Showing posts with label jane a. stickle. Show all posts
Showing posts with label jane a. stickle. Show all posts
Friday, November 16, 2012
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
018.Betty's Blue Skies - aka A-12, Framed Fancy
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| Betty's Blue Skies |
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| still a little confused on when to/when not to remove paper-piecing paper on back... |
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
Diamonds in Blue
You might remember that in my 'Jane's Addicted' quilt I'm making a large diamond out of diamonds and they are all going to be in medium blues. I had re-sorted my blues and narrowed down the choices for the diamonds, pre-cut a bunch of templates, and got back to sewing. Securely ensconced in my organized high, I was feeling great about finishing good ole' shutterbug. Look how many many (many) pieces it has. Didn't it turn out nicely...? well -
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| a diamond in blue. great! |
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| nope. it's concentric squares in blue. totally forgot to reverse the background and blue on this one. |
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| ugh! to try to prevent this tragedy from ever happening again... I got out the roadmap... Hey, no one is forcing me to make this design process so challenging, but if I'm going to do it like I envisioned, I guess it's time to quit winging it and get my house in order. |
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| Now, I'll bet you were guessing I couldn't possibly put up another post featuring a spreadsheet. well... you guessed wrong! I ramped up the spreadsheet, pulling in all block names from the alphabetical listing on the dear jane site and started filling in the wave/motif info. for each block, starting with diamonds. Now I'll be able to sort by anything and use this as a planning tool and not just a recording-as-i-go tool. No more wire hangers! |
Monday, April 2, 2012
Take Two on Blue
To review: making the Jane Stickle quilt. check. Rearranging the furniture. check. Adding more blue. check. So, about that diamond made of diamonds, all in blue. Decided to double back and pick out my fabrics for these - both so I can make sure I have enough in the right range and so that I can prep 'ready to go' blocks.
So with my blues picked out I thought the next step would be to sit down and work out which 24 blocks would be in the diamond wave... About 17 of them are clear-cut diamonds - the others could be modified to look like diamonds or could just as easily fall into other motif categories. So I still have to figure out a few things but I'm rolling on with my new plan.
Unrelated to the blue diamonds, but on my mind this week... thinking of (maybe) using the same background fabric on all - or at least no shirtings. I love the shirtings with individual blocks - just not sure how it will look when I get the sashing in there. Will the sashing be the thing that stands out cause it will be lightest? Or maybe the plain sashing is what will set the blocks off and tie it all together. Hmmm. I wish I could find some DJs with shirtings as background to reassure myself... It's possible that because I'm organizing the color values and block motifs, if I don't have the added scrappiness of the bkgd/shirtings, it will be cleaner than I'd like...
Thoughts, anyone?
So with my blues picked out I thought the next step would be to sit down and work out which 24 blocks would be in the diamond wave... About 17 of them are clear-cut diamonds - the others could be modified to look like diamonds or could just as easily fall into other motif categories. So I still have to figure out a few things but I'm rolling on with my new plan.
Unrelated to the blue diamonds, but on my mind this week... thinking of (maybe) using the same background fabric on all - or at least no shirtings. I love the shirtings with individual blocks - just not sure how it will look when I get the sashing in there. Will the sashing be the thing that stands out cause it will be lightest? Or maybe the plain sashing is what will set the blocks off and tie it all together. Hmmm. I wish I could find some DJs with shirtings as background to reassure myself... It's possible that because I'm organizing the color values and block motifs, if I don't have the added scrappiness of the bkgd/shirtings, it will be cleaner than I'd like...
Thoughts, anyone?
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| These are the darker mid-range blues... |
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| These are the lighter of the mid-range blues... the variation in hue shows up so much more in this photo - the gray-blues vs. the greenish-blues, etc. |
Monday, March 12, 2012
Jane's Addicted to Process.
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| ...of course i had to redesign it. |
Once I decided I wanted to make this quilt, I wondered if there was a way to keep the overall look and feel of the quilt - to faithfully reproduce (most of) the blocks, but tweak the block placement to emphasize the "trip around the world" pattern at the heart of the design...
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| So here's a picture of the original Jane A. Stickle quilt. Isn't it beautiful? I traced over the concentric diamonds that create the "trip around the world" pattern. Since there is a wide range of values in the blocks, especially since many of the fabrics have faded, the color scheme of the "trip" effect is a bit hard to see at first. |
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| An easy way to check the "value" of something is to neutralize the color... I converted all the blocks in the dear jane software to one single color so I could see the light/dark (value) more clearly. Squinting helps, too. With the color gone, the motifs start talking to you. |
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| Hello, circles and diamonds, light and dark... |
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| solids and 9-patches, and X'es light and dark... |
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| central motif (applique), asymmetrical, stars, etc. |
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| My worksheet: testing out a new layout using repositionable colorless blocks... (I printed out and cut up the blocks and hit the backs with a scrapbooking adhesive and it worked great... a little the worse for wear now...) Once I had a good sense for the motif groupings and values of the blocks, I started playing with a new layout based on motif and value. e.g., there are approximately x# of diamond blocks - where could I place those that would make the most sense? |
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| Lightbulb. the blocks with a diamond motif could form a giant diamond and the X blocks could form a giant X. At this point I was starting to think all my geeking out on this was starting to pay off. |
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| close up... |
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| A clean version of a redesign... This shows the general block placement I'm going with, but not color scheme (for example, all the diamonds will be in blue.) Since I love the overall color balance of the original quilt and want to try to keep that feeling, I am using a lot of tans and browns, pinks, blues and greens... Some other plans... I'm "righting" the basket, (I actually think it's adorable on-end, but it keeps making me want to turn my head sideways...) I'm boldly replacing the blocks I think are ugly... (blasphemy), and trying to keep the block design as close to the original as possible without reproducing "mistakes" (blasphemy). There's an elements/symbol thing running down the center column: there's rain, snow, star, earth, sun, and moons. I am using shirtings for background which could potentially ruin any increased balance I'm achieving with rearranging the blocks... So we will just have to wait and see how it all turns out! |
Friday, February 24, 2012
011.Mac and Muff
Jane's Addicted block name:
Original position: I-7
Jane's Addiction position: tbd
Fabric/foreground: by Jo Morton
Fabric/background: Primitive muslin by primitive gatherings / Moda #1040 (lighter)
Color Group: medium blue
Wave: diamonds
Date started: 2/24/12
Date finished:
Time: 2+
Pieces: 15
Method: paper piecing & applique tbd. Didn't paper piece outer border. (are you supposed to?)
Notes: love the fabric used in the cross. I think this was from Gretchen.
Watching: reruns of the office on netflix. Ahhh, lovely Jim.
4.5" blocks: 6
Triangles: 1
Kites: 0
Total blocks: 9
Total number of pieces: 158
Original position: I-7
Jane's Addiction position: tbd
Fabric/foreground: by Jo Morton
Fabric/background: Primitive muslin by primitive gatherings / Moda #1040 (lighter)
Color Group: medium blue
Wave: diamonds
Date started: 2/24/12
Date finished:
Time: 2+
Pieces: 15
Method: paper piecing & applique tbd. Didn't paper piece outer border. (are you supposed to?)
Notes: love the fabric used in the cross. I think this was from Gretchen.
Watching: reruns of the office on netflix. Ahhh, lovely Jim.
4.5" blocks: 6
Triangles: 1
Kites: 0
Total blocks: 9
Total number of pieces: 158
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
004.Starstruck
Block name: Starstruck
Original position: F-7
Jane's Addiction position: G-8
Fabric/foreground: Old Sturbridge Village (I - original line?) gold colorway
Fabric/background: yellower stained
Color Group: yellow
Wave: 2-stars
Date started: 9/20/11
Date finished: 9/21/11
Time: 3-4 meandering hours
Pieces: 21
Method: paper-pieced from dj software
Notes: 2nd cutting
Blocks completed: 2
Total number of pieces: 46
Started Starstruck today - paper-piecing... with one of my fave prints from Sturbridge Village by Judie Rothermel. So confused by paper-piecing again. Need to brush up. 10/11: trimmed down today.
<
Random: despite how god-awful sex & the city 2 was, it really really cheered me up today. Weather was awesome too - nice breeze blowing through the windows... Ahhhh... Looking forward to watching "Kathy Griffin: Emmy aftermath" & biggest loser season premiere...
9/21: finished today. Looooove it. Turned out great. Had to redo quite a few seams... Pain! But this is kind of a high stakes block since it's one of my faves... Kinda wonky on the back end but it really does look fine from the front. Can't wait to get a new phone so I can start taking pictures again...
Random: watched "something's gotta give" and the beginning of "pillow talk" - still a fave... Picked not one but two zukes today. It's a late summer miracle.
Sunday, September 4, 2011
The Stash.
Well, it's a fairly serious situation in there. If you're a quilter I know you know I know you know what I'm talking about. There's a large tote of 30s. Another stuffed with Amy Butler and Joel Dewberry and Denise something. There's a bunch of American Jane, some miscellaneous Moda. A little Kaffe - although not as much as I'd like... a smallish, heavy bag of sock monkey coordinates... You're getting the picture.
But the heart, the soul, in the belly of the beast are the civil war reproductions. Ahh, just typing those words fills me with feelings of 'happy tree.' How did I end up with a collection of - wait, whut? something with 'war' in the title? Well, that's a story for another day. Suffice it to say it's quite a large collection and I had a collector's sensibility about collecting these treasures - learning names of manufacturers, designers, lines, and organizing everything by designer and line. Upon closer inspection, I realize the number is double my first estimate of 1000. I think it's got to be closer to 2000 different fabrics. Uh, which is not only enough to achieve my original goal of having 'no repeats' but more like 8 or 9x the number of fabrics I actually need for this undertaking. Yeah okay, maybe I got carried away. As I confessed earlier, it was a genuinely classifiable (certifiable) hoarding situation, no doubt. But as i stood on the brink of starting 'Jane's Addiction' in earnest - something I've been planning for years - I knew the stash would have to be tamed.
...soooo... I spent many many (many) hours this past week going through five big bins' worth of civil war repro scraps, fat quarters and yardage. Since most of it was organized by designer and line and not by color/value, which is what i would need for selecting fabrics for individual blocks, I had a lot of work to do. I worked my way through the bins, sorting by hue and value, and also pulling out the large florals and the high contrast prints I've pretty much decided I'm not going to be able to use... I had to go through the various project totes and pull fabrics from those and deal with finding the odd bag of stash that never quite made it to the mothership - or the piles that fell off the back end of the table... Ooh, there was some good stuff in there. Ok, and I'll admit, I did take some quality time just getting reacquainted with these old friends again... They've been away on a major holiday. Locked up in a castle dungeon more like.
Once I had everything grouped by color and value/hue within the color, and had the oddballs sorted out and banished the uglies and the scratchies, I took a loose count of each grouping to be sure I had enough "medium blues" to cover all the diamond shaped blocks, for example. It was quite a project but even though there are still a lot of unknowns, I feel better prepared now, knowing approximately which blocks are going to be made using a given color group, I can now start making these little puppies. I am starting with Indianapolis in green. Next up will be four stars in yellow.
Side note: if this were a book this would be a sidebar... I'm doing this 'Jane' in a TATW (trip around the world) which means there will be concentric diamonds of blocks that carry both a common pattern theme and are in the same color family (e.g., blocks with circle motifs in pale pink). The 'original' did this in color but not in motif or value so it was harder to decipher that TATW pattern visually. My idea, quite a few years back already, was to reorganize the blocks based on motif and value (light/dark) and then reassign position and color groupings based on that. It took some doing but I achieved that, thankyouverymuch. And yes, that took quite a bit of time but it was definitely a labor of love - or at least an attack of compulsiveness I don't regret. And thank god I saved a few printouts of the design because the dear Jane software (probably user error) did not save my masterpiece! At the same time, I really like the overall color impression of the original so I want to keep it looking somewhat scrappy - not 'too organized,' not 'too clean.' Sounds like a challenge... Can she do it?
But the heart, the soul, in the belly of the beast are the civil war reproductions. Ahh, just typing those words fills me with feelings of 'happy tree.' How did I end up with a collection of - wait, whut? something with 'war' in the title? Well, that's a story for another day. Suffice it to say it's quite a large collection and I had a collector's sensibility about collecting these treasures - learning names of manufacturers, designers, lines, and organizing everything by designer and line. Upon closer inspection, I realize the number is double my first estimate of 1000. I think it's got to be closer to 2000 different fabrics. Uh, which is not only enough to achieve my original goal of having 'no repeats' but more like 8 or 9x the number of fabrics I actually need for this undertaking. Yeah okay, maybe I got carried away. As I confessed earlier, it was a genuinely classifiable (certifiable) hoarding situation, no doubt. But as i stood on the brink of starting 'Jane's Addiction' in earnest - something I've been planning for years - I knew the stash would have to be tamed.
...soooo... I spent many many (many) hours this past week going through five big bins' worth of civil war repro scraps, fat quarters and yardage. Since most of it was organized by designer and line and not by color/value, which is what i would need for selecting fabrics for individual blocks, I had a lot of work to do. I worked my way through the bins, sorting by hue and value, and also pulling out the large florals and the high contrast prints I've pretty much decided I'm not going to be able to use... I had to go through the various project totes and pull fabrics from those and deal with finding the odd bag of stash that never quite made it to the mothership - or the piles that fell off the back end of the table... Ooh, there was some good stuff in there. Ok, and I'll admit, I did take some quality time just getting reacquainted with these old friends again... They've been away on a major holiday. Locked up in a castle dungeon more like.
Once I had everything grouped by color and value/hue within the color, and had the oddballs sorted out and banished the uglies and the scratchies, I took a loose count of each grouping to be sure I had enough "medium blues" to cover all the diamond shaped blocks, for example. It was quite a project but even though there are still a lot of unknowns, I feel better prepared now, knowing approximately which blocks are going to be made using a given color group, I can now start making these little puppies. I am starting with Indianapolis in green. Next up will be four stars in yellow.
Side note: if this were a book this would be a sidebar... I'm doing this 'Jane' in a TATW (trip around the world) which means there will be concentric diamonds of blocks that carry both a common pattern theme and are in the same color family (e.g., blocks with circle motifs in pale pink). The 'original' did this in color but not in motif or value so it was harder to decipher that TATW pattern visually. My idea, quite a few years back already, was to reorganize the blocks based on motif and value (light/dark) and then reassign position and color groupings based on that. It took some doing but I achieved that, thankyouverymuch. And yes, that took quite a bit of time but it was definitely a labor of love - or at least an attack of compulsiveness I don't regret. And thank god I saved a few printouts of the design because the dear Jane software (probably user error) did not save my masterpiece! At the same time, I really like the overall color impression of the original so I want to keep it looking somewhat scrappy - not 'too organized,' not 'too clean.' Sounds like a challenge... Can she do it?
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
The Jane A. Stickle Quilt
So yeah, what's really fueling this whole thang is I'm finally starting on "the quilt." I'm talking about the famous "Jane A. Stickle" quilt aka the "Dear Jane" quilt. It was made by one woman during the civil war and simply, poignantly signed “In War Time 1863. Pieces 5602. Jane A. Stickle.
The quilt is known for its originality and many, many tiny pieces. Bajillions of people all over the world make reproductions of this quilt so there's a lot of great info and camaraderie out there. It's a community tradition to give your quilt a name. Surprise: mine is called "Jane's Addiction."
225 unique, pieced blocks - no repeats.
The intention to make a recreation of this quilt has been there for years. In fact, a few blocks have even been made - mainly because I absolutely couldn't help but to make them. The jane-driven compulsive fabric-hoarding peaked a few years ago already, declined and eventually leveled off. In the meantime, a huge stash of civil war reproduction quilting fabric was accumulated. Binned for longer than I'd like to admit, it's been freshly reorganized by color. ::little old lady adam sandler voice:: "Oh, I love touching my fabwic!" Well, that was embarassing - but honestly, that's how I get.
And of course, I had to redesign the whole layout of the quilt. I love the individual block designs and the overall color of the original, but being all graphic designery and edity all the time I decided what it really needed was to be reorganized by block style, value and color. Three years later... (just kidding). As I am student of 'creative process' I will share photos of that progression at some point. There's a book. There's software. There are 100s of patterns to be printed. There are 1000s of pages of tips and advice to reference. And I haven't even mentioned yet how lucky I feel that my favorite quilt shop finally started a 'Dear Jane' group for those of us who've been wanting to take on this project. Suffice it to say a lot of work has gone into this and I haven't really even started, ya know? But I love this quilt so much and am dying to get up to my neck in it proper. Since this is such a large project I wanted to document it. A lot of people seem to do that and I am getting on board. Block by block I want to take notes and keep track of details (how many pieces, how much time it took, fabric used and method) and other ephemera.
As for scope, I'm not yet sure if I will limit my posts to "Jane's Addiction" but I'd like to think general musings on the pursuit of happiness would be welcomed here as well.
- JanesAddicted.
The quilt is known for its originality and many, many tiny pieces. Bajillions of people all over the world make reproductions of this quilt so there's a lot of great info and camaraderie out there. It's a community tradition to give your quilt a name. Surprise: mine is called "Jane's Addiction."
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| The original Jane A. Stickle quilt |
225 unique, pieced blocks - no repeats.
- 169 pieced 4.5" square blocks
- 52 pieced triangle and
- 4 pieced corner kites
The intention to make a recreation of this quilt has been there for years. In fact, a few blocks have even been made - mainly because I absolutely couldn't help but to make them. The jane-driven compulsive fabric-hoarding peaked a few years ago already, declined and eventually leveled off. In the meantime, a huge stash of civil war reproduction quilting fabric was accumulated. Binned for longer than I'd like to admit, it's been freshly reorganized by color. ::little old lady adam sandler voice:: "Oh, I love touching my fabwic!" Well, that was embarassing - but honestly, that's how I get.
And of course, I had to redesign the whole layout of the quilt. I love the individual block designs and the overall color of the original, but being all graphic designery and edity all the time I decided what it really needed was to be reorganized by block style, value and color. Three years later... (just kidding). As I am student of 'creative process' I will share photos of that progression at some point. There's a book. There's software. There are 100s of patterns to be printed. There are 1000s of pages of tips and advice to reference. And I haven't even mentioned yet how lucky I feel that my favorite quilt shop finally started a 'Dear Jane' group for those of us who've been wanting to take on this project. Suffice it to say a lot of work has gone into this and I haven't really even started, ya know? But I love this quilt so much and am dying to get up to my neck in it proper. Since this is such a large project I wanted to document it. A lot of people seem to do that and I am getting on board. Block by block I want to take notes and keep track of details (how many pieces, how much time it took, fabric used and method) and other ephemera.
As for scope, I'm not yet sure if I will limit my posts to "Jane's Addiction" but I'd like to think general musings on the pursuit of happiness would be welcomed here as well.
- JanesAddicted.
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