Monday, June 11, 2018

Pineapples On the Design Floor, With Border Bliss!

Pineapple Log Cabin Layout Finalized
I had a hunch that my church would be pretty quiet on a Saturday morning in June, so I packed up my pineapple log cabin blocks and label stickers and used the floor of the Lower Commons (a large lobby/fellowship area outside the Sanctuary) to lay out my quilt blocks.  It took me about an hour to get my 36 blocks laid out in a 6 x 6 grid without any of the same fabric strips right next to one another or too close to one another where any of the corners meet up.  
Aerial Shot Taken From Upper Commons Balcony
My blocks still have foundation paper backings, so I wasn't worried about getting the blocks dirty from the floor.  Once I'd finalized my layout the way I wanted it, I used permanent label stickers from an office supply store to label each block with its row letter and column number, to ensure that I get the blocks sewn together the same way I laid them out.
Labeled With Stickers
Yes, I could have written on the foundation paper backing, but those papers need to be removed just prior to sewing the blocks together.  I'll have slight fudging to do at the outer seam intersections due to imperfectly aligning the foundation sections prior to photocopying them, and/or photocopying distortion.  Who knows how long it will take to carefully remove all those little bits of paper, and it would be all too easy to accidentally rotate or flip a block and sew the wrong side to the next block, so I went with stickers -- and "permanent" label stickers rather than the "removable" kind, too, because I don't want them coming off accidentally.  I don't think there's any such thing as a sticker that would PERMANENTLY adhere to cotton fabric, especially to cotton fabric that has been so heavily starched as my blocks have been throughout construction.

 When I headed to the church with my stack of blocks, I was planning to just lay out 30 of my blocks in a 5 x 6 grid, to which I would add a border of partial blocks around all four sides with scalloped edges to get the finished quilt large enough for my California King bed.  That would have looked something like this:
Scalloped Partial Block Border Plan
I would have had to take apart six of the blocks I worked so hard to piece, and I would have had to make twenty more partial pineapple blocks in addition to the butchered blocks...  Since each full block took 6 hours to piece, this scalloped partial block border would require approximately SEVENTY-FIVE additional hours of piecing.  And once it was done, this would not be some amazing show quilt, because I'm going to be quilting it myself with my wobbly, newbie longarm quilting skills.  

 But I have already made 36 blocks, and you know what?  I just do not want to make any more of them.  I want to be DONE with this quilt; I want it out of my studio and onto my bed, this pineapple log cabin quilt that has been exactly FOUR YEARS in the making.  If I had any idea this quilt would take me so long, I would never have started it in the first place.  

I don't know if this is just a summer phase, but I am moving away from clutter and overscheduling and overcomplicating and working on simplifying my life right now.  I've backed out of some commitments that were taking up too much of my time and energy, I've whacked a bunch of things off my To Do list that don't really need to get done, and I'm looking at this sewing hobby that is supposed to be relaxing and holding myself accountable for turning every single project into a giant flying stress monkey!  I have 6 quilts in progress right now, none of which are ready to be loaded onto my empty longarm frame, and I know that I also need -- WANT -- to make a special quilt for my son's high school graduation about a year from now.  

 And so, I am not making any more pineapple log cabin blocks, and I am using all 36 blocks that I have already made. In order to get to the size I need to fit my bed comfortably, I will be adding a 3/4" solid blue border, same width as my pineapple strips, and then I am going to add a 6" wide outer border in this large scale Kaffe Fassett Collective print that I selected at my not-quite-local quilt shop on Saturday afternoon:
Kaffe Fassett Dream Floral in Red
I like the Bohemian folk art quality of this floral print, "Dream Floral" in Red from Kaffe Fassett Collective.  It is bright and cheerful without being too juvenile, and it has a vintage vibe.  I like the splotches of blues and greens that tie into the primary colors of my pineapple blocks, and I like that this fabric is predominantly the coral color that I used for the centers and corners of every pineapple block.
Border Fabric Auditioned in EQ8 Software
In the computer rendering above, the quilt blocks are represented by a tiled photograph of a single completed pineapple block, whereas the border is from a scan of the print fabric that I got from the fabric manufacturer's web site, imported into EQ8 software, and scaled to represent the size of the fabric print accurately.  The big difference between photos and scanned images is that photos have more muted colors and shadows, which makes the scanned fabrics look too garish and bright.  This couldn't be helped; the flat bed on my printer/scanner is not big enough to scan one of these enormous blocks!  In the photo below, you can see that the actual fabric is much softer than it appears in the computer rendering, and the colors tie in with my blocks beautifully.  I like how it plays with my drapery, pillow and upholstery fabrics, too.  
Final Border Fabric Audition, In Situ
Doesn't that border fabric look PERFECT with my blocks?!  Including these borders, my quilt top should measure approximately 120" x 120" when I load it onto my 12' longarm frame.  It should end up somewhere between 108" to 114" square after quilting and laundering, taking 5-10% shrinkage into account.  

 I am SO EXCITED about this new plan that moves my pineapple quilt so much closer to completion!  Woo-hoo!

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Monday, June 4, 2018

My Jingle Applique BOM is Back On the Design Wall

I'm going to be BRIEF today, I promise.  I've got a lot on my agenda for this week, but managed to sneak in an hour in the studio yesterday to cut some new setting triangles for my Jingle BOM (Block of the Month) from 2013.  Jingle is my oldest work in progress and it bothers my son Anders that I started it five years ago and haven't finished it yet, but now that I've resolved the bleeding red dye dilemma I'm looking forward to finishing this quilt this year.  That's right, you heard it here first -- Finishing my Jingle quilt is a GOAL for 2018!
New Setting Triangles for My Jingle BOM!
Brief recap to bring you up to speed: Jingle is a free BOM designed by Erin Russek of One Piece At A Time in 2013, and as of this writing, the patterns and instructions are still available for free on her blog here.  All of the border block patterns are free; the only pattern you need to purchase is the large center medallion and that's just a $10 download from Erin's etsy shop here.  Totally worth it, IMO.  This is my very first applique project of any kind, and all of the applique is needle turned and hand-stitched according to the excellent, amazing, unbelievably awesome instructions and video tutorials on Erin's blog.  
So this is the way blocks for this quilt are set in Erin's original design:
Erin Russek's Layout for Jingle
I love the blocks, but I don't really love setting the center medallion on point with those gigantic plain setting triangles.  I want to set my center medallion straight and fill in with some pieced inner borders.

 It took me awhile to pick up where I left off, by the way.  I had cut out all of the setting triangles from the red poinsettia fabric originally, but now I've decided that I like it better with alternating red and green triangles, hence the green triangles that I cut out this morning.  There was a moment of panic, thinking that my triangles might have shrunken severely when I was soaking all the excess red dye out of them -- and then I remembered that I have Kaye England's special setting triangle ruler for Nifty Notions, and that's what I had used to cut my poinsettia setting triangles.  I really need to leave myself better notes when I pack projects away in "time out!"
Specialty Ruler for Cutting Setting Triangles
What I love about this ruler is that you can use it to cut both your setting triangles AND your side triangles from the same cut width of fabric, with the fabric grain oriented properly on both triangles, and it does the math for you based on the finished size of the blocks you're setting on point.  So in my case, these blocks are finishing at 9" and the ruler is clearly marked to indicate that 9" blocks require a 7 1/4" strip.  Easy-peasy, fairly fast once I refreshed my memory on how to use the ruler (instructions are available here), and more accurate than trying to cut out gigantic squares that are bigger than my rulers and then attempt to cross-cut them diagonally into QSTs and HSTs.  I do love my fancy toys...

 The other thing I needed to refresh my memory on was how I am supposed to sew these oversize triangles to my blocks once I've cut them out. There are lots of tutorials out there explaining the math for cutting out side triangles and corner triangles from cross-cut squares, and explaining why the setting triangles need to be QSTs (with the straight of grain on the LONG side) and why the corner triangles need to be HSTs (with the straight of grain on the SHORT sides), but this is the video I found that also explained how to sew these oversized triangles to your quilt blocks once you've cut them out:

I know this is a "no brainer" for some of my readers, but one of the main reasons I document these things in my blog is for my own benefit -- so I can find those instructions and tutorials again six years from now, when I can't remember how I did it the last time!

 My next step for Jingle -- and this is my To Do on Tuesday goal for the week -- is to assemble the on-point block borders with the setting triangles and corner triangles, trim the excess fabric from the setting triangles, and measure them.  My center applique medallion has an oversized, untrimmed block background, and I think it's best to see what side the borders will finish at first and then work backwards to figure out what size borders will fit between that on-point block border and the center medallion.  

 Maybe I will even be able to use one or more of my Accuquilt GO! Baby dies to cut out those inner pieced borders! 

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