when colors give the wrong vibrations

“Color is all. When color is right, form is right. Color is everything, color is vibration like music; everything is vibration.” 

― Marc Chagall

I wrote and then deleted a post a couple of days ago regarding this quilt project. I had been working on it for a couple of weeks, struggling with the design. The quilt top I finished was so hideous that I couldn't leave it up here. :)

Theoretically, the reds, green and yellow of the 1950s tablecloth, the green and white polka dots from a girl's dress, a yellow and red mini-print from my 1980s stash, and the yellow gingham should work together. In the photo above, they look all right. Cheerful even, which is what I was going for: spring.

But the final result was bad in composition (an ambitious attempt to take inspiration from this gorgeous painting by Linda Vachon) — bad vibrations (thank you, M. Chagall) — and one of the main factors was this yellow and white gingham. When looking at the final piece, the gingham faded in juxtaposition with the yellow and red mini-print, which came off as golden/olive by comparison. I wish I had the heart to post it here so you would be convinced. Maybe you can picture it.

Chagall also said,

“All colors are the friends of their neighbors and the lovers of their opposites.”

At first this sounds contradictory to his other statement at the top. But I think it's important to keep both in mind while designing a quilt. Color is everything.

I haven't ripped this top apart yet, but I've begun another project: a modern flying geese quilt in white, cream and soft blue/green. I needed to get away from bold colors, which need a good deal of design skill to pull off.

"Rose and her sisters"

I finished the first quilt for my etsy shop (not launched yet), which I call "Rose and her sisters." I feel excited about my goal for the shop: to create homemade modern improv quilts from 100% repurposed fabrics and fabric scraps.

This quilt really expresses my aesthetic. It has an old world feel, with deep, rich tones and lots of close quilting. It has the colors and feel of a tapestry. The toile linen in the two panels of "Rose and her sisters" was leftover from a chair recovering project. More about the quilting in a minute. The brown mini-floral is from my fabric stash and must be thirty years old. The large cabbage rose print is from a Ralph Lauren dust ruffle my sister Nancy gave me long ago. I never used it as a dust ruffle. It is a beautiful soft cotton with the sheen of chintz.

This could also be "Ruth and her sisters" since I have three sisters.

I sewed straight line quilting on all the panels and strips except for the two toile panels with ladies, which I free motion quilted. The sisters remind me of characters in a George Eliot novel, maybe that's because I'm reading Middlemarch now.

I can picture Miss Brook sitting in Mr. Brook's library reading with this quilt on her lap. All my quilts will probably be this size: 65" x 43 1/2" or so, perfect for laps, naps, thrown on a bed, sofa, or porch swing.

I only learned about improv quilts recently, since getting back into quilting. Back in the 1980s I only pieced traditional quilts (log cabins, lone stars, traditional blocks). When I started following Pinterest quilt boards recently, I discovered the exciting world of improv piecing. (My Pinterest quilts board is here with inspiration galore.) No measuring or straight lines. Just cut and create as you go. This is so satisfying for me and feels just right. You can see the wonkiness of the four brown bars in the full top below, like tree trunks or fence posts in the ladies' rose garden.

Cutting up the fabric into strips this way deconstructs the elegance of Ralph Lauren's world and puts it back together with an embrace of folk art, of women who for centuries have used what they had to create beauty for themselves and their family. She may think the sumptuous life of toile ladies is gorgeous, but she will probably never attain it. She'll piece together what she can.

The back of the quilt is pieced with more scraps, mostly from my 1980s stash. The rose print on the top right was another gift from Nancy, an upholstery linen. The deep red and the olive green were scraps from Henry's quilt and my granddaughter's quilt (due to be born Thursday!).

You know how they say you should follow your passion and see if you can find someone to pay you for it? Well, that's what I'm about these days. It will be thrilling when someone decides they need to own this quilt.

For the binding I chose the same olive green I used for my granddaughter's quilt. I wanted a bright contrast.

Now a bit about the quilting. I stitched straight lines on the strips and panels, except for the linen toile. I alternated horizontal lines with vertical from panel to panel for interest. Because the fabric is flowery, I wanted straight lines as a balance. The great news is that the walking foot worked very well on my old Singer! I still didn't get it to fit just right (it knocked a little), but it breezed over the layers without a pucker! The back of the quilt testifies to this (above).

About three quarters through the quilting I decided to invest in a new quilting sewing machine, the first new sewing machine I've ever owned. It is a Brother PQ1500S. The "new product shock" was incredible, and wonderful. On the old Singer, I had to crank the wheel with my right hand to start every new row of stitching. If you imagine this with every turn of the quilt, back and forth, back and forth, over the whole top, I was an aching mess. With the new machine, I only have to touch the pedal with my toe! What a breeze. I guess I've been living in the dark ages, happily. So I finished the straight rows of quilting, and I saved the two toile panels for last.

Though I'd tried free motion quilting on the bottom half of James's quilt on the old Singer with decent results, I knew I could not progress in FMQ with the old machine. You really need to lower your feed dogs (though a few quilters don't), and I could not figure out how to lower mine. I found instructions online for an old Singer, but it wasn't the same model as mine. This contributed to the decision to buy a new machine, one that had all the settings, feet and possibilities I was looking for.

After some practice, I tackled the free motion quilting on the ladies. I was terrified. But the control I felt with the new machine was much greater than on James's quilt, and I am happy with the result of the echo stitching.

For me, the best part of creating a quilt is designing it. I have the next two in my head and will post about the process. After the deep old world hues of this quilt, and after such a very brutal winter, I am ready for a spring quilt next, which I'm calling either "jelly beans" or "crocus and jonquils." After that, a black and white one from Goodwill skirts.

a quilt for Henry

The second of our three grandchildren was born right on his due date February 20. Henry Bennett arrived in fine form, we are so grateful. (The third, a girl, is due March 12. Her quilt is finished and posted here.)

I was relieved to be able to finish his quilt the weekend before he arrived, well actually on Monday. I pieced it Saturday, quilted Sunday, then sewed on the binding Monday. He arrived Thursday. Phew!

This quilt is full of my brother Bennett, who passed away in 1996 at age 47. He and I were close. I used a linen table cloth of his for years after he died, and it began to get threadbare.

Bennett's table cloth from India

Because Henry was to have his name, I used that cloth in the quilt (the parts that were not threadbare, of course) and paired all the fabrics around it. I also wanted it to be a "hippie" quilt. Although Bennett wasn't a true hippie, much of his outlook was shaped that way. He wore a black arm band at his 1970 college graduation to protest the Vietnam War. He was non-materialistic, and his taste in music shaped my own. (CSNY, Joni Mitchell, Randy Newman, James Taylor, so many more) He wore soft, worn chambray or flannel shirts.

Bennett's table cloth linen is the floral one
and also the border with red;
I'm sure this was made in India

I decided I wanted to design a free-form quilt, and this was not easy. I cut the pieces at the beginning to place them in a composition I liked. And then as I began to piece it, I adjusted the pieces to fit into each other. I wanted it to be more folk art than precision pieces. This process was organic for me and felt just right as I connected with Bennett.

I really love linen, and I ordered a second special one from Australia, with cats, birds and trees. Bennett loved nature, as do I, and I wanted to introduce Henry to this love.

I tried to use the new walking foot, but I could not get it to align with the needle when I installed it. So I used the regular foot. Since finishing, I found a helpful piece of advice at a quilting blog to simply push the foot to the side until it aligns. It sounds intuitive, but when you're working with it, you'd think that would break it. I will try it before starting the next.

Henry and I had a little photo shoot yesterday on his quilt. He seemed to like it just fine. He already rolls from side to side.

Henry Bennett, age 4 days

In this picture, Henry looks like his brother James, who is now 2

James's birds of the air quilt finished

The quilt that tops this blog is one I began for my grandson James shortly after learning that our daughter was pregnant, before I even knew if he was a boy or girl, which was about two and a half years ago. I pieced it by machine with fabric I had on hand in my stash and some I bought in the colors Lesley planned for his room: robin's egg blue and tan. Then I began the quilting stitches by hand.

hand stitches

I love how hand stitching looks, and I love doing it. I got almost half way done with it, using a heart template. I marked the pattern on the quilt with the blue pen, which disappears after a few days or with washing.

heart template for quilting

But I have had carpal tunnel syndrome, and then arthritis, and so hand quilting became too much. The quilt sat in my room where I could touch and admire the colors and patterns, but not finish it. I was opposed to machine quilting. This was because I didn't think it looked as nice as hand stitches, and because I knew there were issues with the fabric bunching. I also have an old fashioned sense of time, believing that the longer something takes, the greater its value.

Eventually, after James turned two in January, and his brother's arrival approached (due February 20), I felt the need to complete James's quilt before starting one for his brother. I ordered a free motion sewing foot and practiced on scraps with top, batting and back, and felt ready to finish James's flying geese quilt with the machine.

The machine stitches are far from perfect. But when you look at the quilt from a distance, you really can't tell the difference. I hope I'll improve with practice.

In the photo below you can see the hand stitches on the right and the machine stitches on the left. I tried to follow hearts at least abstractly, not taking time to draw the template on the rest of the quilt, since I didn't know how easy it would be to follow the lines anyway!

machine stitches on the left, hand stitches on the right

I made continuous bias tape (instructions here) with one of the fabrics in the quilt. I made far more than I needed.

I sewed the binding first onto the back side of the quilt. Then I carefully folded over the edge and sewed it from the front, staying close to the original row of stitches on the back. There is a wonderful YouTube tutorial for sewing binding onto a quilt here.

In the photo above, you can see the variations in stitch length using the free motion quilt. If you go too slow, the stitches are too long. If you go too fast, the stitches are too short. You can also see here where I caught the fabric twice and bunched it with the machine! This is the only place I did this on the front, though there is a rather egregious instance of bunching on the back. I couldn't bear to take it out, which would have taken hours. When I told James's mommy about it, she told me that in art school, her weaving instructor told her that Native Americans said that mistakes in their crafts are where the soul resides. O! I do like thinking of my soul residing in that bunched up fabric in James's quilt.

By the way, I wore garden gloves to control the fabric, otherwise my fingers would have just slipped and slid along. I had to wash them first.

The whole quilt measures about 62 x 42". Though this photo is not straight, the quilt is.

I call it "birds of the air"
but it is traditionally called "flying geese"

James really likes it. When I gave it to him yesterday, he kept lying down on it, saying "James sleep."

James being held by grammy's love

The thing is, I still prefer hand stitched quilting. But the quilt is done! And James can enjoy it now.

the quilt is given

They were pleased.

I love them so much!

long strips in happy spring colors

For my granddaughter, due March 12.

First photo below is the pieced quilt top before layering it with batting and backing. I was inspired by this quilt by Rita at Red Pepper Quilts to sew strips of fabric. I knew I wanted olive green, turquoise and other lively colors, and I wanted them to seem random and eclectic, though cohesive. It took me quite a while to study Rita's quilt to understand that the reason the spectrum of colors and fabrics works together is that each fabric is analogous to the one next to it. In mine, except for the solid olive green and turquoise in the bottom half, each fabric also has a color that is in the fabric next to it, the way Rita designed hers.

You can see that the quilt is not as small as a baby size, but not as large as a twin.

quilt front;
finished size 40" x 63", a little long I think;
I took a nap under it a few days ago, and I fit.

A couple decades ago I made quilts, piecing on the machine and quilting by hand. I gave up the craft when carpal tunnel kept me from quilting those little stitches, which can take weeks to finish. Now I have arthritis, making hand stitching even less likely. But I decided I can machine quilt, something I was dead set against back then! I added one line of hand stitching to this quilt, with thread from Grandma Olive's sewing box. It must be at least 75 years old. I wanted to use silk from that box, but it disintegrated as I handled it. The thread I used (in the top row of stitching) feels like flax or linen.

Below is the back. The problem with machine quilting for a novice like me is 1) there are puckers and gathers on the front, and 2) it's even worse on the back, oh and 3) my lines aren't straight. (One could argue that these make it look homemade.) I'm reading up on machine quilting and have now ordered a walking foot for the machine, which is supposed to feed all layers evenly for straight line stitching like this and helps prevent puckering.

back, with puckers

back bottom corner; this would be cute in a girl's dress, too

front top corner, with one row (top) hand stitched with Grandma Olive's thread;
I think the top fabric with green and pink is my favorite

front with cute animal print; Andrea likes owls and Peter likes foxes;
what will baby like?

I'm happy with all these fabrics together

I could have gone with any color from the quilt for the binding;
but I ended up wanting to emphasize the olive green;
I chose a fabric not in the quilt;
next quilt I will make the binding strips a little wider
so that it doesn't feel so stiff;
I love making continuous bias tape binding,
instructions here