Planning the Quilts – Allison Rainville

2025-02-142025-02-11

Another Bargello Takes Shape

I am SO not doing another bargello. Now that I’ve (mostly) got all of the pieces together for the Hus Ved Havet quilt and definitely have it all hung up on the design wall, I am DONE with this bargello idea. I am going to love both of these quilts when I’m done, but whoo…never again.

In this image, the bottom is the left side of the image, and the top is the right side of the image. So the red house that’s layered on the top actually comes just to the right of the right edge of the bottom.

I adore this quilt. I am still working on a couple of things in my head, though, that I am going to try not to screw up.

First, I’m not 100% sure I’m OK with that red. I may try to go for a darker red. While the house is meant to stand out, I think it stands out too much, and that a darker, more “muted” red (if it’s possible to mute red) might be the way to go. Still contemplating this one.

Clouds. The original image actually has more clouds than clear sky, but I am taking a little bit of artistic license here and reversing it – the quilt will have more clear sky than clouds. (I love the sky fabric, though. It is perfect for this quilt!) I have the very light grays – three of them – that I intend to use as cloud fabric. My dilemma: do I try to substitute out pieces of the sky fabric – further becoming acquainted with my seam ripper – and sew in square blocks of the grays, or do I applique the clouds in, as I will do for the house? I am inclined to do the latter, as right now, the house really stands out as not-square against all of those bargello squares, and I think that including appliqued, “rounder” shapes in the form of clouds will balance the house out, especially since most of the clouds will be on the left side of the image. I will also have to figure out how the clouds will interact with the words I intend to cross stitch on. So much to think about!

My goal is to get at least one of the two bargello quilts finished for my guild’s quilt show in the middle of March. Will the buttons win, or will appliqued clouds win? Stay tuned to find out!

2025-02-022025-01-28

So What’s Next?

A key component of being motivated to finish things, for me, is being able to look forward to the next project. I have to finish things before I can move on, of course, but the planning for the next idea can take place while the actual construction is taking place on the current project. Sort of like building houses – you’ve got your architect finishing plans, and you’ve started to get the permits in place, and you’re ordering supplies for the next house you’ll be working on while you’re finishing up the final details of the one you’re building now. If you don’t do this, there’s lag time. Lag time is bad.

In the case of the projects I’m working on now, two are near completion. The Oregon waterfall quilt is all put together and just needs finishing touches to the top. I’m not sure what’s going to happen once the top is done – I’ll finish it to get some experience with the sewn details that I’m working on, but I’m not sure I like it enough to make it into a quilt. We’ll see once it’s done. Maybe it’ll get framed instead.

The College Fjord quilt is, honestly, a good weekend of work away from being finished. I have ten or twelve vertical strips left to sew on, and then the quilting is done because I’ve been quilting as I go. I’ll need to add the buttons and the binding. That’s it.

The Hus Ved Havet quilt is the one that isn’t nearly done yet. There’s still a ton of work left to be done there, and that’s OK – I can (and need to) work on multiple projects at once.

So…where do I go next? One thing that I’ve been wanting to figure out is a sunrise or sunset. I have taken many, many pictures of sunrises and sunsets over the years, many of which are very nice (if I do say so myself). One of the ideas I’ve been mulling over in my head is the idea of going horizontal this time instead of vertical. Horizontal stripes. The Hus Ved Havet quilt is a little like that – the mountains in the distance and the water are both composed of horizontal stripes that have been broken up by the bargello construction. But this time, I’m thinking of vertical stripes that have not been cut up into smaller pieces. Think jelly roll quilt, only 1” strips instead of 2” strips. (I’m going smaller this time.)

If you’ve ever done a jelly roll quilt, it’s basic construction is “sew the strips end-to-end, then cut them into lengths of a certain measurement (say, 50”), then sew them side-to-side randomly.” The idea I’m mulling in my head is similar: sew long strips together end-to-end, then sew them side-to-side. It’s not unlike the bargello construction in reverse, only there are no small pieces going in the horizontal direction, only long strips. Let me explain using one of the images I’m thinking about using.

This photo has been cropped to take out wide swaths of sky at the top and black land at the bottom. I took it in Acadia National Park, from the top of Cadillac Mountain at sunrise. There’s land, there’s water, and there’s sky with clouds. And there are colors.

Imagine this image divided into twenty horizontal stripes. Those stripes aren’t very wide in the image, but they’d be 1” wide in the final quilt. Let’s look at the stripe just above the water line. Most of that stripe is going to be a purpley-gray color, but for a few inches in the middle, that stripe will be orange. The purpley-grays on the left and right will be long pieces of whatever fabric I find to represent that color. The orange in the middle will be a small piece. So that one strip of the image will be made of three pieces of fabric. (Note: This construction sounds heavenly after sewing a bargello. Two seams instead of forty!) The bottom strip of the quilt would be one long strip of whatever I find for black.

I’m still trying to decide if this is the way I want to go, but I’m leaning in this direction for a couple of reasons. First, it’s different from what I’ve been working on. The structure is basically the opposite of what I’ve been working on for a while, so it intrigues me. Second, there are different colors. The blues and greens and grays and browns I’ve been working with for a while are fine, and they’re completely appropriate for the images I’ve picked so far, but working with pink and orange and purple sounds lovely. I also want to redeem myself a little bit after all of the oranges I used in the Horseshoe Canyon quilt, and I want to prove to myself that I can use orange responsibly this time.

I’ve got a little while until I’ll feel like I’m ready to take on another quilt, so this can simmer for a little bit.

2025-01-302025-01-27

January is 4529 Days Long, Part 2

The other two quilts – the College Fjord quilt and the Hus Ved Havet quilt – are both coming along nicely, but I am getting to the end of my tolerance of the fiddliness of the bargello, so I am glad that I limited myself to these two in that style. By the time these two are completely sewn together, I will be DONE and ready to move on to new things.

Last time we spoke about the College Fjord quilt, I had discovered that the vertical strips had gone wonky and refused to make a decision right then and there what to do about it. I have since made the decision (rip it back to where it started going wonky and resew), and the resewn version was within an eighth of an inch or so and – more importantly – no longer looks obviously weird. I have continued to sew the strips on – I’m within 10 or 12 of the end, and I just need to devote a couple of hours to finishing that up. Easier said than done, but it’ll happen. After that, it’ll just be sewing the buttons on to form the clouds, plus a binding. I’m hoping to get this done by my guild’s annual quilt show in mid-March. I work well with deadlines, but I would not put it past me to be finishing the binding the day before it has to be delivered.

The Hus Ved Havet quilt is also coming along. Very happy with the fabric choices, and I think that in the end this will be a stunning quilt as well. Slowly but surely, I am cutting the verticals and sewing them together. You’ll see some change from the picture from early January, but let me explain the work I’ve done since then.

In the picture from early January, the blues and grays have been sewn together, and the greens have been sewn together, but the greens have not been sewn to the bottom of the blues. I wasn’t at all sure about the bluer greens (representing bushes), and those had not been sewn to anything except each other, either. Here’s what it looks like now:

Now, the greens have all been sewn to the blues. Everything that is not sky in that image has been sewn together horizontally. Nothing has been sewn together vertically yet, but that will come soon. The sky fabric is pretty much perfect for this image (and you can probably see why it would not have worked for the College Fjord quilt). I still have some clouds to insert in various places in the sky – that will come later – and there’s a ton more green, plus an applique house, yet to come. But I am pleased with how it’s shaping up so far.

I decided a while ago that I wanted to include some of the words from the song “Hus Ved Havet” somewhere in this image. Which words? Dunno yet. Still narrowing it down. Where? Dunno this either. I want to decide the final location when the top is done and put them somewhere that feels empty. I don’t feel like it’ll be on this side of the quilt – there’s no element here that feels like it needs something else. I suspect that when I see the whole quilt top put together, there will be one area of the quilt that just screams out for an added element, and that’s where the words will go.

I spent today fiddling with the lettering stitches on my machine. I used them in a quilt once before – the national parks quilt – and was happy with that result. But I was hoping that maybe one of the other lettering styles would be better for this quilt. Unfortunately, there are only three styles, and they only come in capital lettering, so…no. I need to decide on something else. I used to cross stitch and am not entirely opposed to finding some sort of cross stitch lettering style (I have a whole book of them) and using waste canvas to create the lettering. That may be the direction I go in. If I do go in that direction, that will influence how many words I want to use from the song. Lots to decide!

2025-01-032025-01-02

A Different Kind of Bargello

You’d think that sewing straight lines would be easy. You’d be wrong. I started working on the College Fjord quilt today, sewing more vertical strips onto the batting and backing. I realized after I’d worked for a while that somehow, I’d gone wonky. The top of what I’ve sewn together is now half an inch wider than the bottom. Still trying to figure out what exactly I want to do about that. I have three options: ignore it and move forward while not correcting for the discrepancy, try to correct for the difference as I move forward, or remove the strips back to where I’m pretty sure the wonkiness began and fix it. I was not up for making this decision today, so I put down the College Fjord quilt and started cutting up vertical strips for the Hus Ved Havet quilt.

First note on this one: seam allowances take up more space than I think when I estimate in my head. I estimated that the mountains/water of this image would only need one strip of each color, but it’s going to be a stretch. I still have several vertical columns to cut, and I think it’s going to be OK, but I may need to cut out more small pieces.

Second note: Apparently what I think is a quarter-inch seam allowance when I sew is more like a three-eighths seam allowance. Fortunately, I’m not following a pattern, and I am remarkably consistent when sewing, so the fact that my 1” blocks are actually more like ⅞” blocks is not a problem. I really need to mark a quarter inch on my sewing machine – just not until I’m done with this quilt.

Based on what I see so far, I think this is going to be a successful quilt.

When I look at this on the design wall from across the room, I see the mountains and water and land in the foreground, which of course is what I’m going for. The jury is still out on the bush (the green bump on the right) versus the rest of the green vegetation in the foreground, but I need to see those side-by-side before I make any judgment. There are many bits of this that haven’t been sewn together yet, so some things look weird, but I was mostly cutting and not sewing today, so the sewing will have to wait until another day.

What’s interesting to me about working on this version of a bargello quilt is that it’s not a mirror image like the College Fjord quilt, but it’s also not like a regular bargello in that the colors don’t “move.” In a regular bargello quilt, each color moves up and down in the vertical to create movement. There’s almost none of that here. The greens at the bottom do it – the dark green is always the one that’s closest to the blue of the water, but that blue changes depending on how far away from the water line it is. The blues of the water and the grays of the mountain stay still.

When I was working on this quilt on paper at my guild’s Open Sew, I asked the other folks who were there what they thought of keeping the colors in the same place across the mountains and water. I wondered if there would be enough movement in the quilt to create interest. Someone said that I could create that movement with the quilting, and that was an excellent reminder for me. Since I’ve been using the quilt-as-you-go method with the College Fjord quilt and will be adding the buttons as additional “quilting,” I haven’t really needed to think about quilting that will be added later. The quilting on the College Fjord quilt is largely invisible. But using this color arrangement for the Hus Ved Havet quilt will give me an opportunity to do some surface quilting to add some visual interest where perhaps the colors don’t provide it naturally. It’ll be interesting to see how that plays out as I continue to build the quilt.

I still like the color choices, and I still like the way they blend together. I’m reserving some judgment for when I get the sky fabric cut up and added to the image – that will change things, I’m sure. There are a lot of decisions that will have to be made there, so I’m trying not to get too excited about this yet. But I’m happy with what I see so far!

2024-12-272024-12-23

And the Quilting Begins

I finished up the vertical strips yesterday and started the quilt-as-you-go method of sewing them together today. It’s slow going. As I’ve always said, my ability to match seams in bargello quilts is quite frankly abysmal, so nothing lines up properly. You’d think that because I strip-pieced the sky, all of those seams would at least line up, but noooo. I literally don’t know how to make these things any better than what I’ve done. And I have little patience or motivation to go back and fix anything. Fortunately, the results look good from a distance, and I’m not looking to enter any fancy shows where people will be getting up close and judging my work anytime soon.

I started in the middle of the quilt and started working towards the right side, so I was working with the bottom half of what was on the design wall. I got about three quarters of the way through that bottom half, plugging away in front of Christmas movies and football games, when I realized that the very dark sky blues that I’d used at the top and the bottom of the quilt…are not the same. I used one from the beginning, and then switched to a darker one later, and then I switched back. Completely unknowingly. I started assembling the quilt using the pieces of the darker of the two colors, which is in the middle vertical strips. And then I sewed a strip onto the quilt that had the lighter of the two blues, as I got closer to the right edge, and I noticed it then. See if you can tell the difference.

Yep.

So now what? My sense is that I’ve been looking at these strips for weeks, in lots of different light, and I’ve not noticed a thing. So…since there’s precedent of leaving two different colors in the same spot, I’m probably going to go in that direction. Replacing any of them at this point would be a LOT of work. If it’s not a glaring error, I’m going to run with it and hope that no one but me notices.

I’m really glad that, after my adventure running out of one blue for this quilt, I got extra fabric for the Hus Ved Havet quilt. Need a 1” strip? I’ll take a quarter of a yard, please!

2024-12-152024-12-09

Now That Proof of Concept Exists, Part 2

The Hus Ved Havet image (see previous post) will be divided into five sections, each with its own coloring and bargello method: the land in the foreground (greens/yellow-greens), the water (gray-blues), the mountain (grays), the sky (a blue-to-yellow ombre I originally bought for the College Fjord quilt but that didn’t fit there), and the clouds (creams/very light grays). There are three trees/bushes that will also be included, and the house, which I will claim artistic license on and make red like so many houses in Lofoten (where this was shot), will be appliqued.

In my head, the fabrics here are still solid. We’ll see how that goes, but that is currently the plan. If they’re not solid, they’ll be fabrics that read solid, but right now, I’m on the hunt for more solids. Currently planning an outing next weekend to two stores I know have a ton of them.

The College Fjord quilt has been fairly simple to put together because of the mirror imaging. This is very different. I can strip piece this (like how most bargello quilts are constructed), but each color group is going to have to be pieced separately and then all sewn together.

Like the College Fjord quilt, I started with the basic contours of the image sketched on a large piece of paper as the image was projected onto it. The vertical strips have to be the same from top to bottom, which so far has not been too much of a challenge but may prove problematic as I keep going (I got through about ⅓ of it yesterday). This is a sneak peek of what the planning looks like so far:

For reference, this is the center-ish of the image from top to bottom near the left edge. On the right, you can see measurements (1”, 1.5”, etc.) in blocks. The line to the left of those measurements is the water line. Anything to the left of that line in this image is the mountain moving to sky, and anything to the right of the water line is, well, water going into land. Adding the vertical lines (which in this image run left to right) is a bit of a challenge.

In the College Fjord quilt, I put vertical lines anywhere the contour of the mountain changed. But in this quilt, I also have to pay attention to the contour of the water against the land in the foreground, and if that changes, a vertical line needs to be added, too. Sometimes – in fact, surprisingly more often than not, they line up or at least can be fudged to line up. Other times they just don’t. It’s a lot to take into account, and I am 100% sure I will screw it up at some point. But so far, it’s working well.

One more design choice I made is that everything but the sky will be 1” strips; the sky will be 2” strips. This is exactly like the College Fjord quilt. I think it works really well that way – I like the contrast between the sky and the land. The one thing I haven’t decided yet is whether the clouds will be 1” or 2” strips. One inch might give me more flexibility, but two inches will blend better with the rest of the sky. I might have to do some experimenting before deciding that piece.

Still lots more to go on this quilt, but I’m really excited to see where this one goes. Let’s just hope I don’t need to create a spreadsheet this time!

2024-12-122024-12-09

Now That Proof of Concept Exists, Part 1

When I originally decided to attempt an image using a bargello concept, I had two images in mind that I wanted this to work with. One was obviously the College Fjord quilt, which is on pause briefly until I have the right color again but is clearly going to be a gorgeous quilt in the end. I’m SO excited about that quilt!

But as I was planning the College Fjord quilt, there was some trepidation that it wouldn’t work for that one, and if it didn’t work there, I wasn’t going to even attempt a second one. Bargello quilts are just too detailed and difficult to put a lot of work into if it’s not going to be successful. So I said early on that I was going to attempt the College Fjord one, and if that worked, I’d attempt a second one.

Now that I have proof of concept, it’s time to start work on the second bargello. I am also really excited about this one, and now that I’ve looked at it a little bit, I’m REALLY glad I started with the College Fjord one. The College Fjord quilt is symmetrical – it’s a mirror image. The second one is not, which means it has its own special issues. Here’s the original image:

This image reminds me of a song, “Hus Ved Havet” (House by the Sea) by Halvdan Sivertsen, one of my favorite Norwegian musical artists. I have an early songbook of his that includes many images to go along with the music, and this image reminds me of the pencil drawing that is in that songbook to accompany this song. I’ve always wanted to do my own rendition of that idea – a house by the sea. So here we go.

2024-12-05

And It Comes to a Screeching Halt

That fabric that I substituted in – yeah, I didn’t have enough of that. I don’t have enough of that. So I have gotten this far, which you’ll notice isn’t a heck of a lot further than last time I posted.

And so the hunt begins. I know little about the fabric other than that it came from a jelly roll of Kona solids, so I am off to see the wizard to find Kona solids, hoping that when I do find them, this particular color will be among them. I need one 2” strip. If all else fails, I do have the information about the jelly roll and can buy another one of those, but I’m hoping to avoid doing that ‘cause, well, I really only need that one 2” strip. I have plenty of the other fabrics I’m using.

This, my friends, is where the fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants nature of my quilting habits bites me in the ass. I really need to learn to write stuff down.

2024-11-30

Halfway Done

In between loads of laundry today, I was able to get to the halfway point of the College Fjord quilt. And now I’m at a bit of a standstill.

Some notes on what has changed since the last picture:

I switched out one of the blues. In this image, in the seventh column from the left, it’s the light sky blue just above the darker mountain blue. The color that was originally there was a slightly lighter sky blue – that color is now the next sky blue down. It was a pain in the ass to switch it out, but I like this one much better.
I decided that it didn’t make a difference that some of the lightest sky blues are nearly indistinguishable from the lightest mountain blues. There is definitely a difference if you look closely, but when you look at the overall image, they sort of blend together. And you know, what? The mountains in the original image sort of blend into the sky, too. So I’m not going to sweat it.
The columns starting with KK (you can see the Post-It notes with the column label at the top), going to the right, were done with a slightly different, much faster process than the ones before them. And interestingly enough, they are getting to be more consistent in size, so there are fewer seams that don’t line up, at least right now. It will be interesting to see if that holds when I begin sewing the columns together.

This is 29 columns. There are 54 total, so I’ve completed just over half of them. Top to bottom is 32”; that is the finished size (unless I decide to remain true to the image and cut 2” off of the bottom). The finished quilt will be 54” wide – currently, this is just under 40” wide with the columns laid out side-to-side like this. Each of these columns will lose half an inch when sewn together – seam allowances are a thing, after all. The narrowest columns are currently 1”. So when you’re looking at this image, keep in mind that when these 29 columns are sewn together, the piece will be 14” narrower than it is now.

Once I got to this point, I stared at it on my design wall for a long time. I had actually started running out of space on the design wall and had to move it up to the top so that I can fit the remaining part of the image below it.

I’m still debating how I’m going to build this quilt. Is it going to be a quilt-as-you-go kind of thing, or should I build the entire top and then attempt to quilt it? I briefly debated starting to sew the columns together today, which I cannot do if I want to quilt-as-I-go. I’m having trouble imagining the columns squished together, so I debated trying it out to see what it would look like. I’m desperately suppressing the urge to sew the columns together. I want to see what it’s going to look like in the end! But until I figure out how I want to build it, and especially quilt it, I don’t want to take any steps that would require even more use of the seam ripper.

Part of my hesitation is that I’m still making design decisions. I switched out a whole color and replaced it with a new one – TODAY. I’m still not sure if I’m happy with those white blocks on what is now the right side (will be the middle eventually). I can’t even start to quilt-as-I-go if there’s any chance that I might want to change things up later. And I can’t guarantee that I won’t change anything. I’m just not at that point.

I’m also still debating snow. Part of me likes it the way it is. Part of me want to put in snow. But if I do put in snow – do I follow the contours of the image? Or do I put snow in squared-off lines? The latter would be awful, but the former might ruin the bargello format (which arguably is holding on by a thread anyway).

Still planning on a water line. Still hanging on to mother-of-pearl buttons for the clouds. Need to find a pale yellow or two for the sun at some point. But things are moving along.

2024-11-27

It’s 9:30pm…

…do you know where your seam ripper is? I do. My seam ripper and I are by now rather good friends. Math has never been a strong skill of mine. Add in seam allowances, and whoo boy. We’re all in for a rocky ride.

I’m beginning to remember why I said I’d never do another bargello quilt after the last (and only) one I did. Check that – I’ve always remembered why. I just also live with that unbridled optimism that says, “That was YEARS ago! Maybe you’ll be better at it this time!” If I could roll my eyes at my former self, I would.

Having said that, I am too far into the College Fjord quilt to give up on it now. And I really do like it – from a distance, as long as I don’t look too closely at the seams that don’t look like they’ll match up when they’re sewn together. Here it is, in its current state:

It really does resemble the photo! And I do think I’ll be able to use some of the wonkiness of the seams, especially those in the sky blues below the water line. I’ve always known – based on that bargello I did years ago – that there would be seams that didn’t line up. My plan right now is to make the ones above the water line align as much as I possibly can, but to let them be wonky below the water line.

Here’s why: reflections, even in mirror-like water, are never truly a mirror. If you look at the original image, there are bits of ice in the water, and there are lines where some breath of wind slid across that bit of surface, causing a tiny ripple. I was trying to figure out how to get that across in the quilt. Wonky seams actually create that illusion nicely, much to my surprise!

I’m getting to the center part of the quilt, where I might have to fudge a sky blue or two here and there, so we’ll see how that goes. The blues I have are just enough, and so far, I have gotten away with not using one of the very lightest sky blues I have. I’m hoping not to use it at all – I think it’s too close to the one next to it – but I suspect I might have to pull it out in a couple of places. But that is a project for another day…maybe over the upcoming holiday weekend?

At this point in time, I think I have enough of a proof of concept that the bargello construction works for this kind of image, so I may begin to source fabrics for the “Hus Ved Havet” quilt. More on that to come!