Slopes to Top

 

I sewed all of the Slopes rows together yesterday. I pinned at each and every intersection to help the seams to nest and match up.

I didn't press the rows as I sew them together. The pressing that I did 

as I assembled the rows worked out really well.

Definitely needs some pressing!

All done, but not pressed. As you can see!

There we go, much better.

Some of the intersections are better than others.

Really pointy points.

Woohoo! I'm glad this finally together.

Designing Chaos

 

1,3,5,8,6,9,7,2,4.

Here's what Slopes looks like when I switch up the position of the rows. I jotted down each version just because. This is the order when numbered from the original top to bottom position of the rows: 1,3,5,8,6,9,7,2,4..

1,3,5,8,6,9,7,2,4.

Here is: 2,5,7,6,3,9,1,4,8 Pretty different, huh?

2,5R,7,6R,9.3,4,1R,8

Next, I wanted to see what would happen if I reversed the direction left to right of some of the rows. So this is the same row order as above with some of the rows reversed right to left: 2,5R,7,6R,9.3,4,1R,8 The overall emphasis on the diamonds turns into two colored triangles. Very choppy looking to me.

 2,5,7,6,9,3,4,1,8

And then this is the final version: 2,5,7,6,9,3,4,1,8 It makes me think of shark fins (or teeth), sharp sharp sharp angles. I do kind of like that one lavender diamond in the upper right.

Original and Now Final 

After looking at all these versions, I guess I really do like the original one the best. But it was fun to see how much chaotic-ness ensued just by moving things around. I honestly am surprised a bit about that, I guess my original block placement design was more "planned out" than I'd realized. With this much action going on with the colors and shapes, a bit of considered planning was worth it. 

Honestly, this little experiment here was worth the price of admission to me. I've demonstrated to myself that my version of planned or controlled chaos is worth the time it takes to design, to me. Of course I know that, but sometimes one forgets...it took a lot of work to make something big enough to play around with in this way, but well worth it. Now to sew this thing together!

Sunny Report

I've been spending time outside on the deck this weekend, enjoying the spring blooming that's happening. And reading a gigantic Stephen King library book, Fairy Tale. 

Our olive tree finally got moved. Well, DH and DS dug it up and moved it. The change in location didn't just happen on its own of course. We didn't expect the tree to get so tall, I think it was supposed to be a dwarf version? But it was almost hitting the power lines, so off to the edge of our garden it went. Fingers crossed it survives the transplantation. I think the gray-ish leaves will look nice against the dark redwoods.

The lilacs are going crazy this year, it smells really really amazing.

The cherry tree is in blossom too, and I'm so pleased it didn't fall over in the storms.

One of the dead branches came off of it, but that was fine. It's soaked up all the rain and burst forth. The bees are Very Busy.

Four ravens overhead, silent while they glide the currents.their shadows enough to bring me out of the 600 page book.
 

Nine Rows of Slopes

I left off piecing together the Slopes top with five rows to go. I'm documenting as I go to help with getting the piecing correct.

Sometimes I screw up on getting a picture though, like in this case. I found another block that was trimmed to be too small, so I had to sub in another from elsewhere in the remaining design so I had to refigure the piecing order to get it right.

Finally, I got down to the very last row. I was watching the SF Giants play the Detroit Tigers on my iPad as I sewed. It's interesting when they broadcast the games on Apple TV, the camera work is so different. It helped make the sort of boring sewing go faster.

Yes! All nine rows are assembled now. And hopefully they will be fairly easy to sew to each other as I did a whole lot of pressing on each row as I went. I like this design quite a lot, but before I sew them together I'm going to label the rows and then move them around. Just to see if anything jumps out as a better alternative final arrangement.

Rows of Slopes

It's time to sew this Slopes quilt together, I need the design wall back! The first row went together quickly.

So far so good,  but I did find that one block was trimmed to the wrong size, sigh. I'm pressing alternating rows to the right or left so that it'll nest well when I sew the rows together.

Once again, I'm amazed at how the row shrinks up so much when all the blocks are sewn together. Every single time it surprises me, what's that about? It's so hard for me to conceive of all those 1/4" seam allowances over the width of a quilt.

Four done already!I'm liking the sides where the pattern breaks down, the chaos on the edge is very delicious somehow.The secondary patterns are workin well to my eye too, so I'm happy with it.

Path Words

 

As I've been going along working on the Trinket blocks, I've found that I really have been enjoying using the fabric with words called "Path", as seen here in the HST block above. From far away it really "reads as solid." Also...the actual words are pretty cool, "Tonight is a beautiful day"

This is one of the Sunprints line which was from 2019. I have a collection of fabrics with words/typography and somehow missed buying these back then. I really liked how these prints "read as solid" when used in the blocks and felt that I needed some more of that happening in my Trinket quilt. I also had a couple spots missing in the color coverage (purple and blue).

I decided to search online to see if anyone was still selling this fabric four years later and I found The Trendy Little Geek shop still had 8 colors remaining on offer. I had to include this picture just because of LeeLoo's hilarious expression. I had just spoken to her and she was mad that she had been interrupted while inspecting the new fabric arrival.

I was really impressed with the super quick delivery and the very nice communication (and refund) about the small amount of sun damage that was on this pink piece. If you're looking for OOP Tula Pink or Alison Glass fabrics, check them out they have a lot of oldies. 

I also noticed this on their website: "April Hansen, the owner of this shop passed away May 12, 2021 from a 28 year lifelong battle with Cystic Fibrosis. This store will go on-because of her love for Tula Pink fabrics. Her inventory of current and retired fabrics is extensive." and am even more happy to have shopped with them.

That is it for fabric acquisitions for now, especially for the Trinket quilt, as I am now declaring that I have "enough".

Flying Pantone Geese

 

I'm in the midst of making new blocks for the Pantone Project and one of the blocks we're making is comprised of two Flying Geese units stacked together to make up the 4.5" square. I've been going down my list (well honestly, it's a database) of blocks that I've made and trying to even it up as to which blocks I'm contributing. I think there are 27 possible blocks, and we have 100 cards/colors. So that makes three to four of each one is what I'm shooting for in the end. 

As I was about to trim to size the Flying Geese units I remembered that I have a Bloc Loc Flying Geese ruler that is specifically for this purpose. Also important, I was able to put my hands on it nearly immediately. And it turned out that it is the exact size that I needed, score!  

Bloc Loc is such an innovative,  brilliant idea, that little 1/4" wide channel for the seam allowances works like magic every single time. And it works even better in the Flying Geese context, the ruler snugs right into place and really really stays put so that you can accurately trim. I remember thinking that it was a bit pricey for a single use ruler but it's definitely been worth it in my opinion. 

I remember that I had recently figured out that I really like the Flying Geese unit and that they really work best when those points stay pointy. I'm glad that I bought a size that has been very useful to me.

Pantone Project Choosing

 

Another small accumulation of Pantone Project Postcards have prompted me into action to make some more blocks for friend Jaye. This time I've taken pictures of several of the cards with the final candidates.

To help choose I've taken the photo and edited it to be black and white to inform the choice I end up making. Exactly matching the Pantone Postcard color is of course, pretty impossible, but it's a fun exercise to try and get close.

In some cases it really helps quite a lot. Especially when one of the fabrics is the one I like the best but is really not a great color match.

I think of it as another piece of information in the decision tree. 

This one was tough, I really wanted to use that bullseye fabric, or the one with the oval shapes.

But neither of those was close enough, too many steps off.

Here's the final choices, and now on to making a bunch of blocks.

Thinking About Making

 

I'm participating in Jane Dunnewold's class, Creative Strength Training (CST) this year. So far it's been very inspiring and I'm getting a lot out of attending the online meetings, working through the prompts and collage projects. Jane has been framing a lot of this work on archetypes, which are great ways to think about oneself and how we're internally constructed. She recently wrote and self-published a book, Damsel, Hero, Artist, Judge-Meditations on Archetypes and Creativity which I just started reading and working through. It's beautifully illustrated with interesting and thought-provoking fiber, collage and other artwork.

I am finding that there is a lot of value in the time I spend on thinking about my overall creativity whether it is done via meditating or journalling or sketching. It's fairly easy to just keep busy and make stuff I like in a surface-y non-thoughtful way. But spending just a little bit of time thinking about the "why" of it all is worthwhile to me too. I am looking forward to trying out the 35 meditations that are included in the book.

Five More Trinkets

 

I was on a roll, so here are the next five Trinket SAL blocks. 

For the most part these aren't too hard to piece, even for 4.5" blocks.

This one didn't really need to be FPP of course, but it turned out very nicely.

I like this one, although the background print loses a bit of definition to the hourglass shape.

This one is very odd, but I like it. Reminds me of a plant growing in a field if you get down to ground level and look.

This one was the hardest to do of the five. Do you see the little square in the center of different colored fabric? I tried to fussy cut that little design and it almost worked.

The difficulty rating of this block was mostly due to the teeny tiny center strip it required.

It certainly doesn't help when I make silly rookie-level mistakes like this one.

But eventually all three sections were ready to be sewn together and pressed open.

Two weeks of Trinket SAL done!