What If...?

With the first two rows of my Halloween quilt complete this is what I had on the design wall:

The best question I've found to ask myself when designing a quilt this way is "What if...?"

What if I arranged the bigger blocks this way instead?

That spreads the green out a bit across the surface of the quilt top. So if I leave it like that how will I fill out that upper row? I need some more big blocks...

I found several little 4-patch units in my bag of Halloween bits and blocks. Those often go in the corners of more complex blocks... Let's see, what if I do this?

Well, I'm not crazy about the lack of contrast between the candy corn rectangles and the central 4-patch unit but it'll do.

I had some charm squares from a swap in my bag too. I turned a couple of those into square-in-a-square blocks and then made a couple more out of prints from my stash. A giant spider web (that glows in the dark!) and the row was complete.

That was quite fun! At the end of that day my desgin wall looked like this:

Two more rows to go. :- )

And Thus It Begins

I figured the tall blocks would be the best place to start with this Halloween quilt. They were from a block lottery, supposed to finish at 9" x 15," but of course these were the rejects from previous projects because they weren't regulation size.

The cat on a pumpkin block has a similar look but was shorter and wider than the other rectangular blocks. It was so cute I wanted to include it somehow.

By taking off the side strips and adding to the top and bottom it fit right in.

Setting the blocks side by side gave me almost exactly the width I was shooting for too!

Next I looked for ways to make a row out of the fussy cut panels. A lot of my Halloween prints are larger scale or are made up of scenes. It didn't take too long to find a couple that would also work as fussy cut panels, with narrow compensating strips in between to get the width I wanted.

So at the end of Day 1 I had this on my design wall:

The Tea Leaf was one of the orphan blocks and will finish at 12." The Churn Dash was 10.5" so I just added a couple of strips to bring it up to 12," and I made the Double X block specifically to balance out the Tea Leaf. Day 2 was a little more labor intensive ~ stay tuned!

Not Macabre

I've sort of been trolling for the next quilt project to focus my attention on. Apparently I'm not quite ready to commit to other ideas I've had, although one of them could be handled as a Between Seams project (basically leaders and enders). Then yesterday I found myself reorganizing and cleaning up my bookmarked online sites. In the process I learned that Margaret's Hope Chest needs child's quilts for fall give aways and the IBOL Guy is collecting packages again to distribute in both Iraq and Afghanistan. I haven't pulled anything for a Bundle of Love yet but I did pull a bunch of my cuter Halloween prints for a child's quilt.


This is the hole they left on my stash shelves. You may notice, if you look carefully, that there are still prints in Halloween colors and lots of skeleton prints I left behind. The skeletons and the pirate prints tend to run together...

The hole doesn't look that big in the picture but what you didn't see was how crowded that shelf was before I started pulling things off!

The next thing I did was to paw through my orphan blocks to see what might fit into this quilt. I found a 12" block, one that will finish at 11," some rectangular blocks from a swap that measure around 9 x 15" and some fussy cut panels.

And then I found this block all by its lonesome. It would finish at 10.5" the way it is now.

I'm currently thinking of building a horizontal strippy quilt. A couple of the pieces I pulled from the stash are wide stripe prints that I could use as sashing between rows of blocks. We're shooting for a 40" x 60" quilt. Unfortunately, the stripe prints are not quite that wide so I'll have to figure something out when I get to that point. This whole plan may fall apart or morph into something else long before then anyway! I'm just pleased I've finally found something that has me intrigued enough to begin playing. ;- )

Rules vs. Choices

Those of you who are regular readers of this blog will be shocked to see a new post so soon after the last one. When I saw this post over on Julie's blog I had to get in on the discussion. What follows is my two cents worth on the topic of The Rules in Quilt Making.

I have been wielding a needle of one type or another for at least 45 years. I learned to embroider first, as a pre-teen, and the cult of Perfectionism was deeply ingrained by the experiences of my youth.

When I came to quilt making I had two toddlers and another baby on the way. I learned “the rules” from books and magazines and tried diligently to obey them. Of course I started out with less than ideal tools and materials. I quickly discovered that until I could have a rotary cutter and mat there would be few quilts made ‘by the book.’ It took too long to make templates and scissor cut everything.

Twin size quilt for my first granddaughter, which was started when her mother was a little girl.

Even as my tools and skills improved I had no real desire to duplicate the quilts I saw in books or magazines. Nor was I interested in complex or intricate blocks. Then along came Gwen and her first book on liberated quilt making. Freedom! Enlightenment! And encouragement of a kind rarely found in the other books of the era.

Wool & flannel, 17.5" x 13.5"

For me, quilt making is the art form that I’m the most comfortable with, the easiest in which to express my creative urges. It’s not about making the most quilts or the “best” quilts or exhibiting my work or selling my work (although I would not be opposed to generating a little income!). I want my quilts to be authentic expressions of ME and MY life, not whatever the current trend in the quilt world happens to be at the moment. I also want them to hold up over time, so there are elements of the construction process that I’m picky about.

I guess I have high standards when it comes to the construction process. I like consistent seams that are straight if they’re meant to be straight and wavy if they’re meant to be wavy. I press my seams because I like the way they look and behave when that’s done. I like having a design wall as much for the ease and comfort it provides my body as for the perspective it affords. I happen to prefer a rotary cutter to scissors because I like the feeling of being in control that I get with the cutter. My scissors tend to go where I don’t want them to! Of course, sometimes the cutter does too. ;- ) I rip fabric whenever I can. Have you tried that? It’s a rush for those of us who tend to get caught up in Perfectionism.

Quilted with beads & sequins, 17.5" x 16.5"

The beauty of quilt making is that there’s room for everyone. Look at all the choices we have before us: fabric types, print types, the vast range of colors available, the multitude of processes we can bring to the work, and ultimately how we choose to apply those processes in the work we do. I no longer believe in a right way or a wrong way to do things. (However, in some specific cases there are dangerous ways to do things and it would be wrong to encourage someone to ignore those rules.) I believe in learning as much as you can about what’s available, trying out the things that appeal, and then choosing what will work best for the project you currently have in mind.

Rules or not, the question we need to ask ourselves is the one posed by Ben & Jerry:

Messy Desk Monday

Changes are taking place here in the Magpie's Nest. I finally have the opportunity to set up a more permanent work station for hand work. Yippee! It's not going to happen all at once, no little organizational fairies are coming over to make the job go more quickly (darn it!) but it's going to happen. Pretty much all that means is that I'll be exchanging one mess for another here on the desk, one corner of which you can see below.


Did you notice the really tall fellow sticking up out of my bookmark cup? He just came to live with me this weekend. He was created by one of my sons.

This son has been making replica wands from the Harry Potter movies, turning them on our little wood lathe. This happens to be an original design created just for me. *VeryBigGrin*

He used wood burning to create the patterning just below the head and then various paints or stains for the rest of the coloration.

The skull was sculpted free hand out of polymer clay. I think he did a darn good job! Now I just have to learn how to use the thing... hehehe. ;- )