Needs simmering

I have gorgeous fabrics.

Shimmer Radiance by Deborah Edwards of Northcott

Just look at that blue with little metallic silver highlights!  How could I leave that on the shelf?

Natures Pearl fabric by Maria Kalinowski for Kanvas Studio

You can't tell from the picture, but the dots on this are metallic silver.  Very, very pretty though not my usual choice of fabrics.

I bought them with a particular design in mind.  I designed it in a much softer color palette for a project I can't share yet, and decided to challenge myself to give it a totally different feeling with stronger, darker colors.  It actually looked pretty good in Civil War reproduction blues, and in a particular group of reds.  I rather like the suggestion of plaid in the background.

Starlight Plaid in repro blues

Starlight plaid in reds

The catch is that I couldn't find what I had in mind at the quilt shop. I must be the pickiest fabric shopper ever, because with a choice of over 10,000 bolts of fabric at Quilting Connection  I wasn't satisfied.  Sigh. I just find it hard to change course when I have the perfect combo in my head.

However, change course I did!  How about a "guy quilt" in steely greys with just a pop of color in the stars?  That's when those two gorgeous fabrics above jumped on to my cart.  I chose three more greys to play with them, brought them home and promptly began to doubt my choices. There may not be enough value contrast between my first two fabrics for the design to pop.

Last night I stayed up late sewing some test blocks, hoping I was wrong.  While I sewed I had the sinking feeling that I was right.  I put the blocks up on the wall and went to bed mulling over options.  I liked the greys, but the blue wasn't working for the stars.  I went to sleep stumped about what to do about the stars.

I like my grey plaid background, but the star points fade away.  I still love that blue. I so badly want it to work, but I think it will have to wait for a different quilt.  

So what do you think about those stars?  I could use the same fabric as the lightest grey in the background, but would that make the quilt too dull, so very monochromatic?  Or creamy yellow stars?  Maybe I could find a red that would work, but it might be a challenge to find a value that isn't too close to the darker greys, with the same trouble the blue is having.  I thought it was vibrant enough that it would work anyway, but clearly value still counts.

So, it needs simmering.  I'm off to work on something completely different now!

Burst of productivity in orange

Sometimes a quilt design takes time to develop.  Sometimes a deadline helps move it along more quickly!

I have been invited to be the International Association of Quilters' guest designer for November.  I'll provide instructions for a block for their mystery quilt, as well as a quilt pattern for their members.  I have known about this since last December.  I did have a plan, but just couldn't seem to start on the quilt or the pattern.  It turns out that was because it was the wrong plan.  I just didn't know it until a looming deadline made me admit that I just wan't excited about Plan A. Once I gave that up, Plan B popped into the newly vacated space in my brain and moved along at a steady pace.

I'm sure this block must exist somewhere.  If anyone knows what it is called, please let me know.  For now I've named mine Variable Starburst.

Plan B morphed a bit along the way.  I planned to work in blues, as in the test block above.  I planned a layout that used 10 of these stars, each with different value placement, as an exercise in playing with value and placement.  That's where the "variable" part came in.  Then I thought to add a layer to "variable" by making a single star a different colour.  I went back to my EQ drawings and made one star orange and promptly decided I currently love orange and had to make every star in the layout orange, except the variable one.

I got as far as doing all the math, figuring out cutting charts and yardage amounts before the test block fell off the design wall and I slapped it back on...on point.

OK, I like the block even more on point.  I fired up EQ again and played with that idea.

This is kind of fun too, but those pieced setting triangles would be a pain to write up in a pattern. I do like the movement the diagonal elements add, though.  I went to bed undecided and ready to pitch Plan B out the window.

The next morning, in my free half hour before heading to work at the quilt shop, Plan B morphed into Plan C. I really, really like Plan C, so much so that I spent my lunch hour doing the math so I could buy the fabric before heading home. (But you know, revisiting both versions of Plan B right now I think fabric may eventually come out to play with them too.)

I'll keep the full design to myself just a wee bit longer, since I'm very close to being able to show the finished top, but here's a peek a some of it.  I love its clean, crisp lines and all that orange brightness.  Who knew I could like orange this much?

Mostly Clear mostly done

Since I last posted I reorganized my sewing area, opening it up to the family room, which also required resetting and decluttering the family room.  That took over about a week of my life but it feels great to have a renewed and uncluttered space.  I am in the mood to design and sew again, so the time investment was definitely worth it.

The first project from the renewed studio is Mostly Clear.  I think this quilt holds the record for shortest turnaround time from design to finished top in the history of Canuck Quilter.

I played with the design in late July, settling on final layout two weeks ago, and started writing the pattern.  This is backwards for me.  I usually do the required math, sketch some rough notes, then make the quilt to make sure the quilt looks good in real size as opposed to small picture on a page. I have all the bugs and any required design changes worked out before investing time in writing a polished pattern.  This time I wrote the entire pattern, working out all the details on paper first, then sewed following my pattern.

My husband and I took a day off to roam that Friday. We stopped at Mended Hearts Quilting and he was very patient while I pulled bolt after bolt trying to choose 4 fabrics that went together just so.  I found several sets of three, but the fourth one was never quite right.  I finally found a fourth that was good enough, bought the set, then happily found a fourth that was better when we stopped at It's Sew Tempting after a picnic lunch.

By Sunday night I had all my fabric cut and strip sets sewn.

Monday I sewed all the blocks.  Lots of chain piecing...

...and corner trimming....

...and seam matching. There are a lot of seams to match, but I planned all the pressing directions ahead of time and every.single.seam nested.  Happiness is a nicely nested, matched seam intersection!

Tuesday I sewed the blocks into rows.  Wednesday evening I sewed the rows into sections and the sections into a quilt top.

It was just past midnight when I finished the top.  Rosie did try hinting about bedtime sometime around 11 pm, but I only had 4 more seams to sew so I decided it wasn't my bedtime yet.

Check out the cheater pieced border.  Instead of making pieced border strips to add the start points into the border and adding that to the sides, I added the segments to the rows/sections and the border just happened as I sewed my rows together.  Happiness is also fewer border strips!

I'm going to send the pattern to testers this week and try to quilt the quilt while they test so I will have a pattern cover ready when testing and editing is finished.

I will try not to get side tracked with the next new starry quilt spinning around in my head.  That one has a more modern vibe and...wait, that's another quilt and another post!