Overlapping Octagons is finished.

Following Sujata's challenge in January to replicate one of the quilts in the book "Unconventional and Unexpected, American quilts under the radar", by Roderick Kiracofe, I made the Overlapping Octagons.

Instead of continuing with hourglass blocks at the intersections of the octagons as I did for the first few blocks, I took the fabric of the "sashing" further to form the point. The hour glass blocks gave very bulky seams at the corners of the red pieces but now there is less bulk but more Y-seams!

The original quilt was pieced by hand and I think that if I had done that I may have been finished sooner. Slow going as it was I'm glad I persevered; I'm quite comfortable with Y-seams now!

I quilted the red squares with various FMQ designs, and varying degrees of success! In the "sashing" I followed the seam lines to avoid losing the shape of the octagons. In my view that has worked well and they stand out nicely.

fabrics: scraps from stash
measurements: 38" x 44"
pieced with Aurifil 50 wt light grey
quilted with Aurifil 40 wt dark blue, dark red and bright red.

Now I'm going to look into the book again and see which quilt I would like to make next! 

Happy sewing

Marly.

Optic Strings and Conundrum - Two Flimsies

Optic Strings - the flimsy 

48" x 64"

Inspired by "Aunt Etta's" string quilt on page 135

of Unconventional and Unexpected.

Pieced using Moda solids and reproduction prints.

You can read the complete reveal post on my blog HERE.

Conundrum - the flimsy

30.5" x 42"

Pieced using the corners cut from Optic String's strip sets.

Layout inspired by "String With Grid" on page 22

of Unconventional and Unexpected.

You can read the full reveal post on my blog

by clicking HERE and scrolling down a post or two.

* * *

The U and U QAL has been so interesting.

Thanks, Sujata for posing this challenge!

With four quilt tops waiting to be quilted,

I think I'm "done" with the challenge for now . . . 

Quiltdivajulie

And still the blocks keep on coming for UANDUQAL

I'm slowly moving towards the finish line with my blocks 

"Cross"/Four Patch

for UANDUQAL

with another five shown below.

I'm looking forward to having all 30 blocks on the design wall

and spending time arranging.

It may be next week before I'm at that stage due to a

 bout of tendonitis in my forearm!

I'm having such a lot of fun playing with the colour in these blocks and

intend to spend a little time soon looking for another

inspirational quilt from the U and U book.

More next week - have a happy weekend.

Optic Geese Has a New Name - CONUNDRUM

These are the trimmed-away corner triangles

from this week's batch of Optic String blocks.

These trimmings have turned into a second project

for the #UandU quilt challenge.

Initially named Optic Geese,

I have now renamed this quilt-to-be

CONUNDRUM.

Read on and you'll see why.

Same parts sewn together into pairs and 

randomly plopped on the design wall.

This is the new inspiration quilt

from Unconventional and Unexpected.

(click here for that story)

A quick side note for those who have asked.

I am using this large triangle ruler

to cut away the sewn on corners

from the previously shared flying geese blocks.

I am not unstitching all those corners.

Here are a few more blocks on the design wall

with spaces added for future sashing and cornerstones.

Interesting to see how the different colors

appear to create such different patterns

when reduced to black and white.

Same blocks but in a different arrangement.

Again in black and white.

This has possibilities, 

but I need to work with it some more.

Checked the inspiration quilt in black and white

(phone photo of the computer screen)

to help reassure myself I'm on the right track.

And then . . . 

it happened again . . . 

What if I turn the squares on point?!?

And what if I mix up the colors

instead of keeping them in pairs?!?

The Evolution of an Idea (or how my mind works)

This IG post by Edith aka piecing passion 

recently caught my eye.

I love the red cornerstones, 

the scrappy sashing, 

and the wide possibilities for fabric choices.

When I asked, Edith shared that this IG post

was her inspiration so  I spent the next hour or so 

with pencil and graph paper to see if I could 

come up with dimensions that worked for me.

But as I pondered whether or not to add this to my 

ever-increasing project list, I kept thinking about

one of Audrey's posts at Quilty Folk

and this phrase in particular: 

"What really interests me right now 

is recreating old utility style quilts."

Honestly, that feeling is what drew me in so quickly

when Sujata announced the U and U quilt along -

I flagged at least a dozen quilts in the book

that I wanted to make using fabrics in my stash.

Another click or two on the Internet led me to this photo

of a one-patch quilt c. 1940 by Magalene Wilson 

who is one of the Gee's Bend quilters.

And another click to see more of her work

led to another of her one-patch quilts

with more red cornerstones . . . .

At which point, I had to get up

and walk away from the computer

before I found any more inspiration.

Once I was safely in the studio

I pulled out my copy of U and U

and flipped through the pages.

And my eyes landed on this one -

yet another fabulous inspiration quilt

which turns out to be one and the same

inspiration quilt Maureen chose - click HERE.

I have plenty of shirting, reproductions, and solids . . . 

but I also have too many other things going right now

to be able to drop everything and start on this idea.

Circumspect - meaning "well considered" 

will simply have to wait until October or November.

Between now and then

I'll be doing a lot of pondering

on which direction I want to go with this.

Stay tuned.

Quiltdivajulie

Optic Strings - an update

I've been making a block a day.

(or a total of seven blocks per week)

I'm thrilled that my plan to use 

a wide mix of solids and an equally wide 

group of reproduction prints is working so well.

Part of me wants to rush ahead

but reality is keeping me to my weekly plan.

And because of the way I'm making my blocks

there are corner cut-offs that just begged to be used.

So there is now a second quilt in the making!

Quiltdivajulie

p.s.  You can see the introductory post for this project HERE.

Overlapping Octagons

As I haven't posted here for some time I thought an update on my Overlapping Octagons was due.  This is the last photo of my Overlapping Octagons before the final Y-seams to bring it all together.

This has certainly been a challenge. The challenge is not yet over! Because a photo is flat it's difficult to show how the triangle sections between four red squares are refusing to lie flat.

bubbly triangles!

I have re-sewn some of the seams in the bubbly triangles; the rest I'll try to tame by hand when I finish joining all the columns. I think I probably have more control over the fabric when hand sewing.

Much as I like the effect of the vertical white fissures in the first photo, they are not a design feature; my next task is to join columns 1 and 2, and then to join that section to columns 3 and 4. Lastly I'll be joining the seams between columns 4 and 5. Somewhere along the line I see I need to add a couple of small triangles in the edges, and to add triangles to three of the four corners. I haven't yet decided whether or not this quilt is calling for a border. What do you think?

Happy sewing

Marly.

Optic Strings - Another U&U Project

I ran across The 100 Day Project last week

and realized it was excellent motivation

for me to work on one of my projects 

for the Unconventional and Unexpected QAL.

I have always loved this quilt 

in Roderick Kiracofe's book.

My version will feature a mix 

of solids and reproduction fabrics.

It will also be smaller than the quilt in the book

with a layout 8 blocks wide x 10 blocks long.

Here is the information on the inspiration quilt.

This photo shows my nearly-final fabric pull . . .

And this is what 80 sets of strips look like

when sorted using my paper plate system.

This is that same group of 80 sets of strips

but shown from a different angle.

I can't wait to get started on this one

which I have named Optic Strings.

* * *

My goal is to make a block a day

during the next 100 days  --

and if I get the blocks done in time,

I will include the layout process

as part of my 100 Day Challenge.

Each Monday I'll share an update post on my blog

with the blocks from the previous week.

Here's to making progress!

Quiltdivajulie

Overlapping Octagons and Y-seams

For the UandUQAL organised by Sujata Shah I am reproducing the Overlapping Octagons quilt from Roderick Kirakofe's book, "Unconventional and Unexpected". I haven't done much to it over the last few months; this is the present state of this lap quilt.

I have made octagons with red centres surrounded by predominantly dark blue strings.  With this choice I aimed to use up most of my blue and red Civil War reproduction fabrics, and with the red I succeeded and have added more modern reds, but the blue were all so dark I soon started introducing flashes of other colours.

At present they're not overlapping, but I have more red squares cut, and here I've positioned them where red squares will go in the final design.

I am pleased that the overlapping octagons have now emerged.

The octagon blocks have Y-seams at each corner, and inserting the second set of red centre blocks will involve more Y-seams. I wasn't happy about this at the beginning, and so tried making hourglass blocks in the corners, as shown here:

This is one of two hourglass blocks I retained, before I gave up on them. At each of  the corners of this hourglass block five fabrics come together making very bulky seams which I couldn't get to lie flat.

Doing Y-seams, however, means joining only three, which will lie much more easily, especially if the last string in the side panel continues into the corner triangle, as here below.

Sorry about the fuzziness!

In this corner above, one of the four string sets ends in a separate triangle; this is one of the string sets I originally joined to an hourglass block. I rejected that method because of the lack of continuity between the string set and its triangular ending as well as the bulkiness of the join.

There was only one thing for it: Y-seams. I dreaded the thought! Now I'm becoming an expert! Practice makes perfect, they say, and I've had a lot of practice! The secret lies in:

1. starting sewing the seam at the opposite end to the Y-join,
2. stopping two stitches before the point of the join and backtracking a couple of stitches. That unsewn space gives you some room to manoeuvre.
3. starting each seam four stitch lengths further than the join, stitching back two stitches to fix the seam and then stitching the seam further until two stitch lengths before the point and backtracking two to fix the seam.

The mistake I made when I first tried Y-seams was to start at the point where everything came together. It's very crowded there! Much easier to keep your distance from everyone else at the party. Approach slowly and stand still when you're close enough. After following a tutorial from Mary Huey on sewing tumbling blocks, it was plain sailing for me! Mary illustrates the process with lots of excellent, clear photos.

Happy sewing

Marly.

Progress on UandU Quilt

It has been a very busy few months. With all that is going on I am considering my UandU inspired quilt as a very slow cooking project.

I have managed to make enough of these foundation pieced blocks to make a large enough bed quilt but the question is when will I be able to cut the center squares and actually make the quilt top.

I will work on lot of hand projects this year. Who knows? I may even come back to this to hand stitch the blocks.

What are you working on today?

A Bit of Progress

After many, many days of working/playing 

with small pieces of purples, greens, and grays,

I needed a change of pace color-wise.

Time to pull out my Not a Mystery project.

I pieced ten more center string/strip sets

and trimmed them to 4.5" wide before

adding 1.5" red batik strips to the sides.

(this process was inspired by Teresa Rawson's

X Marks the Block tutorial)

The red, green, blue, and orange segments

 in the project box are wider and I am using those

for the ends of the strip/string sets to avoid

too-small pieces in the block corners.

(I re-discovered them when I pulled out

the box to get my red batik strips - after

I had pieced these ten center sections)

Eighteen blocks done.

Seventeen more to go.

(original plan was for a layout

5 wide x 7 long with 10" finished blocks --

but I'm also thinking about a minor adjustment to that plan)

Quiltdivajulie

Here it is! My answer to the #UANDUQAL challenge. I combined this with the #AHIQRED challenge over at Adhoc. Improv.  blog and I think that worked very well. There's only so many projects I can work on at one time and as usual, the idea of using an Unconventional and Unexpected quilt as inspiration could not be ignored!

Approximately 58" x 72"

You can read more about this quilt top over here at my blog. Both challenges are ones that I want to think more on, maybe have a deeper play with. So many possibilities... Thanks Sujata for another interesting quilt project!

A little more progress

Slow going presently on my quilt for

UANDUQAL

I have nine blocks right now and yesterday put a post

up on my Mystic Quilter blog

showing them up on the wall, randomly placed. as below. I have

eleven more to plan.

The block third from the left on the second row

was originally like this in my first post

but it was just too bright, you can see from the top photo above

I removed the bright pink squares, substituted with something not as garish

 and added a softer colour border strip

on two sides. Now I'm happy. 

I gave some thought to sashing because of the multitude of bright colours,

I have a fabric which looked pretty good, today I decided a few minutes ago

to butt them up together to see if they could all play nicely

together. I think they could.

The photo below is the truer colour, time of day makes all the difference I think.

My decision will be made when all twenty are finished.

Maureen

Lattice Quilt, My First Attempt at the UANDUQAL

I've finished with all the Lattice blocks now and am attempting to figure out the proper layout. You can read more about this quilt over at my blog. This particular quilt is a combined effort of trying to play with the #AHIQred' and also the UANDUQAL challenge of making an Unexpected and Unconventional inspired quilt. 

#UANDUQAL first attempt

It's not terribly obvious at this point, but I didn't try to center the lattice, just trimmed as I went. I'm hopeful that there will be a slight 'make-do' look and feel when all the blocks are finally sewn together. The book 'Unexpected and Unconventional' has been a favorite book of mine since it was first published. So much inspiration to be found within its covers! This isn't my first quilt made from that wonderful starting place and undoubtedly it will not be my last....