Here is a follow up on two posts about a freeform log cabin quilt I’ve been working on using Northcott’s Stonehenge fabric line scraps, that I named “Scraphenge”:
Well Scraphenge is “done and hung“! I received it back from the longarm quilter last week (I used Missouri Star Quilting Company longarm quilting services).
I decided instead of a binding to put a “facing” on the quilt since I was going to hang it on the wall:
Instead of the cumbersome method I’ve used to put a facing on in the past, which I learned from an art quilting book, I searched YouTube to see if there was an easier method and voilà I found one:
And it worked perfectly! It was much easier than the previous method I was using!
So here is the quilt hung in the hallway next to the entryway to our home. I took a couple different photos as due to the stairways to upstairs and the basement it was challenging to photograph the quilt straight on:
Here is a close up of the quilting:
I love seeing the quilt as I descend the stairs from upstairs to the main floor:
The cool thing about this quilt is most of the quilt top is made from Stonehenge fabric scraps that friends have given me and some Stonehenge fabric scraps I had from a quilt I made. So the quilt top was primarily made from stuff that would have ended up in a landfill. I LOVE SCRAP QUILTS!
This post is a follow up to my previous post What’s On The Design Wall: Stonehenge Scrappy Freeform Log Cabin, where I was using the freeform/improvisational log cabin block piecing technique – “log jamming” – to create a scrap quilt from my Northcott Fabrics Stonehenge line scraps.
I completed all the blocks and was deciding on a layout.
The layout I came up with was one in which the blocks set in other colors besides the cream Stonehenge fabric, were set in the center of the quilt (except for 4 I saved to use as cornerstones).
I decided to name the piece “Scraphenge” since it was made from Stonehenge fabric line scraps!
It is not a very large quilt, it measures 55 inches tall by 48 inches wide (139 cm by 122 cm).
Right now I am trying to decide whether to quilt it myself or send it to a long arm quilter. However for now I am just going to leave it up on the design wall as I have other projects in queue I want to work on (smile).
I mentioned in my post Things to Do When You Have a Bad “Cold”, that I’ve been working on a scrappy improvisational “log cabin” block style quilt. I thought I would show you my progress on the piece so far.
All I’ve done is lay the blocks out for now on my design wall, this is not the final design. I have a name in mind for the piece but I am keeping that under wraps until I see if the final design will work.
Each block is 6.5 inches x 6.5 inches and was made using scraps of Northcott Fabrics’ Stonehenge line which I love, as well as some small yardage pieces of Stonehenge I had in my stash.
The scraps primarily came from this quilt I made a couple years ago:
This was my pile of scraps that I started with for the piece currently up on my studio design wall which include scraps from the quilt above and scraps given to me by quilting friends:
Eventually I decided not to use the Stonehenge animal print scraps that someone gave me (and recently I donated a pile of them to a local charity thrift store so they can be enjoyed by another crafter).
Here are photos of me chain piecing the improvisational log cabin blocks via a technique I learned from Jackie Erickson at the Stitchin Post when I lived in Central Oregon.
Jackie told us in a class I took at the Stitchin’ Post that “log jamming” that is technique originated in Africa – the using of scraps to randomly put together fabric and create a larger piece of fabric, etc.
While writing this post I googled “log jamming quilting” to see if I could find any official history on this technique and found a VIDEO by the Stitchin’ Post about log jamming!!!
If you want to see a demonstration of the technique, here is the video – enjoy!
Jackie has a pattern she sells on making a log jam quilt and here is the link to it: Modern Log Jam.
image credit: stichinpost.com
I have used the technique I learned from Jackie on so many quilts over the years (as well as taught the late Terry the Quilting Husband to make quilts this way also – see post What’s On The Design Wall: Flannel “Log Jam” Blocks) that she holds a special place in my heart (and she is an awesome teacher!).
In her class she would use a shoppingbag of random scraps and you just pull from that bag and “jam on” while chain piecing.
Okay I went off on a tangent on log jamming, and let’s get back to the story on this current log jam quilt in progress…
Originally I wanted to frame all the blocks in a cream colored Stonehenge fabric I had in my stash, but it turned out I did not have enough. So I used a smaller brown yardage as well as a couple fat quarters from my stash that I thought would coordinate.
Here are the resulting four (4) types of blocks:
Yes, I have not cleaned up all the loose threads from all that chain piecing I did. But I’ll do that as I sew the blocks together in whatever their final configuration.
For now they all sit on my design wall awaiting my further musings on layout…
It is a quilt top measures approximately 60″ x 72″ and made with traditional piecing but not a with a traditional vibe.
I tried to photograph it using the back of my shed discussed in the post ThePhotoshoot Shed: Please Give Me Your Ideas, but I had a shadow from the top of my gate due to the position of the sun:
So I moved it to the side of my house which was completely in shadow and got a better photo:
I decided not to put a border on it because I plan to put it into the rotation of quilts I rotate through my living room. A border would make it too large for the space I want to hang it. It coordinates well with the colors in my living room!
So I am working on piecing a backing together with various 1 -2 yard pieces of browns I have (trying to use my stash) and then send it to a long-arm quilter. I will likely bind it in the Stonehenge fabric I was going to use for the border.
I guess I need to work on the Medallion quilt in the photo below next as I have completed #1, #2, and #4!
Postscript
Around this time last year I was posting about the sunflowers in my garden. Well they did not return this year and I did not plant sunflower seeds – so I am sunflowerless!
Luckily my neighbors on the corner have several raised bed boxes of sunflowers in their front yard for me to enjoy:
I will be more diligent next Spring on planting sunflower seeds!
Yesterday I worked to turn the “hot mess” and former unfinished object (UFO) into something resembling a quilt top. I’ve named the quilt “Cozy Cobblestones” as the fabric is the Northcott Stonehenge Cobblestones line.
I promised better photos, however I was unable to keep my promise. Still struggling with the narrowness of my hallway, I had to take entire layout photos at an angle. Alas, this is one of the “cons” of having a design wall in a narrow hallway!
From the right side
From the left side
Here is one “head on” photo taken by smooshing myself against the opposite wall:
“Smooshed” against the wall!
You are probably wincing at the lighting on the photos. Once I sew the blocks together, I am going to take the quilt outside for a proper photo!
I am likely going to “float” the quilt top in additional Stonehenge fabric (I think I have enough yardage to put a “float” border around it). Here is the fabric I might use (it is my only choice unless I go out and try to find some more):
Next to a section of the blocks layout:
Try and use your imagination of how cool this will look…
I might use the same fabric for the binding too as I am trying to use what I have in my stash. A contrasting binding might be nice but I would have to purchase it new (and I am taking a hiatus from buying fabric right now).
Speaking of my “stash”, I put the scraps and the two remaining fat quarters that I did not use up, in a future “Challenge Bag” (see post Basketof Challenges):
I’m gonna be a future “Challenge Bag” – yay!
Inside the scrap bag you will see the blue scraps that I loved (from another Stonehenge line that a quilting friend donated) but could not work into the piece. We’ll see what I make in the future with this small bag of scraps.
The remaining scraps are fairly small as I worked hard to harvest any piece I could turn into a 2.5″ x 2.5″ block:
Little squares, cutting so many little squares! (42 x 9 = 378)
Quilters reading this may wince, but I did not have enough length of any of the scraps from piecing the original 12″ blocks to make the 6′ nine-patch blocks using the quick “strip-piecing” method. Instead I had to cut out individual 2.5″ x 2.5″ pieces and sew them together to make 42 6-inch nine-patch blocks! I did “chain-piece” the heck out the pieces after a while became a nine-patch block factory!
It was definitely an old school traditional piecing!
I am feeling pleased with my progress on the “UFOs” in this photo, this quilt top is the #4 in the photo below:
Once I get it all sewn together, I guess I need to work on the only remaining “UFO” – #3 (Medallion quilt) – but I am not feeling inspiration on that one yet!
Postscript
In addition to a push to complete my unfinished projects, I’ve recently experimented with a couple paper-crafting/card making projects in the paper-crafting/beading area I set up in my sunroom:
Here are the two cards I made:
I am not sure if the recipients of these cards actually liked them, but I had fun making them. I listened to a classical radio station on my new(ish) thrift shop radio and found card making very meditative.
Card making was actually my first official crafting hobby that I did with others.
My friend Michele got me started in the late 1990s. I think it opened my mind to starting quilting, which I learned shortly after. I still have many of my card making supplies from the late 1990s and early 2000s. I donated about 1/2 of those supplies to charity organizations but I still have some wonderful supplies to make more handmade cards (whether people want them or not – ha!)
On the large design wall in my hallway is something that resembles a “hot mess“.
The hallway is narrow – it works great as a design wall, but is challenging for photography.
This “hot mess” actually represents quite a bit of progress. I struggled with what to do with the 20 blocks I made during a “traditional piecing” binge I went on October to November 2016 and discussed in the following series of posts:
Prior to working these blocks, it seems like the last couple of years I was primarily focused on improvisational quilting. I was craving structure (and a break from designing my own quilts) and pulled out my old Ladies’ Art Company Block Tool by Connie Chunn (2007) and started making blocks using a jelly roll I found in my stash of Northcott Cobblestone Stonehenge; and some Stonehenge scraps another quilter gave me.
Unfortunately, I did not have enough of the blue Stonehenge scraps to use them in more than just one block so I had to return those to the fabric scrap basket.
(Now I could have titled this post “Revisiting Traditional Piecing…Part IV” but this binge of working on “traditional pieced blocks” has intermittently continued while I sporadically work on Farm Girl Vintageblocks.)
The dilemma – designing the final quilt layout
The reason why the 20 blocks pictured below got put aside after my “piecing binge” was that I could not find a pleasing way to lay them out. I auditioned many different ways of setting the blocks to include traditional ways such as lattice, putting them on pointing, floating them, and various ideas suggested by my readers (much appreciated!)
(Martha and met through this quilt: She bought the green ombre setting fabric for this exquisite sampler quilt through my tierneycreates Etsy shop…glad I met her before I closed the shop!)
Alas, none of the numerous options I explored appealed to me.
Farm Girl Vintage Strikes!
My next venture into traditional-block-piecing-binging was with Lori Holt’s Farm Girl Vintage. In this book I discovered the perfect setting for my blocks! It is called the “Picnic Setting”
For copyright reasons I did not want to photograph the page in Farm Girl Vintage showing the setting, but I did find this photo on Pinterest, pinned by Deborah Thomas, of a quilt in the Picnic Setting:
Photo credit: Deborah Thomas, Pinterest
The setting is a mixture of 12″ (finished) and 6″ (finished) blocks. The 6″ blocks are the setting for the 12″ blocks!
At first I thought of returning to the Ladies’ Art Company Block Tool and creating a bunch of different 6 inch pieced blocks. Thinking through this idea, I realized the quilt top would NEVER get done if headed down this path. How daunting to make 36 different 6″ blocks to set my 12″ blocks! I needed at least 36 of them to make the block setting work, and it would be 2020 before I posted about this quilt in progress again!.
Nine-Patch, an old stand-by
Finally I settled on making “old school” 6″ (finished) nine-patch blocks using up the scraps from the original jelly roll from piecing the 12″ blocks.
Here is the beginning of playing with the layout as I make the nine-patch blocks:
There will not be a lot of contrast, and that is intentional. I want the quilt top to have the feel of looking at a stone floor and the patterns and the colors of the stones flowing into one another.
More to come as I progress on the quilt top (perhaps even better photos, but do not get your hopes up!)
Postscript
Decorating with Pillows
A quick follow up to my previous post – PetitePillow Power!– here is a little vignette in my living room with one of the new pillow, a batik basket I made (the top one), a lidded store bought basket, and a Longaberger basket someone gave me as a gift 20 years ago:
Quilting Meets Couture
In case you’d like to learn more about the project that got me started on my art quilting journey, check out this post on , Improvisational Textiles:
Sharing a quick follow up to the post – Revisiting Traditional Piecing: The Blocks Part Iin which I shared the first 8 blocks I made for a traditional block sampler, made with non traditional fabrics (a collection of fat quarters from Northcott’s Stonehenge fabric line) for a wedding gift.
Here are the next 8 blocks I have pieced – four (4) different blocks from the Ladies’ Art Company Block Tool by Connie Chunn, each in two versions:
This weekend I got to play with different layouts now that I have 16 blocks completed. I tried out a traditional sampler layout with sashing and corner stones; and a layout setting the blocks “on-point. I liked the “on-point” version (diamond) instead of square next to square layout.
My plan is to make a queen-sized bed quilt, so I determined I need at least 4 more blocks for a total of 20- 12 inch (finished size) blocks. I tentatively plan to do a 4 by 5 block layout and borders.
Today I completed 2 additional blocks (for a total of 18) and I will post them on the next update. I am also now looking through my quilt book collection and the web for innovative “on-point” sampler quilt settings (and of course going to make the remaining 2 blocks so the blocks can be finished).
More to come but wanted to get this update out there. Happy Stitching!
tierneycreates 