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Tritanomaly Quilt #1

9/5/2023

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Previously, I had settled on a layout for my Tritanomaly Quilt featuring Tula Pink fabric... but I didn't put it together immediately, because I wasn't excited about it.  But then, I realized that I had enough blocks to make two lap quilts, and that I might like the colors better if I separated the pink from the orange, so I went back to the design wall to experiment.  The result is a smaller 3-yard quilt, suitable for a child or a throw quilt for a couch, and I know just the child who will be delighted with it! 

For layout, I sew all the pink/blue churn dashes together with the Protea print blocks, taking care that all of the flowers face the same direction so the quilt has a definite up and down orientation.  I border the entire thing with pink, and corner it with blue.  I layer it with a frankenbatting and back it with an old, 100% cotton sheet, yellow.  Time to quilt! 
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A Groovy New York Beauty

8/17/2023

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Silk culotte suit, circa 1971, Emma Knuckey. AucklandMuseumCCBY.
What colors characterize an era?  For the 1970's, it was as if the bright colors of the 1960s got tea-stained.  Lemon yellow dulled to burnt Sienna and harvest gold; acid green to avocado.  Everything was earthy, mellow, and warm.  These colors found their way into clothes and furniture and appliances.  My childhood home (in the 90's) had a bunch of them, because our furniture was secondhand from my great-grandparents!  I still remember our wooden couch with big square cushions covered in scratchy flowers. 

For me, 1970's colors feel like a childhood dream, because -- until a certain age -- all my dreams came in sepia.  (I still remember the first "color" dream I had, and how surprised I was because I'd thought true colors only happened when you were awake!) 

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Dying Art or Cognitive Distortion?

6/12/2023

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I visited the Quiltopia quilt show in Salem, OR last year with a non-quilting friend.  She said "Oh, it's so sad that this is a dying art!".  Queried I: "What makes you think it's dying?", and she responded by pointing out the aging demographic she saw... that most of the people at the show were middle-aged to elderly.  She worried that they would age and die, and thus would perish quilting!  But, I countered, the middle-aged-to-elderly demographic is constantly renewed, as people age into it! 
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She might be the last quilter! Mennonite Board of Missions. Photographs. Illinois, Eureka, 1961-63. IV-10-7.2 Box 3 Folder 70. Mennonite Church USA Archives - Goshen. Goshen, Indiana.
Maybe quilting is a hobby people tend to take up in their middle years, as they settle into homes that have room for all the stuff, and as they age out of caring about fashion and clothes-sewing.  Plus, a lot of young people exhibit their quilts on blogs and message boards (looking at you, r/quilting!) and Facebook, rather than in shows. 

I wonder by what rubric we could actually evaluate whether an art is "dying"? 

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Drafting the "Hat" Polykite

6/9/2023

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I'm not the type to jump on a bandwagon... usually.  But if that bandwagon is driven by a hobbyist mathematician and loaded with nerdy quilters from Reddit, I could make an exception.  I am pretty interested in tessellations, after all!  So today I'll introduce the "hat" einstein tile, and try to figure out how to most efficiently piece it for quilting. 

Fair warning, for those whose interest in einstein tiles is deep and mathematical... mine is not.  I'm not a fan of math; I'm a fan of the aesthetics of math!  Just as most as most of us can distinguish between fluency and awkwardness when we hear unknown languages, so most people differentiate between elegant and awkward design, without being able to explain the mathematical concepts.  For example, given several different rectangles to choose from, most people instinctively like the Golden Rectangle best, even without measuring it.  And most people are repelled by ugliness in design, without being able to tell you which mathematical law was broken! 

It is in this inchoate, instinctual way that I appreciate math.  I see something beautiful and get excited, but I don't truly understand.  I can't teach it because I don't "speak" that language.  Today's post will be laden with links to people who understand this much better than I do.  My goal is just to draw it myself, leaving the proofs to someone else! 

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Spring Baby Quilt

5/31/2023

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A former co-worker of mine being due to have a baby late May this year, I decide to make her a quilt.  I use a partially-plundered charm pack I got secondhand, supplemented with some scraps from my stash.  It goes together in three nights: 1 to make the pinwheels, 1 to make the borders, [a fabric shopping expedition to find the backing], and 1 to quilt it.  Though it was quick and easy, I am delighted with the colors, and proud of my quilting. 

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Designing a Print

5/29/2023

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I have often admired One Block Wonder (OBW) quilts, and vaguely considered making one.  But since making one involves buying the same panel or print six or seven times, it's an expensive buy-in.  So when I discovered a website that would mock-up what a OBW quilt would look like with any given fabric, I decided to have some wholly digital fun, for a buy-in of $0 and 0¢. 

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Bargello... plugging along

5/26/2023

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A quick update.  As I mentioned last time, I have been following the tutorial put out by Donna of Jordan Fabrics.  I have made one improvement on Donna's method, which I'll explain briefly.  And I've learned a little more about myself, which will inform my future quilting choices. 

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Songbirds Quilt

5/24/2023

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At Pioneer Quilts in Milwaukie, I find this panel of songbirds, part of the Art Journal collection by J. Wecker Frisch for Riley Blake Designs. It calls to me... "Sew with me," it twitters!  I liked the rich colors and old-book-etching style. 

I bring it home and coordinate it with fabric in my stash.  The green is from Moda's Grunge Basics line, a popular and versatile quilting cotton that is first dyed, then printed with artsy scuff-marks, for a deep, saturated base and a textured surface.  I bought it for my Dandelion quilt, and have since used it in many paper piecings.  The red floral is a cotton remnant, possibly curtain fabric, that I bought from Fabric Depot when it was still in business.  I initially intended it to be a dress or shirt, but never made it.  Now I will use it for a habitat for songbirds.  I like how its colors look like they're from the same old-timey book as the songbirds. 
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Tritanomaly Quilt

5/4/2023

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Ambivalence is a fruitful inspiration: when I sorta-like and sorta-hate something, the incongruity fidgets in my mind, and won't settle until I make something with it.  Tula Pink fabric is such an inspiration for me.  What I love is the creativity of the prints, the hidden critters and swirling flowers and whimsy of them.  What I hate is the busy-ness.  According to her website, "Tula comes from the 'more is more' school of design where there is never enough space and always room for that one last thing," while I firmly believe that detail without focus is clutter, and clutter stresses me out.  Finally, there are her colors, which are bright and fun and neon... and like minor notes, just slightly off from what you might find satisfying.  It's hard to match or co-ordinate with her prints, unless you work with other prints from the same collection.
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So naturally, I buy several yards of Tula Pink fabric... because it bugs me and I like/hate it.  What can I make with this?  From Tula Pink, I have Who's Your Dandy (PWTP183) in orange and Out Foxed (PWPT184) in pink.  For a sorta-solid, I have a green wood-grain print from Riley Blake Designs (C12356) and for a dark contrast Jazzy by Michael Miller (#CX-8102). 

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Acid Trip wins a ribbon!

3/25/2023

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Begun April 2021, my Acid Trip quilt started as an experiment in string piecing, and morphed into an abstract expression of what I, a non-drug-user, think an acid trip might be like.  It was... a journey! 

Here are all the posts in chronological order:
April 27, 2021 - String Piecing
June 1, 2021 - Coming along
September 10, 2021 - Ideas for layout
October 27, 2022 - Done!
November 22, 2022 - Labeling
March 25, 2023 - this post

Along the way, you'd think I'd have used up all my scraps, but no such thing!  I still have lots of little pieces of fabric to play with.
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    Karen Roy

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