Tag: Alaska

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Now that the Holidays Are Over

I took the week of Christmas off, and in between wrapping gifts, celebrating with my family, and reorganizing my sewing room, I was able to get a little more of both the College Fjord and Hus Ved Havet quilts done.

I decided once and for all that I wasn’t going to go back and fix the darkest blues in the College Fjord quilt. Even knowing that the blues were different, I couldn’t tell from a distance which ones were which. It just wasn’t worth my time.

The results are, despite the imperfections, pretty awesome. I am really happy with how this quilt is turning out!

This is the right half of the full image (with Fred the cat for scale). It has condensed quite a bit, as I knew it would when it was sewn together – the half-inch that disappears into the seam allowance for each vertical strip really does make a difference! The left half is still sitting on my design wall, but it’ll get sewn on soon. Maybe New Year’s Day.

I’ve also been able to cut the strips and piece them together for the Hus Ved Havet quilt. The colors are perfect – they work so well together. I never really laid them all out to check to see how they would combine when I was in the stores buying them. I got all of the blues together, and all of the greens, and all of the grays, but I never really put them together to make sure that they went well together. I consider it a happy accident that the colors work as well as they do together.

I’ve sewn all of the grays (mountains) to all of the blues (water) since those colors are consistently together. The greens are separate since the darkest green will be sewn to several different blues depending on how much water is visible. I haven’t yet cut the strips for the sky – that’s coming.

So…projects are moving along. I’m actually looking forward to January and the polar vortex that the New England Weather Guy is predicting through at least the middle of the month. A polar vortex is an excellent reason to stay home and work on these projects, among other things!

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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!

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Making Progress All Around

It’s been a couple of weeks, and I’ve slowly been working on these three different quilts. The Oregon waterfall quilt has been glued in place and the edges have been sewn over. I used several different stitches to sew the edges, and I’m very happy with the results. I’ve put that quilt on pause while I make a decision about how I want to add all of the greenery at the top of the image. I have a couple of options, but I haven’t yet decided which of them to use.

I spent some time last weekend crossing a couple of state lines to go to stores that I know have an excellent selection of solid fabrics, and I was able to find all of the fabrics for the Hus Ved Havet quilt. I came away with a total of eight yellow-greens, three blue-greens, eight brown-grays, five water blues, a red and a black for the house, and four off-white-ish things for the clouds. I’ll be using the ombre fabric that I bought online, thinking that it would work for the College Fjord quilt, for the sky. So far, the colors look very nice together. I’m hoping they come together well once the sewing begins. Thankfully, I was able to find everything in solids and didn’t have to resort to fabrics that just read solid. I have cut strips of everything except for the sky and clouds, but I haven’t started sewing the strips together yet.

Instead, I finished sewing together the vertical strips for the College Fjord quilt. This is what they looked like on the design wall when I was done:

You’ll notice the sun is there. I decided to find a very pale yellow to serve as the sun, and I think the color is perfect. Fortunately, the space where it needed to go wasn’t hard to switch out – just getting more use out of my seam ripper!

I also discovered that the blue that was meant to replace the color I ran out of is not the exact same color – it’s REALLY close, but it’s not the same. (I have since learned that the brand of fabrics is known for its inconsistency.) I was actually debating going back to replace all of the old blue with the additional strips of the new blue. But it would have been a ton of work, and I actually completely forgot about it as I was sewing the final strips yesterday. So when I realized that I’d forgotten and that the different color didn’t stick out like a sore thumb like I thought it did yesterday, I decided that there was no reason to go back and replace the original blue.

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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.

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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.

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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!

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I Might Be Onto Something

I think I got this!

Over this past weekend, I had a full day to spend in the sewing room, so I started out working on a very overdue gift, but then had some time left over. I started sewing more of the double-wide strips, and I took out some of the lighter sky blues and replaced them with darker sky blues. Again, mistakes were made, decisions were reversed, math was done incorrectly, and the seam ripper got a workout.

After sewing four more of the double-wide strips, I decided I needed to see how they looked cut in half and mirrored. Ignoring the fact that there are regularly things that don’t line up (‘cause I’m me), I’m actually really pleased with how this looks so far.

I feel like it’s actually starting to look like some mountains with a beautifully clear sky above, reflected in some very clear water. Which, frankly, is what the original picture is. There’s a lot more to the picture, though.

While I am happy that it’s starting to look like it’s supposed to, there are still some things that need to get resolved:

  • The current plan is to do quilt-as-you-go quilting on this, with the strips being sewn together at the same time that they’re being sewn to the batting and backing. But I may have to throw that out, depending on what my solutions to these other issues are.
  • What, exactly, will I do for a water line? I was going to completely ignore it, but the more I look at this, the more I think that it needs to be there. There is, in fact, a clear water line in the original image. SO…white or blue? How will it be created? (Current thinking on that is embroidery floss, but I’m still contemplating.)
  • Same thoughts, only for snow. There is snow on top of almost all of the mountains. I would like to add that in somehow. The jury is completely out on that one…no idea how that’s going to go off, especially with the quilt-as-you-go method.
  • Look closely at the rightmost two strips in the picture. The lightest mountain blue – which is the second-lightest of all of the mountain blues – almost disappears against the sky blues. If my solution for the snow does not solve that issue, I’m going to have to figure out how to set those off so that the lightest mountains don’t just blend into the lightest sky colors. Although…if you look at the original image, the furthest mountains do just sort of blend into the sky. Again, not quite sure what I’m going to do about that.

I have some work ahead of me – design choices as well as a LOT of sewing. I did cut and sort the remaining mountain blue pieces – I have 45 little piles of mountain blue strips pinned and labeled with the column letter, ready to go. I may try to get some of them sewn tonight, in fact.

I’ve completed nine of 54 strips. As my friend Joe said when I was telling him about it, “You’re almost 20% done!” Dude, that did not help.

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And the Sewing Begins

I found sky blues. Seven of them, to be exact. A new-to-me quilt store in Rhode Island had a whole wall of solids, and I was able to come up with the blues I needed. They have all been washed and cut, and I have sewn all of the sky blue strips together. I actually really like the shading of the seven sky blues in order. I would have liked to have more subtle transitions from one fabric to the next, but barring my ability to find an appropriate blue ombre (no one seems to think this exists), I’m going to have to claim artistic license here.

The sky blues, once I found them, were easy. They go in the same order every time, so I was able to just sew them together in strips. (Strip piecing FTW!) It’s those mountain blues that are going to be the death of me. I sewed five of them together. It took me a whole evening. Granted, mistakes were made, and the seam ripper got a workout. But the picture below shows one evening’s worth of work.

(I swear the darks are really blue and not black!)

Five down, fifty left to go!

The pieces you see are double wide – I have not yet cut them in half to produce the mirror image that goes below the waterline. So this is not what the final thing will look like. But it is definitely an approximation. 

I am not 100% sure I’m happy with it yet. I feel like I need darker sky blues (which I do have), and I feel like it’ll look very different once I cut these pieces in half. I need some time (maybe this weekend?) when I can devote a day to just working on this and fiddling with it while I keep track of what works and what doesn’t.

One thing I am rather pleased with is the clear difference between the mountain blues and the sky blues. I was worried that there wouldn’t be a clear difference, but I absolutely see it. I think it also helps that the sky blues are two-inch blocks while the mountain blues are one-inch blocks. I think the contrast between the size and the color is very clear, at least here, with these blues. My opinion may change once I get into the center of the image, where the blues are lighter and it will be harder to tell them apart when they’re next to each other. But that is a long time away. I’ll get there eventually, but at the rate I’m going, it’ll be well into next year.

One of these days, my life will calm down, I’ll get my weekends back, and I’ll have time to really dig into this and get into a rhythm to get a lot done. One of these days…

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Fabrics Before Grids

As mentioned earlier, I also went to the first two of the quilt shops in the All New England Quilt Shop Hop this past weekend. The shop hop runs through the end of October, and there’s no way I’ll get to all 91 shops, but it was a nice day on Sunday so I thought I’d go out for a drive. I particularly wanted to look for fabrics for the bargello quilts. I actually decided to start with the fabrics for only one of them, even though I drew out the plans for both on paper. I figure if the first one is a disaster, at least I won’t have purchased all of the fabrics for the second one!

I decided to start with the College Fjord image (above). I measured out the image at 30” x 50” on paper, and I had a general idea of what I thought it might look like. In my head, this quilt only involves solid fabrics (especially the sky), and it only involves shades of blue. (We’ll talk about the clouds in the picture later – I have a plan for those.) One of the stores I visited this weekend had not one single solid in the whole place, but the other shop had a whole section of solids, which I brazenly raided for the blue shades for the mountains. I started to also pick shades of blue for the sky, but I really quickly realized that I am actually going to need a blue ombre to achieve what I want to achieve there. Online fabric stores for the win! Ombre ordered – waiting for it to arrive in the mail.

I can hear you asking about those clouds in that image. The clouds – along with their reflection in the water – make that image what it is. I can bargello the heck out of a million shades of blue, but if the clouds aren’t there, the image just wouldn’t be the same, would it. My secret weapon – mother-of-pearl buttons. A little backstory…

When I travel, I try to buy fabric or yarn from small local shops, rather than trinkets, to take home with me. (I’m still trying to figure out what to do with a particularly lovely skein of purple, green, and yellow Mardi Gras yarn from New Orleans.) On the Alaska cruise I recently went on, we stopped in Alert Bay, a small First Nation community between Vancouver Island and mainland Canada. I found the mother-of-pearl buttons in a small shop on my walk back from the U’mista Cultural Center with Caroline, one of my cruise-mates. My thoughts, even then, went to using those buttons to recreate the clouds of that image when I finally made a quilt out of it. I am SO looking forward to actually doing so!

Looking for local fabric and yarn has become a really fun thing to do when I travel. In each town we went to on that cruise, I looked for a local yarn or fabric store. In Haines, AK, I found some yarn and a new-to-me-but-not-local maker of lovely knitting needles. In Sitka, I found a shop with both yarn and fabric and came away with a panel of Alaska national park images and some yarn made by a local-living-elsewhere. In Wrangell, I never found the fabric/yarn store (or maybe it was closed? we were there on a Sunday), but I did enjoy the Stikine Stitchers’ annual Fourth of July quilt show in the windows of all of the shops. How lovely that even in such a small town (pop. just over 2000 people) there’s a quilt guild that’s organized enough to put on a show each year! I found the buttons in Alert Bay, and in Vancouver (where the cruise ended and I met up with a friend for a couple of days), I found some fabric AND some gorgeous beads whose color mimics the iceberg in the Tracy Arm quilt. How much fun I am going to have with all of this stuff!

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Two Steps Forward…

I put the border on the abstract iceberg quilt. And then I put it up on the design wall, and I stared at it for a bit. And I went and did something else for a while, waited a couple of days, and then came back and stared at it a little while longer. I even took it with me quilt shop hopping this past weekend (the All New England Quilt Shop Hop is on!) and looked to see if I could find something that I liked better for the borders, but noooo. It just…didn’t work. I even disliked the extension of the water as the bottom border. 

People who make all of the decisions about a quilt – fabric, borders, backing, binding – all at once utterly fascinate me. I have a pretty good visual imagination. I can see pictures in my head, and they usually look reasonably like reality. I can see all of the fabrics of a quilt top together. Sometimes I’m off – I was once in the middle of making a pieced quilt top and put some of the pieces up on the design wall to see how it would look, and I realized something was off. I ended up changing just one of the fabrics, and it was like night and day. So much better with that one different fabric! But for the most part, I pick the fabrics and I can see what it will look like in the end. To also pick the borders and the backing and the binding at the same time? Rarely. I want to see the whole thing together before I try to imagine a frame for it (which is what the border is). The binding usually ends up being the same as the border or very close to it, so I can’t decide that yet. And my ADHD brain doesn’t deal with the backing (which is out-of-sight-out-of-mind) until I get to the point where I need to quilt it – then I realize I don’t have it yet. My process bites me in the butt occasionally, but it mostly works. 

I came back home after shop hopping, put the abstract iceberg quilt back on the wall, and stared at it again. And the longer I looked at it with the borders I’d chosen, the less I liked it still. So I spent tonight with a seam ripper and a halfway decent movie and took all of the borders off. Made a colossal mess, too, while I was at it. But I think I’m just going to quilt it without the borders and be done with it. I found a shimmery white that I was planning to use as the binding, and I think I’ll still use that, but the borders have been nixed entirely. And I’m actually really happy with that. It took me a while to get there, but that’s the process!

Also in front of a movie or two this weekend after I was done shop hopping, I finished up the Tracy Arm quilt. Here it is, in all of its finished glory!

Once I clean all of the cat fur off of it, go buy a couple of dowels to use to hang it with, and figure out where to hang it, I’ll do something with it! As of right now, I’m not sure where I should put it. (For reference, I still have several cross stitch projects – professionally framed, of course – and several other pieces of art that I haven’t hung up yet despite having lived here for a little over two years. This could take some time.)