the hexagons with star points, which only took about 5 minutes), I decided to give myself a Digital Do-Over for the workshop.  This is what I came up with:

This is the Vibe I Was Going For in Class

This first version is what I was originally aiming for in class.  Kaffe wanted everyone to pick out fabrics for their star points that would "make their hexagons glow," but I wanted to explore what it would look like for my stars to glow and my hexagons to recede instead.  And of course, unlike designing a quilt by chopping up actual fabric to audition it on a wall, once I've set up the quilt layout in EQ8 software I can recolor it over and over again as many times as I want, without wasting any fabric in the process.  It's a LOT easier to change your mind about a fabric that isn't working with the others when you haven't already chopped your yardage up into Swiss cheese.

So here's my second version, which did use mostly Kaffe Fassett Collective prints:

See, I CAN Follow Directions.  I Just Choose Not To!

By the way, these computer renderings are totally to scale, and the fabrics are all to scale as well.  I can rotate them and slide them around to simulate "fussy cutting" a particular flower so it's right in the center of my hexagon, as well.

Version Three, Also Following Directions

See?  I was able to design two quilts that look like they came right out of a Kaffe Fassett book.  But I still like my version with the gold stars better, even if no one else does!

Still My Favorite

If I was actually going to make any of these quilts, I'd have to jazz up some of those hexagons, maybe with some appliqué in some of them or some pieced hexagons made from stripes.  I can actually plop any pieced block design inside my hexagon with EQ8, so I could put stars within stars...  The possibilities are limitless.

Anyway, I'm done with classes and workshops for awhile.  I've got too much of a backlog of unfinished projects, too many ideas swirling around in my own mind, and too many techniques that need to be practiced until they are developed and solidified into skills. 

I'll probably write up an EQ8 tutorial within the next two days, showing how to draw this quilt layout in the software, just for my own future reference so I don't forget, but I've got some other work to get caught up with first.

Meanwhile, I'm linking up with:

MONDAY

·       Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts  

·       Monday Making at Love Laugh Quilt

·       Moving it Forward at Em's Scrap Bag

·       BOMs Away Katie Mae Quilts  

TUESDAY

·       Colour and Inspiration Tuesday at Clever Chameleon

WEDNESDAY

·       Midweek Makers at Quilt Fabrication

·       “WOW” WIPs on Wednesday at Esther's Blog

THURSDAY

·       Needle and Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation  

Pineapple Log Cabin Block 36 FINISHED! Tweaking My Design in EQ8 For a Custom Fit to My Bed

You guys, I am ON FIRE!  Not only did I venture out in a monsoon to restock my home with groceries yesterday, but I also got caught up with all of the laundry, reviewed a couple of tricky passages in the Brahms, and stayed up past midnight to finish one more pineapple log cabin block.  BEHOLD:

Pineapple Log Cabin Block 36 (out of 42?)

Here are the answers to the most common questions I've been getting about this project:

1. I am paper piecing the blocks using a free foundation pattern that I downloaded from Fons & Porter here, but after taping just one block together I took it to my local FedEx shop and printed single page copies on their large format printer.
2. The blocks finish at approximately 17 3/4".
3. The fabric strips are cut at 1 1/2" wide since I'm paper piecing, but the finished width of the strips is 3/4"
4. Each block contains 97 pieces, and each block is taking me roughly SIX hours to piece.
5. I'm making this for my California King bed that measures 72" wide by 84" long.  

If you google something like "standard quilt sizes" or "Cal King quilt dimensions," you can find a whole slew of handy little charts telling you exactly what size to make your quilt.  But as an interior designer who specializes in high end custom work, I am begging you to never, ever decide what size to make your quilt based on somebody else's chart or pattern instructions.  Whenever I design custom bedding for my clients, I always measure the client's actual bed to determine sizes.  Mattresses come in such a variety of depths these days, and if you're going to all of the trouble to pay for -- or spending all of the TIME to make -- why would you want to pay for custom without getting a custom fit?  

So the Fons & Porter pattern calls for 16 blocks in a 4 x 4 layout to recreate this antique quilt in the collection of the International Quilt Study Center  which measures approximately 74" x 76" (Imagine that -- antique quiltmakers weren't perfect, either!):  

Original Antique Quilt, 74" x 76", Sixteen Blocks Measuring 17 3/4"

Ah, sixteen blocks -- I could have been finished with this quilt SO LONG AGO!  But I want to put this on the California King bed in my master bedroom, so I knew I needed a lot more blocks than 16.

My original plan was to make 36 blocks for a 6 x 6 layout that would give me a quilt top measuring 106.5" x 106.5", and that would be perfect, right?  No sashing or borders required, and it would look pretty much like this EQ7 rendition that I made after completing the first block:

EQ7 Rendition of 36 Blocks, Set 6 x 6, with Coral 1/4" Binding

By the way, I made that rendition by importing a cropped photo of my first finished pineapple block into my EQ7 software, setting up a new quilt with a 6 x 6 horizontal layout, and just pasting copies of that same block into every square.  It only took me a few minutes, and it was a great way to make sure I liked what I was doing with my color and value placement early on in the piecing process.  Since this quilt is super scrappy and every block is unique, there will be a lot more variation in the finished quilt.  You can see that in this photo from the last time I had some of my actual completed quilt blocks up on my design wall:

Actual Completed Pineapple Blocks On My Design Wall

I love using EQ this way, as a "Virtual Design Wall."  See how well my computer rendering "predicted" what a bunch of these blocks would look like together?  I love, love, LOVE my EQ8 software (I updated to the newest version while this project was in progress) and it was worth every penny.  Seriously -- I have spent more on fabric to make one quilt than the cost of this design software, and has paid for itself many times over by preventing me from making a whole quilt and not realizing that it isn't working out the way I want until ALL of the blocks have been made.  The newest version, EQ8, is even more user friendly than previous versions, and my "sneak peak" technique is just the tip of the iceberg for what you can do with it.

Seriously, if you buy EQ8 and you can't figure out how to use it, please reach out to me and I would love to help you.  I'd consider it my way to "pay it forward" for all of the times that more experienced quilters have reached out to me when I needed help.   You can take all the design classes in the world and read every book out there about color theory, but the easiest and most foolproof way to ensure you're making a quilt that YOU will love is to try out different color combinations on your computer screen ahead of time and make sure what you see on your computer monitor matches the beautiful vision you have in your mind.

Okay, so back to my pineapple log cabin quilt.  Yes, I love how 36 blocks looks laid out in a straight 6 x 6 setting with no borders, but will it be big enough for my bed?

I found this chart at TheSewingLoft.com, and it's a great reference for anytime you're making a quilt that is NOT for one specific bed -- like a quilt for a raffle, a quilt for a show or craft fair, or a surprise gift for a faraway friend whose mattress cannot be measured ahead of time.  According to this chart, my quilt only needs to be 102" x 106" to fit a California King mattress.  36 blocks that finish at 17 3/4" in a 6 x 6 layout would give me a quilt top that measures 106.5" x 106.5", and that would be perfect, right?  

Measuring Mattress Depth is Crucial to a Good Fit

--But, no.  My mattress is 72" wide by 84" long, and those dimensions are pretty standard for a California King.  However, "standard" mattress depth is around 9-10", but I have an extra-deep pillow top mattress on my bed that is 16" thick.  I want the finished quilt to completely cover the mattress on all three sides of the bed, so I have to take my extra deep mattress into consideration.  

What's more, as anyone who has ever made a quilt knows, the quilt top is going to draw up and get smaller during the quilting process (by about 5-10%, depending on how densely I quilt it), and then I may get a little more shrinkage in the final wash as well, depending on what kind of batting I end up using.  Remember I told you that it takes me 6 hours to make just one of these blocks.  Imagine going to all of this work only to put the finished quilt on my bed and discover that it is too small?!

So, how DO I know how big to make my quilt?  Here's my Magic Math:

• Mattress Width = 72".  Mattress Length = 84".  Mattress DEPTH = 16".
• Mattress Width 72" + 2(Mattress Depth 16") = Minimum Finished Width 104"
• Mattress Length 84" + Mattress Depth 16" = Minimum Finished Length 100"

At this point, it seems like my original plan of 36 blocks will work just fine, right?  That would result in a quilt top measuring 106.5" x 106.5".  But I haven't factored in ANY shrinkage from quilting and laundering.  Even if I was using all prewashed fabrics, a polyester batting with minimal or no shrinkage, and I was planning to do minimal quilting such as a very loose all over meander, I'd still want to factor in at least 5% shrinkage.  Here's how to determine what size the quilt top needs to be PRIOR to quilting in order for the finished quilt to come out the desired size AFTER quilting if we estimate 5% shrinkage:

• Minimum Finished Width 104" ÷ .95 = 109.5" Minimum Width Before Quilting
• Minimum Finished Length 100" ÷ .95 = 105.25" Minimum Length Before Quilting

However, I am NOT planning to use an all polyester batting with zero shrinkage, and I am probably going to do a moderately heavy amount of quilting rather than a loose, open meander.  I consulted with veteran longarm quilters in a couple of quilters' groups that I belong to, and the consensus seems to be that 10% shrinkage is the safest margin to allow for most longarm quilted quilts.  So now, let's do that math again to see how big my quilt top should be before quilting in order to finish the size I want it to be on my bed:

• Minimum Finished Width 104" ÷ .90 = 115.5" Minimum Width Before Quilting
• Minimum Finished Length 100" ÷ .90 = 111" Minimum Length Before Quilting

With 10% shrinkage factored in, my 36 block quilt top can be expected to finish up at just 95 3/4" x 95 3/4" when all is said and done.  That means I have about 4 1/2" of mattress exposed beyond the edges of my quilt on all three sides of my bed.  Boo, hiss!

So then I thought I'd make another row of blocks to cover the width, and just scoot the quilt down a few inches at the top.  But that doesn't sit right with me, either, because why am I bothering to make a custom quilt that isn't a custom fit to my bed?  This is where the large size of the blocks complicates design options.  Really, adding another row of 17 3/4" blocks is adding too much width to the sides, and it does nothing to give me the few extra inches I'd like at the foot of the bed.  Back to EQ8 to explore my options!  

Playing With Borders In EQ8 Software

My first idea was to add three 3/4" borders and a 3/4" pieced sashing between the blocks that would blend into the adjacent neutral, blue, or green fabrics, but when I previewed that in my software I didn't love my quilt as much anymore.

First Idea: Pieced Sashing and Plain, Skinny Borders.  Yuck.  Rejected!

There are advantages to this setting.  For one thing, it eliminates the need burning, passionate desire I have to try to match up all of those seams where my blocks come together.  But I am a glutton for punishment, and I want to pin all those little seams and make myself crazy matching them up.  That's just who I am.  Also, the plain, skinny borders would be a quick and easy fix, but they just look so juvenile and plain, no matter which fabrics I "painted" them.  So I scrapped the sashing (so much easier to do in the computer by clicking "no sashing" rather than ripping out all of those stitches in real life!) and tried some other options.  I have not reached a firm decision, but here are the top contenders at this point:

OPTION ONE: 6" of Piano Key Border for a Quilt Top Measuring 119" x 119"

OPTION TWO: Same as Option One, But Without the Coral Inner Border

OPTION THREE: Same as One and Two, But More Light Neutrals in the Outer Border, Plus Corner Blocks

OPTION FOUR: Same Cute Corner Blocks, But Now With Flying Geese Border

When I started writing this post, I thought I had this narrowed down to either Option Three or Option Four.  I can print foundation paper piecing patterns for the flying geese border right from EQ8 so although it will take a lot of TIME to piece the geese, I won't have any problem piecing them accurately, even if they work out to crazy sizes that are not rotary-cutting-friendly.  I think the scale might be too large, though, and I'm not sure I want to introduce a new element (geese) in the border.  For Option Three, I'd just be piecing together a border from my leftover strips and they'd be the same size as the strips in the pineapple blocks.  But is that too boring? 

Now, though, looking at the design renderings again, I find myself drawn to Option Two again, for its simplicity.  Does that one do the best job of preserving the fresh, modern graphic appeal the blocks had without borders?  My brain hurts, and it's time to walk away from the computer!! 

Yeah, so much for another "quick" blog post after breakfast.  Hah!  If you have ideas or opinions about the borders for my pineapple log cabin quilt, please share in the comments.  Thanks!

I'm linking up with:

       Let’s Bee Social at www.sewfreshquilts.blogspot.ca/

·       Midweek Makers at www.quiltfabrication.com/

·       WOW WIP on Wednesday at www.estheraliu.blogspot.com

·       WIPs With Friends at www.mamaspark.blogspot.com

• ·       Needle and Thread Thursday at http://www.myquiltinfatuation.blogspot.com/