Easy Sewing but Challenging Cutting

In my previous post I was berating my lack of self discipline because I started to sew before cutting out all the pieces from my Poppy Bella Bird kit from the Fat Quarter Shop. In retrospect though, I am glad I intermingled the fussy cutting with the straightforward sewing. I got to enjoy tweaking and twiddling those branches of the tree print to fit in the center of block. I was pleased that I managed to sneak in a little bird on several of the tree branch blocks.

In placing the blocks on the design wall as I constructed them, I discovered that the blocks with the horizontal centers are offset vertically as they march across the row. I liked that this up and down meandering adds yet a bit more whimsy and sprinkling of visual interest. This deceptively simple (and free) pattern keeps surprising me. I like it. I may do it again with other large scale and directional fabrics.

The mini-print with the little birds though, titled Tipu, kept playing tricks on me. Since some block centers are landscape-oriented and some block centers are portrait-oriented, cutting out the framing rectangles from the tipu print is not a straightforward as one might think. In retrospect I should have slipped into dressmaker mode and marked pieces as either cross grain or with the grain and how many of each. That is how 20-20 hindsight works.

The pattern instructions were not exceedingly helpful by stating "This fabric is directional so arrange the templates the way you want the birds." Go figure.

I'd procrastinated on cutting rectangles B, C, D, and E from the diagonal mini-print because I wanted to be correct on the orientation of each. As it turned out, careful as I was, I cut one of the five sets incorrectly anyway - the birds were sideways because I erred in the center orientation - vertical versus horizontal - on one of the five blocks. Luckily, I was able to cut a correctly oriented B out of sideways E and a correctly oriented D out of a sideways C, having only to re-cut a new C and a new E. Fortunately I had enough fabric to re-cut one C, and one E.

But those tipus were not through messing with me yet. One block with a birdie border has a grey beads center. I call them beads but I have also seen this print called Pebbles or Beaded Chain. I was quite proud of my method to have the tilt of the grey beads echo the line of the mini-print. I laid the tipu print over the bead print and made sure the tilt angles were the same. Then by placing the template on top, I knew how to orient cutting out the center section A.

The alignment was spot on. I did a very good job if I do say so myself.

But I did the wrong thing the right way. Pride cometh before a fall. When I stood back and looked at the block and how it played with the other blocks it was off ... way off. The rows of beads seemed to jar my eye because they climbed too steeply. They should have been in concert with the 45° diagonal of the quilt layout as a whole and not with the angle of the orange birdies in the mini-print. I had to re-cut the center of the upper rightmost block. The pattern instructions had said only to "Cut so the stripes are going diagonal"  but had not been specific as to what angle. I did not assume diagonal was a true bias, as perhaps I should have.

On my second attempt, I aligned those rows of beads with the 45° lines on the cutting mat and bottom edge of the block center along the horizontal. The pattern instructions only said to cut that central section at an angle but was non-specific as to what angle. I ripped out those four seams but I was able to use the tipu pieces again. Yes, they are the same ones I had to re-cut due to the wrong orientation.

I reframed the final block with the tipu print corrected oriented and the beaded center correctly tilted. It was much more eye-pleasing to me especially after I'd assembled the twenty blocks of the quilt. I admit the difference in that upper right block is not all that obvious in the comparison photo; but leaving it the way I had it originally would have really bothered me.

How could something so tiny and cute - those little "tipus" - have caused so much mischief? I looked up the word tipu in the wiktionary and it is defined as

The tipu on the fabric reminded me of the little sandpipers I see scurrying along the seashore. This little chick does not have a reputation for being particularly impish. My "oops" were all of my own doing. I did learn though, that the etymology of the word is Finnish which should come as no surprise. The fabric designer, Lotta Jansdotter, was born in Åland a small group of islands in the archipelago between Sweden and Finland.

Now I need to decide on a backing fabric. I prefer my quilt backs to be of one fabric to the extent that I can. I also like for them to be a surprise on the reverse side of a quilt and not necessarily come from the same fabric line as the front. To that effect I keep my eye out for end of bolt and 50% off fabrics that I can use as backings. Sometimes I have a candidate that works, but often I do not. Does this mean I should stop buying sale and clearance fabric on speculation as potential backing? Or does it mean that I should buy more so that my chances of getting a match are greater? Those were rhetorical questions. I think I will most likely rationalize a reason to buy the fabric no matter what the laws of probability advise me to do. Buying is an illogical, emotional response .

Here is a fabric I am considering for the back – only considering at this point.  It is indeed pink, not orange, but the greys and whites are the same tonality and it has the same level of graphic impact. It also has birds like the front. Do I venture outside my comfort zone? This choice would certainly be playful and unexpected. Halloween has just passed. Would this be a treat or a trick? I have two yards and could save it for a dress for a granddaughter but frankly I think the scale is too big for a little girl size piece of apparel.

The alternatives for a backing are finding a grey (may be too dull and boring), or an orange (may be very bright), or a white (definitely is pretty impractical). The binding fabric is decided. It is the deep charcoal dots and it would go with both the Jansdotter fabrics and the pink bird print. Here is how the pink bird graphic, the pieced top, and the charcoal dot binding would play together. I have to sleep on this one before I decide and commit. I also need to come up with a name for the quilt.

I'd titled this post Easy Sewing but Challenging Cutting. The cutting was all straight lines but was only challenging because I'd used stripes and directional prints. But that is what leads to the charm of this top. Maybe I am a glutton for punishment but I want to make this free pattern by Jean Katherine Smith again with another combination of stripes and large scale focus fabrics. It has very few seams to match and a big impact. As simple as it was, it also made me think... which is a good thing!  For now I am linking up to this week's Freshly Pieced's Works In Progress. I see she has a post about knitting. Funny, how at this time of year that is where my yen is drifting also.

Caving in and Starting Something New

Aah! I am back quilting in my sewing room again after what seemed like a long absence. I have two sandwiched quilts of my own to FMQ and one I promised to do for a community outreach project, but I wanted to start something new. So I did. A while back I'd bought a kit from the Fat Quarter Shop to make a quilt out of Lotta Jansdotter's fabric line from Windham Fabrics called the Bella Collection. Here are the fabrics that came in that kit.

At the time, I thought I wanted to make the quilt in a blue palette rather than an orange one, and so I bought fabrics to substitute out in the kit. Here is the blue colorway. I probably bought the kit on sale in a weak moment. Any money I may have saved on the "sale" kit was re-invested into the blue fabrics. I do not know what I was thinking about with that weird mustardy gold dot. Maybe I just intended it for another project in the future. It is quite a unique color so I am sure I will find someplace that it absolutely has to go to complete the look but certainly not in this quilt.

The pattern came in the kit from the Fat Quarter Shop. I was not aware of it at the time, but a pdf of the pattern itself is a free download from Windham Fabrics. It is titled Bella's Bird and the kit colorway was dubbed poppy.

The construction of this top is very straight forward, just uneven log cabin type blocks with all straight seaming and rectangular pieces. What lends interest to this top is the directionality in which the fabrics, particularly the quasi-stripes, are cut. Looking back at the fabrics from the kit, four of the nine behave as stripes. Two of the fabrics, the branches and the itty-bitty birdies, are directional. Although I cut everything with a rotary cutter and ruler without any templates, I found it useful to make myself to-scale pieces of paper to track what I was cutting. I was careful to put the direction of writing on the pieces in the direction each will go into the quilt.

Then, as I cut out the pieces, I stacked them under the associated size "template".

I decided to go with the orange colorway after all, instead of the blue. The blue leaned a bit toward teal and I am a bit more of a true-blue rather than turquoise-esque kinda gal in my decor. Besides, orange was on my brain from Halloween and we'd just bought this piece of wall art. I think the grey tones and bold orange accent will coordinate with the quilt. Maybe birds do not make you think of streetcars but they are related. Think of city streets. Think of downtown San Francisco or New York. Think of pigeons. Stop thinking about what pigeons leave behind! Do not go there - it will sully my vision.

This itty-bitty birdie fabric, called Tipu, is printed on the diagonal so I am pausing in writing this post and scratching my head a bit to get the orientation correct. Note this fabric is three years old; printed in the selvage is © 2012. I rationalized that it was OK to start a new project because one of my 2015 quilting resolutions was to complete kits I have in my stash.

I wanted to see how those bold grey dots and orange leaves (on the left) looked worked up as block centers so I put off fussy cutting the little birdies and elegant tree branch fabrics (on the right). Prints on the diagonal always have me exercising a few more brain cells to get the orientation just as I want it. I will cut those when I am fresher.

The bold grey dots and orange leaves, really drifted as they were printed. Across the width of the fabric, the double row of orange leaves meandered down to the level of the double row of grey dots. I had to cut each center block individually if I wanted fairly consistent centers.

My "templates" and already cut centers came in handy in deciding where to place rectangle to cut out. In order to get eight centers, I wound up cutting four strips parallel to the selvage.

Then I could shift my template up or down along that strip to quasi-center a row of orange leaves for either a vertical rectangle or a horizontal rectangle. It is a good thing that the Fat Quarter Shop is generous in putting together their kit fabrics. I had a bit more than the pattern called for, and so I could be flexible.

I usually do all my cutting out at once, and then sew assembly-line style. When I don't, I am often annoyed with myself that I have to stop the momentum of sewing to cut out more. This self- knowledge does little to change my actions, though. I guess I have no self-discipline whatsoever. Sigh. I will be a bit put out when I go to continue sewing tomorrow or the next day and have to cut out first. Here are four blocks I have sewn up because I was too impatient to complete my cutting out. The orange leaves still have a free-form wandering feel but they are pretty much centered in the block. The other four blocks will have two other framing fabrics.

My lack of self-discipline also extends to completing some home decor items hovering on my to do list. Double sigh. So I am blogging instead, and linking up to this week's WIP at Freshly Pieced. I often like to quote Scarlett O'Hara from Gone with the Wind, "I'll think about it tomorrow." Today I had fun playing hooky and working on what I wanted to.