I've been working on the Big Flower over the last few days and not taking pictures, unfortunately. I got the last two leaves done while trying to deal with the bathroom remodel and the truant workers.
Today, during the meetup with the Monday Brave Patch group, I got most of the background squares sewn together and joined with their leaves.
Only one more section of just squares (and I think I'll have enough of them) left to sew together.
All of the bedding I ordered has finally arrived and I put the bed, in the downstairs spare room, all together.
It's ready for guests.
Up until now, the flower was all in chunks and not many chunks were sewn together. I sewed them all together today. I spent yesterday on it, too. First thing this morning I had to unsew what I had sewn at the end of the day yesterday because I had misaligned it all.
This time I approached it from a different part and got it right.
I'm glad I did, I was worried it would be more difficult and not go together at all. So, now I can stop fretting about that.
So, here it is...
The bottom right is the only part left to do. It is a big chunk, though.
Today was this month's Joe Cunningham's Quilt Freedom Workshop. The topic was 'Red'.
He had a San Francisco artist, Amy Trachtenberg, as a speaker, along with Carolyn Ducey from The International Quilt Museum and Julie Silber, quilt collector. They each talked about the color red and how it affected the composition of the artwork and quilts we were viewing. It was very interesting.
I was listening and watching, but I was also working on a chunk of background for the Big Flower quilt, Amity Baroque.
It's looking like I will not have enough of these fabrics to finish the quilt. Eek, I have to dye fabrics to match now. Good grief.
I got out all of my Etegami stuff today and worked on making postcards for the upcoming New Year.
The Year of the Tiger...
I remembered the process I used for the hand-dyed fabric I used up around the first two leaves. So I went ahead and started making more. This time I'll make more then I'll need, of course. And the next leaves will match the first two.
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| First I added fuschia and yellow drops and let it dry. |
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| Then I put drops of wax strategically around. |
it turned out great!
Okay, I want to tame my fabric stash. I need to re-home the things I don't 'love' and organize what I do.
In order to organize my overflowing scrap bins (yes, I have two large bins) I'm going to sort them into colors. I bought 12 new smaller bins and labeled them with twelve colors, from Joen Wolfrom's color card.
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| https://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-3-1-Color-Tool/dp/1607052350/ref=sr_1_1?crid=37RKDZ61ORC1O&keywords=joan+wolfrom%27s+3-in-1+color+tool&qid=1642983784&sprefix=joen+wolfr%2Caps%2C150&sr=8-1 |
I've finished the second leaf and sewn it to the first!
So, I started sewing the top part of the quilt together. It's going together very easily. TG.
I took another Floating Squares Workshop with Sherri Lynn Wood today. One of the deciding factors to re-take this class was the fact that she had Mary Margaret Pettway from Gee's Bend as a speaker. It was very interesting to see and hear her talk about her quilts. That was worth the price of admission.
Here is mine, so far. It needs a lot more work.
Darrell's Grandma's bed frame had it's original finish on it and was in need of some love. We want to use it in our new spare bedroom downstairs.
I got frustrated the other day while making the spikey parts that go around the leaf. They were difficult to make and i was having a hard time.
So, I put off finishing the first half and went off to do something else. I was sorting my fabrics and bagging up stuff I don't want anymore.
I came up with a slightly different method to make them and yesterday I finished the first half of the spikey parts and it looked great! So, I finished the second half today and sewed them all together and even added some of the background.
I started making the leaves for the big flower, Amity Baroque, this morning.
It still needs to be trimmed and the 'thorns' added. But I like how it looks, so far.
I worked on the background of the other side of the big flower, using some of the fabrics I dyed yesterday. They are matching pretty good.
I'm feeling better about putting the little squares around the big flower. So, it was back to work. I realized I had to have a plan for the grid of squares, which means I had to draw those lines on the pattern, so they would appear to line up anyway.
After doing that, I went ahead and started sewing some of the squares together.
I also put wax dots on the 'yellowish' fabrics I dyed yesterday and then over-dyed with a light green in an attempt to replicate the fabric around the spikey parts of the big flower.
Instead of dyeing in a baggie, I just laid the fabric out on my plastic covered table and poured the dyes over them. This will give an interesting look with 'bubbles'.
Oh, I'm having serious doubts about what to do with Amity Baroque. I feel stuck and confused and worried I'll mess it all up.
So...
I decided to finally do something about having too much fabric. I took all of those old paisleys off the top of the cabinet - I'll deal with them later. And I ordered some storage bins so I can sort my scraps into colors. Those storage bins will then go on top of the fabric cabinet.
In the meantime, I'm going to do some somewhat mindless sewing...
I've been looking at doing something to this great sunflower fabric I had. I had recently purchased some yellow/orange/black fabric to go with and think I'm all set to do the 1-2-3 pattern that I did with the Yuki quilt, but bigger.
I cut the strips and sewed them together yesterday, and today I cut them again and sewed them into blocks. I ended up with 105 blocks. But, I can't sew them together until I can put them up on the design wall and make a pleasing arrangement. That means I have to get the big flower off the wall.
Taking the advice I received at yesterday's meeting with Irene Roderick's workshop group, I cut some of my hand-dyed fabrics into 2-1/2" squares and put them up to see how it looked.
I'm not thrilled, but it is heading in the right direction.
I need to make more of that light yellow-green fabric that's around the spikey parts to make the transition between the different fabrics less stark.
So, I did get up and go out to the studio by 5am. I wanted to get the spikey parts of each petal done before our meet up with Irene Roderick to show our progress on our projects.
I just barely made it. But I did and I even had time for breakfast before our 8am meeting.
I stuck the fabrics I dyed up around it, although I didn't have any idea about how to use them. I was so pleased with the feedback I received. They were some really good ideas, and I think I've got a direction I want to go.
I finished off yesterday's and did another section today, while visiting with my Brave Patch Monday group. Lovely ladies, who put up with me mostly ignoring them while I sewed like a mad woman.
This is Petal E. It's at the top of the quilt.
This one took all day, too.
My neck hurts, and I'm tired of sitting.
