W.i.P. Wednesday - Slow But Sure

My progress on the bed-size High Five is slow but steady. I have between half and two-thirds of the blocks made and decided there were enough to lay them out and have a look.  I wanted to see the colors, see which are too few, which too many, and whether I should omit some.  They are not arranged, just laid out.

I think I have too many lights and not enough brights, especially primary brights but maybe that's because of the way they're laid out. But maybe I really need more lights.  Today I finished more blocks but I didn't add them before taking the photo.

Progress report:

Color blocks for High Five, cut at 5"
280 (or more) needed
93 made this week
188 finished
2 in progress
90 yet to cut and sew
Hey!  If I made 93 in a week I could conceivably have all the blocks finished by next week!  Wow.  That would be progress!


Pastel strings for Sunday Morning, cut at 8"
No progress this week!
108 (or more) needed
16 sewn and cut to size
24 ready to be cut
68 in progress


String-X
Quilting still in progress
There's not exactly a way to document the progress on this unless I counted blocks quilted -- and I don't really quilt by the block.  I've decided that if I devote at least 15 minutes/day to quilting I will eventually finish it!




I've linked to W.i.P. Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.  You'll see lots of other works in progress there. too.











On Another Note:
Is anyone else feeling challenged by the new blogger interface? Its behind-the-scenes beauty is gone. It used to be easy to change the size of a photo by clicking on the image in compose mode, then using the mouse to drag the corner larger or smaller.  That option is no longer available.  How sad because it means I can't arrange 3 or 4 or 5 small photos side-by-side or in any other arrangement.   

Thoughtful Quilts, Mindless Quilts - W.i.P. Wednesday

Have you ever noticed how sometimes you have to think about the quilt you're sewing and other times you can mindlessly stitch the pieces of a quilt together?


For example, the two blocks above are mindless blocks. I collect and/or cut the strips and put them in a basket or box, then all I have to do is stitch them together one after the other. When the sewn strips are 8" wide I quit adding strips. I wait till I have a pile then iron the pieces when I'm talking on the phone or watching a program. After the stack is ironed I take them to my cutting mat and cut one edge of each block even. Next I add the perpendicular strips. I iron everything flat again, then cut each block into a square. Very little thinking involved especially if I do the same step over and over for many blocks.

On the other hand, the little blocks below take more effort. It is not a thoughtless, mindless quilt. The blocks are all the same size but each block uses 5 different fabrics: 4 of the same/similar color and one contrasting color in the center. I have a mess of fabric sitting on my table sorted into piles of different colors. I lay out each block individually to try out the fabrics. Some fabrics are used in more than one block (because my stash is not large enough to use a fabric only once). I adore making these little blocks but this quilt is not a mindless quilt.


Much more thought and time goes into a quilt like the one with the little blocks than into a scrappy string quilt. I work on a mindless quilt when I'm tired but still have a little energy or when I want to think about other things or solve a problem. I work on thoughtful quilts like the one with color blocks when I have more mental energy.

How about you? Do you have several quilts in progress at the same time? Do you have periods of high and low energy with different quilts for each? How do you work on your quilts?

Progress report:
Pastel strings, cut at 8":
108 (or more) needed
16 sewn and cut to size
24 ready to be cut
68 in progress

Color blocks, cut at 5":
280 (or more) needed
95 finished
30 in progress
155 yet to cut and sew

A New Item for My To-Do List

Put chocolate at the top of your to-do list
so you can check off at least one thing every day.

At least I can cross that off my list today.  Yesterday I cleaned the room I use for all my creative endeavors - sewing, quilting, writing, family history (oh, that's not so creative, is it?).   I cleaned top to bottom because it was really an overwhelming jumble.  I left the fabric and the family history papers for today.

A pile very similar to the one below is still here.  It's for a color block quilt (also known as "High Five" from Sunday Morning Quilts).

I hoped to sort the fabrics by color. It's easier to decide fabrics for blocks when the colors are together.   I choose the fabrics for the outside border, then choose a fabric for the inner square/rectangle.   I hang them on the board (below) and pull them off to sew.  Sometimes I take them off and change the colors.  Other times I stitch away.


As hard as I tried, I didn't get the job done. Sewing the quilt kept pulling me away from sorting and organizing the fabric.  Teddy Roosevelt once said, "I can be president of the United States, or I can control Alice [his spirited, vivacious daughter].  I cannot possibly do both."   I can organize fabric or sew fabric, but I can't possibly do both -- at least not at the same time.

There's always tomorrow.  At least I was able to check off eating chocolate on my to-do list today.

Thanks for stopping by.  I hope you had/are having a good day today.
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My "High Five" from Sunday Morning Quilts

Do you ever have - or see - an idea you want to try, begin it, then have second thoughts about it? Was it a bad idea because of your abilities or the materials you have? Will it work? Do you decide to quit, then reconsider, and work on it a little longer just to see how it will turn out if you keep going?

This happened to me. I saw "High Five" in Sunday Morning Quilts and fell in love with it. I had been looking for an idea for a baby quilt. I began. I wasn't sure. I almost quit but I decided to persevere and not judge the finished product by a few blocks.


This quilt is about one fourth the size of the one in the book. Because it's so small I decided to make and sew four tiny blocks to equal one 5" block. I made five of them and scattered them on the quilt (instead of making five large blocks as in the original).

Now that it's finished I see ways I could have improved it. I would shift colors for a little more balance. In the next one I will try to keep the color range within each block closer. And I will take more care in the placement of the blocks.

This is probably one of the most fun quilts I've ever made. I love playing with color and I love scrappy. I have plenty of scraps but I found I had to buy quarter yards of a few colors to bolster my lack (particularly of blue and orange). I think log cabin-style blocks take longer to make than some other patterns - stitch, iron, cut, repeat several times per block for 280 blocks.

This quilt was hand quilted. I used an improvised (unmarked) fan pattern. Because the quilt is so busy I thought a quiet, overall pattern would be best. I love it but I think an outline stitch would be calmer (but boring to quilt!).

Amanda Jean Nyberg of Crazy Mom Quilts and Cheryl Arkison of Dining Room Empire are the authors of the fabulous Sunday Morning Quilts. Amanda Jean is hosting a link party (which ends the evening of July 28, 2012) for those who have made quilts from the book and written blog posts. I have enjoyed seeing others' interpretations of the patterns and ideas. Thank you, Amanda Jean and Cheryl.