eo-6 Crop Circles

The sixth quilt in the Eastern Oregon quilt series is essentially a sky-view of crop circles. It turns out people grow things in the high desert. Irrigation is key.

The design will be a simple 12 x 16 of 3.5" quarter circle blocks.

The starting point of the actual doing of this quilt was a fabric audit. I wanted to see what was remaining of the fabric in terms of color and yardage.

The photo above shows all of the remaining fabric. I tried to arrange everything by tone. Two of the original colors were fairly depleted, but I had more than enough fabric remaining for two final quilts.

eo-5 Willow Quilt Top Assembly

The nine blocks came together fairly quickly. The biggest challenge was the mental gymnastics required to cut the scrap pieces correctly. While the majority of the Kona cotton used here is a solid woven color (same on front and back) - the linen pieces are stamped. This required a little more thought and was a source of mistakes and good practice.

The blocks are shown above (the blocks are sitting on a white sheet). I did not use a gradation in willow stems from top to bottom. I ended up emphasizing the background color variation. I was hoping for a desert sunset effect - with the colors clear but also almost washed out in the distance by the sun. 

After trimming the blocks, I added the white frame around each. I used a block-width section of white between the rows and a long pieces separating the columns. You can also see that I rearranged the blocks in the final layout.

eo-4 Sagebrush perspective

The Eastern Oregon quilt series is intended to comprise of seven quilts using Kona cotton in colors inspired by Eastern Oregon in the fall. So far, I have completed three quilts using traditional designs. The fourth quilt will be a unique design - my first attempt to create an abstract representation in a quilt.

The inspiration is a desert landscape of sagebrush. I plan to add perspective in the design to show an expanse of sagebrush - as far as the eye can see...perhaps from a car window.

The sagebrush itself will be a pentagon (sage green!) surrounded by scraps of light and medium fabric. The bottom of each block will include a darker color for a 'shadow'.

I plan to have ten or eleven rows - with the final color block region spanning a 30" x 30" square. The block dimensions for each row will become smaller. The larger block will be 5", the smallest will be 1.5". Surrounding the color block will be a white frame; a border of at least 6", possibly with a wider strip along the bottom.

The back of this quilt will be green. I dyed a white sheet a pale green color. The border/binding will be gray. I am hoping for a Polaroid picture effect.

Finished: The First Three Quilts in the Eastern Oregon Series

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Quilting the first three quilts

At this point, I want to finish the first three quilts. My sewing area is not very large, and I need to create space. I store the quilt tops in shoeboxes between steps, and think the tops will be better served if I quilt them to a back and secure the edges with binding.

In the last post, I covered how I prepare for quilting. I will do this for each of the three quilts. The placement of the safety pins will depend upon what I come up with for the quilting. However, I usually try to quilt along a seam line. I think this is called 'stitching in the ditch.'

Starting in order, I pinned eo-1 (the kaleidoscope quilt) first.

You can see that the backing fabric is a red cotton. It is not a Kona cotton. Joann's does not sell wide pieces of Kona cotton.

I use my old White sewing machine for everything. Here, I worked with a regular walking foot, white polyester thread for the top and red for the bottom. My stitch length setting is a 2.5 (out of a maximum of 4).

When I quilt something small, I tend to roll it up for maneuverability. You can see that I quilted along the 'circles' formed with nine blocks - in an 's-curve' format. The result is that the pattern on the back resembles a sinusoidal waveform oscillating in place.

This quilting pattern is pretty simple - and enabled me to start off the quilt, cross the quilt, and then return. I would back-stitch at each end of the quilt to avoid adding any tension to the thread.

Once I had finished the quilting, I trimmed the edges on each side to remove the extra backing and batting. From the beginning of pinning to the final trim, this process required about three hours of my time.

eo-3 Quilt layout

I went the lazy route and waited until the star points were assembled before deciding on the background fabric. I also decided to play with the orientation of the eight legs of the star.

The options; grey or white background, red or black center. The four picture below show the different options. The pictures do not include the entire quilt; I was trying to take the pictures without enough distance from the quilt.

It seems like the best of the four options is to have the red center and the grey background. It might have been nice to have a yellow or cream colored background, but I did not want to purchase more fabric. 

eo-3 Cutting list for Star of Bethlehem Quilt

The quilt calls for strips of fabric to form the star and a single color around the star.

Strips 2" x 44"

• 10 medium
• 12 light
• 2 red
• 6 grey and black

The star is surrounded by a solid material:

• 1, 19.5" square
• 4, 14" squares

I am not sure about what color the solid will be.

eo-2 Ladder to the Stars Top Assembly

To assemble the Ladders to the Stars quilt top, I  started by first laying out the blocks to try to get both a visible pattern and also a distribution of the dark colors.

I added the border blocks to the star blocks once I had a sense for the general layout. Then, I stitched the quilt together in rows. This seemed to work okay - because the pattern is so square.

Overall, the quilt top came together nicely. The tips of the stars in the square block are flat, because of the trimming I had to do on the individual squares.

The final quilt top is 60" x 60" - larger than a typical baby quilt, but close enough.

eo-2 Ladder block assembly part 2

The ladder block requires five 4-patch squares and four triangle squares. At this point, each square should be 3.5" on a side. A closer look showed that I am having the same difficulty I had with the Kaleidoscope quilt blocks - my seam allowance is coming in above 1/4". As a result, the blocks are closer to 3 3/8" on a side. I trimmed the blocks to all have this dimension.

To assembly the block, I had to take care (i.e. I had to redo a bunch of sewing multiple times!) to keep the correct orientation of the triangle blocks to the four-patch blocks. 

I sewed together 3 four-patch, triangle block pairs, and then added the remaining missing block for each row. Two of the completed blocks are shown below.

The finished block size was 9.25" on a side.

eo-2 Ladder block assembly part 1

The ladder block assembly begins with making the four-patches. There are 5 four-patch blocks each, with a total of 80 needed for this quilt.

I sorted out the 2" strips to match one light strip with either one medium or one dark strip. I tried to create as much variation as possible. I sewed the strips together and pressed the seam allowance towards the darker fabric.

Next, I cut the strips into 2" widths, paired each small strip with another - and the 4-patch blocks are complete:

The triangle blocks were trickier. With the extra fabric in the cutting list, I had to actually mark each block with pencil:

I paired two 5" x 9" rectangles (one light with one dark or medium). I traced a 7 3/4"  x 3 7/8" rectangle on the lighter fabric. Then, I added in a center line, two diagonal lines (bisecting each square) and added 1/4" seam guidelines. This final structure makes four blocks. 

The bummer for me is the extra fabric on two edges of the rectangle. I will save the extra but am pretty sure it will not be useful. If I ever make another Ladder to the Stars quilt, I will work out a cutting list with less waste.

I stitched along the seam guidelines and then cut out each block. I pressed the seam allowance towards the darker fabric.

I made enough triangles blocks for the ladder blocks (64), the border (40), the corners (4), and the star blocks (80). The light and medium combinations were saved for the star blocks.

eo-2 Cutting list and colors

The ladder and star blocks assigns the parts of the block by light, medium and dark. I am following a pattern from a book titled Quick and Easy Scrap Quilts by Patricia Wilens.

The blocks begin with:

• 2" x 22" strips
• 15 dark/medium
• 15 light
• 5" x 9" rectangles
• 16 dark
• 31 medium
• 47 light
• 6" x 10" rectangles
• 20 medium
• 20 dark
• 3.5" x 3.5" squares
• 20 medium
• 20 dark

At first glance, this cutting list appears to be pretty wasteful. I am going to follow the plan, though, in case there is a good reason for the excess fabric.

eo-1 Kaleidoscope Quilt - Top Assembly

The top assembly seems to be the point of complications for many of my quilting projects. I have become pretty careful about squaring up and trimming blocks to uniform dimensions, but even with this, there is usually some challenge.

For this quilt, the challenge seems to be the stretch in the triangle pieces. I sewed each block together in pairs (pressing seams open). If the triangle pieces were stretched during the block assembly, the resulting block is not flat. This only becomes really obvious during assembly.

The image above shows the back side of a pair of blocks. After pairing the blocks, I sewed the pairs together to form a 2x2 square of blocks.

The seventh row is left as pairs of blocks. I like to assemble a quilt top in smaller units like this to avoid having seams that stretch across the entire quilt. In this case, I sewed four 2x2 blocks together to make 4x4 blocks, and then two 4x4 blocks to make and 8x4. I also sewed the remaining 2x2 to a 2x1 to make 2x3 blocks, and then four 2x3 blocks to make an 8x3. Finally, I sewed the 8x4 to the 8x3. With this approach, I end up with a single long seam.

The final quilt top is shown above. I really like how the circular pattern emerges in the design once the blocks are sewn together. I also see a map compass symbol repeated in the top. The color combination is a surprise. I think there is too much red in this quilt - and as I was putting it together, I spent quite a bit of time thinking about the landscape in Eastern Oregon. In autumn, the red comes from willow branches - along river banks. So, unless you are driving along the John Day river, there is not much of this color in the landscape. 

eo-1 Kaleidoscope quilt block assembly part 3

The final block size at this point is supposed to be 6.5". How did I come to this number? The octagon triangles are start with a strip of fabric that is 3 15/16" wide. This is the height of the triangle. The bottom edge is 3 5/16".

The schematic below shows the initial triangle in blue. The left and right seam allowances are shown in green and pink. A final bottom seam allowance is shown in light green. The vertical measurement is half the final block dimension (6.08").

If we add the bottom seam allowance in, the block size before assembling the top should be 6.58".

Unfortunately, my blocks came in well under this size. I am pretty sure this has to do with how I 'measure' (eye-ball) a 1/4" seam allowance. I use the edge of my presser foot on the sewing machine. For this quilt, the smaller size is not an issue, but I need to resolve this for subsequent quilts. The blog Sew Mama Sew has a good post about how to achieve accurate seam allowances.

For this quilt, I trimmed each block to a 6.25" square.

eo-1 Kaleidoscope quilt block assembly part 2

The final part of the block assembly for the Kaleidoscope quilt is to add the corner triangles. This required that I set the blocks out again, because the corner triangles on the quilt perimeter are all dark. The central blocks have medium and light corners.

In the photograph above, you can see the individual blocks with the corners added. I played around with the block arrangement quite a bit. I was surprised how the colors worked together. It took me a while to figure out if I liked the combination,and how to minimize what I thought did not work well.

The finished quilt will look different - mostly because I am disorganized. However, now that the corner triangles are added, the blocks on the perimeter are definitely going to remain on the perimeter.

Kaleidoscope Quilt Block Assembly

To begin the block assembly process for the kaleidoscope quilt, I actually laid out the triangles that form the 56 octagons. The intent is to alternate between light and dark or light and medium colors, and I wanted to be sure I had enough of the different combinations to work out. I ended up pairing some dark and medium triangles together, too.

I then sewed together pairs of triangles. In the photograph below, you can see the stacks of triangles - some pinned, ready to be sewn together and some stitched and pressed. I ironed the triangle pair such that the seam folded onto the darker fabric.

Next, I formed half of the octagon by sewing the pairs from above together. The picture below shows the front and back of the pieces. You can see that the center seam has to be ironed toward the lighter fabric.

At this point, I did not trim anything (see the overhanging seams in the pictures above?). The full octagon was formed by stitching the two halves together. The seam allowance was pressed entirely to one side.

One thing I have not worked out about this block is how to avoid having a thick knob of fabrics in the center of the block. This is where 8 pieces of fabric come together. I tried splitting the seam allowance after sewing together the two halves (half the seam allowance goes to each side). But, the fabric would not press flat.

Kaleidoscope Quilt - Cutting

The kaleidoscope  quilt (eo-1) was my first project with the fabric. The pattern I have divides fabric into three shades: light, medium, and dark. Each block is composed of eight large triangles and four corner triangles. Half of the large triangles are dark or medium. The other half are light or medium.

A block looks like:

The intended block-size is 6" square. The quilt will have 56 blocks arranged in an 8x7 grid, with no border. The corner triangles on the perimeter of the quilt will be dark.

To prepare for this, I will need:

               149 dark triangles for octagon
               150  medium triangles for octagon
               149 light triangles for octagon

Cut strips 3 15/16"  x fabric width. The template has a base width of 2 5/16". I used an acrylic triangle template to divide up fabric strips.

I will also need:

          52 dark corner triangles
          172 medium and light corner triangles

Cut strips 2 5/8" x fabric width. The corner triangle dimension has two short sides of 2 5/8". I used an acrylic template to divide up fabric strips.

Seven Quilts - Yardage

The question today is: can seven quilts be made with ~17 yards of fabric?

I want to make smaller quilts - crib-size. My sewing area is small, and I am not really set up to do the quilting on a large quilt with my sewing machine.

A baby quilt is usually somewhere from 42" to 60" on a side. To just cover the surface of something 42" x 60", you would need at least 2.5 yards of fabric.

So, for the 7 quilts, the sizes will have to be smaller than this - or I have to include the use of a white or other neutral 'background' fabric. I am actually going to use both of these strategies.

I have plans for four of the quilts using traditional designs:

eo-1: Kaleidoscope
eo-2: Ladders to the Stars
eo-3: Star of Bethlehem
eo-4: Irish Chain

These quilts are all similar in size - but use varying amounts of the seventeen colors. The Irish Chain is mostly background fabric.

I purchased a stone gray Kona cotton and white Kona cotton for background fabric. The gray will also be used for binding.

For the quilt backing, I bought some wide (144") fabric in a muted red hue.

The remaining three quilts, I hope, will be more original designs. I tried to plan all 7 quilts in advance, but kept hitting a wall with these. I have been struggling with both a lack of confidence in my skills and a lack of experience with quilt design. I thought I would make the first three quilts, and then take a break to design the last three. I will probably make the Irish chain quilt with scraps at the very end.

Ordering fabric by gray-scale

The final fabric preparation step was to order the fabric from light to dark by using a gray-scale conversion. To do this, I set each folded cut outside on a sunny day. I tried to order the fabric from light to dark. Then, I took a photo. I converted the photo to gray-scale and made adjustments until the fabric was more or less in order. Below are two of the photos from this process when I was getting close to having the fabric in order.

Getting the fabric in order by tone is important for block lay-out. In general, I will go by dark, medium and light tones. I keep track of which fabric is which by stapling a number in the selvage and I recorded the tone (dark/medium/light) for each number in my notebook.

Colors

The colors for this project were chosen based upon a Thanksgiving my husband, son and I spent in Spray, Oregon. The autumn colors dominated the landscape – and, while the bulk of the land was very dry with glowing pale yellow stalks of grass and muted green sagebrush in the fields, the banks of the John Day River were demarked by wine-red willow branches. The dark gray slate and black burned areas showed up periodically along the road-side.  I chose seventeen colors, mostly Kona cotton. I have worked with Kona cotton fabric before and I appreciate that the fabric is a solid woven color (not printed). The weight of the fabric seems more substantial than a printed fabric. I did include a few fabrics printed to look like linen.

The colors in the study are shown below. The four swatches to the right are the linen print (a print of a linen pattern on cotton).

I ordered one yard of each material. A few of the cuts showed up with a generous yard piece (end-of-bolt).

To begin, I sewed a zig-zag stitch along each raw edge. Then, I washed the fabric. I like to wash the fabric before working with it in case the fabric shrinks or the colors run. I completed a Kona cotton quilt a few years ago with red blocks on a gray background. I did not pre-wash the red and some of the red ran onto the gray borders – leaving a permanent discoloration.

The zig-zag stitch seemed to, partially, prevent the fabric from unraveling. I still had to cut some wadded up threads from each piece before I could iron the pieces.