Orange Photos

The stars aligned and I finally did my big quilt photography project yesterday. The power was on, it wasn't too insanely hot to iron and use the hot photo bulbs, and I had enough energy reserves. I started with photographing Orange You Glad as it was already pinned up on the wall after being washed and dried.

The cast of the photo of this quilt is finally much closer to correct because of the photo bulbs I use for lighting.

I'm pleased with how the majority of the photos turned out. But boy am I ever pooped today, it really takes a lot of physical effort.

But hey, now I can update my website with the last couple of years of work.
 

A little behind the scenes peek of my set up. I use my ring light phone holder as a tripod holder. Yes, I'm using my iPhone to take the photos. It honestly works as well as the 35mm digital camera that I have. One of the big secrets is to use the timer delay so the camera is steady when the photo is taken.

Orange You Glad Finished

 

It was finally time to finish this Orange You Glad bullseye quilt which was begun in April 2022. I dug up the orange binding that I had made back in October and took this picture to commemorate the occasion complete with the kinda dumb note to self. As if I wouldn't know this orange binding would be for this quilt.

As I rounded the fourth corner...I realized I was not going to make it to where I started. Sigh, so close, about 18" away from finishing. One more WOF 2.5" strip cut, ironed and sewn on later and then I was done.

I think the darker orange Alison Glass print worked out well as a good binding frame to the craziness of this quilt.

It's a bit confusing when you try to look at the quilting to focus only on it to separate it from the top-stitched circles from the block construction phase. 

And here's how it looks: "Orange You Glad?" Done! I took this picture before washing the quilt, and if it greatly changes in size or looks I'll be sure to update this.

Thanks to friends Jaye & Adrienne, I literally couldn't have done this without you two.

Naps Suggested

 

Playing around with layouts for the Trinket quilt. This is a 14x14 arrangement. I kind of like this one.

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Another 14x14 arrangement. This features and highlights the paper pieced blocks more by centering and featuring them. Still not satisfied enough for the layout to begin sewing the blocks together.

My studio assistant has been offering helpful suggestions.

Mostly she's suggesting I take a break and maybe go lie down for a nap since I finished off quilting the Orange You Glad bullseye quilt. Which is apparently very comfy.

Definitely time to go back to napping.

Orange Bullseye Quilting

An action shot of walking foot quilting on the Orange Bullseye, "Orange You Glad"

I first did a line of stitching along all the vertical seamlines.

The extra throat space in the new sewing machine really helps.

The Hobbs 80/20 fusible batting is working out very well to hold it all steady.

It's just fun to look at, isn't it? This is after I've done a line of stitching along all the horizontal seamlines.

In one of the corners was a pinned on note to REPAIR.

Oh yeah, now I remember, I snipped this one when I was cutting out the back of the block to reduce the bulk.

A bunch of zig-zagging will likely be enough repair, and it won't be too apparent to the eye given the wild variety of color of this quilt.
 

June To-Do

 It's the rhyming month for to-do lists, hurrah. Here's how the design wall looks at the beginning of the month. Filled up with the recently basted Japanese Houses quilt. Onto the to-do's then:

Sew-A-Long Thingies

Trinket - keep piecing blocks, cut background squares

Color Collective - Sandwich the Slopes Quilt, make another side for the Clover Pillow with Swerves, start cutting for Colorwash

Stitch Happens - sandwich, quilt, bind, label.

Pantone Project - keep making blocks and sending postcards.

Temperature Quilt - keep making blocks and post about it.

Secret Lives of Colors- finish making blocks and post about it.

Added: Participate in ICAD

New Work

Mini-Quilt for SBAMQG using a word(s) in some manner. Due at next week's meeting 6/4

A Hot One to celebrate the Color of the Year, Viva Magenta

Stitch Punk and Fierce Planets - both SAQA exhibits

Finish It Up

Sightlines Triptych - make and hand sew on hanging sleeves and labels.

Y.E.S. Coat - make more blocks and pieces.

Orange Bullseye - quilt, bind, label

Japanese Houses -quilt bind, label

Quilt Photography - Still need to get it done, because I'll be needing the photos to enter a couple of upcoming shows and to update my website. Plus I really need the space back in my workroom.

April Tooo-Doooo

 

Here's how the ol' design wall is looking. A lot different from last month's picture. Several things are done and off the wall, like the SJSA blocks and the Fussy Cut Rock Candy piece. It's mostly about the Slopes for now until I decide on a final design and sew all those blocks together.

Now on to the Illustrated To-Do list for the month.

Sew-A-Long-Thingies

Trinket SAL - Begin making the weekly blocks and post them on Instagram

Pantone Project - keep making blocks, sending cards, etc.

Color Collective - get the Slopes top pieced together, make a back for the Clover pillow.

Stitch Happens - decide on borders, make backing, layer, quilt, bind, label.

Temperature Quilt - keep making blocks and start posting about it.

Secret Lives of Color - finish blocks and post about it.

Finish It Up

Checkerboard-ish - Finish quilting, bind, label. Due for SBAMQG 4/4

Climate Change Challenge Quilt - sketch, make quilt, due for BAM 5/10

Sightlines Triptych - sew down facings, sleeves, labels.

Y.E.S. Coat- make more blocks and pieces

Japanese Houses - sandwich quilt bind label

Orange Bullseye-sandwich quilt bind label

Quilt Photography - fingers crossed the power stays on and the stars align.

That is obviously puh-lenty to choose from this month. Now I have to think about what to bring to the BAM retreat in a few weeks...

Orange Around Here

The Orange Bullseye quilt top is coming together, row by row.

 Five more rows to go, so the end of this stage is definitely in sight, and then it's one last chance to change things and possibly switch up the row order. That would be a new version of playing around with this quilt top design that I haven't tried yet.

Energizing Orange

Here's the first go at putting all the finished orange bullseye blocks up on the design wall. This first picture is a random pull and placement, except for not having matching backgrounds next to one another. It's a pretty good random distribution of tints, tones and shades of all that glorious orange. Walking into my workroom is Very Energizing now, orange really is a powerful color.

You might have noticed the empty spot in the lower left corner. That's because one of our swap group made a few extra blocks. So, instead of 48,  and a 6 blocks by 8 arrangement, instead we nearly have a square of 7x7 aka 49. I will likely make another 1/4 bock to fill in the space.

But then I started in on playing around with the blocks, putting all the blocks with lots of white in the background in the right hand column, and mostly darks along the bottom and left hand side. There was one block that just really stood out as not an orange background to my eye. It was majority pink and the first circle was magenta which blended in too much, so it looked like a blob of Pink in a sea of orange. 

So now it's decision time, I either have to make two replacement 1/4 blocks to fill in, which is no big deal really as I'm sitting in a room filled with fabric options, or to take away two more 1/4 blocks and have a 6 block by 8 arrangement. 

But I think I'm liking the non-circular arrangement of the 1/4 blocks. Most of the bullseye quilts I've made have ended up going that direction. It's pretty hard to look at the design with those white squares jumping out though, isn't it? That's a thought, to put in something super contrasty instead of more 1/4 bullseye blocks.