My Sketchbook > amy a la mode

Diagonals & Zig Zags = String Quilts?

Posted by Amy on October 13th, 2010

Okay, now *this* assignment for my 2D Design class was fun (well, except for the fussy gluing — I must have failed basic gluing techniques in kindergarten!).

First, we created a design of diagonal lines in various widths of black ink on a piece of paper.

Then we cut the piece of paper into 2-inch squares and rearranged them into zig zag patterns.

Anyone else see a string quilt here? And I love the idea of starting with a huge piece of fabric pieced together in diagonal lines that is then cut apart to yield a lot of blocks you can rearrange. I would love to try this with fabric, but the logistics are kind of complicated for anything very big. But it’s possible.

I’m starting to wonder if every assignment in this class is going to make me think about quilts???

Quilts and Radial Symmetry

Posted by Amy on October 12th, 2010

The quarter is in full swing and one of my classes is turning out to be really fun so far — the Basic 2D Design class. I mentioned to you before that the first assignment was a quilt design.

The topic was radial symmetry and we had to make a grid of 1/2-inch squares and fill it in with 4 different values from white to dark gray using pencils. The final design needed to be radially symmetric (she never really gave a strict definition of radial symmetry and was pretty lenient on that aspect) and needed to be darker in the center and lighter toward the edges.

I think I turned out to be the only person in the class who made something spiraling like this. This is really kind of a fun way to work out designs, though it’s also fairly slow. It was definitely fun looking at what everyone came up with. I swear some of them looked like PacMan video games!

Birth of a Quilt — First Steps

Posted by Amy on September 2nd, 2010

I have been meaning for months to tell you about making the quilts that I have for sale on my web site, and I am finally going to get around to it! I’ll start with the very first quilt I designed for my company — the Not So Straight and Narrow quilt.

Not So Straight and Narrow Quilt

This quilt was based on the Pick & Choose quilt that I started in the Improvisational Patchwork class with Denyse Schmidt last summer. I love that quilt, and I love the improvisational style. However, what I wanted to do this time around was create a design that incorporated improvisational aspects that would be different every time around, but would still be recognizable as the same design every time. That way customers could order this quilt and have some reasonable expectation of what they were going to get, while still getting something completely unique. Make sense?

Pick & Choose Quilt

I started by sketching out the blocks from the Pick & Choose quilt and making notes about what I did or didn’t like about them for this new quilt. From there I decided on some basic principles for the piecing of the center strips that I could use as the basis for the blocks in this quilt.

Next was to decide the colors. For the Pick & Choose quilt I was forced to use what was at hand. This time I could make some decisions up front.

I still wanted to use the Prints Charming Paisley Garden print that I had used in the Pick & Choose quilt, so I started with that and my RK Kona Cotton color card. I ordered up a bunch of cuts of fabrics that I thought might go and started testing out various combinations. This is one set of colors that I looked at (not the final version).

And here it is in black and white. This is something I do *a lot*, and that you will see a lot of pictures of as I take you through the making of these quilts. There are a lot of things that are more apparent in black in white than in color, like the pattern or repetition of a fabric within a design (though that’s not relevant at this point in the process, of course).

I also have this thing about varying the values (I did a post on values a while back). It’s just part of the way I design. I am not particularly drawn to color combinations where everything is the same value. Colors tend to look kind of yucky together if they are all the same value, but will “sing” a bit more if there is some value contrast. And my eye is not trained well enough to always distinguish values accurately, so I use the old black-and-white photo trick to give me an accurate read on the values.

So, once the design parameters and the colors were (mostly) chosen, I started to sew. I’ll show you my initial design testing in the next post, so stay tuned!

The Latest Quilt Design

Posted by Amy on August 10th, 2010

You might be wondering if I’m totally crazy. And I admit that it’s totally possible that I am. But when I saw this Popsicle photo and several others over on Happiness Is… a couple of months back, I immediately started thinking about a quilt. (Incidentally, did you know that Popsicle is a proper noun — it’s a brand name! Who knew??)

I realize that most people do not think Popsicle -> Quilt, but then that clearly makes me not most people.

So, once I finished all that stuff that was going on in May and June, I finally got my sketch book out to think on some quilt blocks.

Several of these have since gotten the old heave-ho, but it’s coming along quite nicely, I think. I had to order some more fabric and finally got around to it today, so this one is on the back burner until that order comes in. I *really* wish someone around here carried the full line of Kona cotton colors. It would make my life so much easier!

In the meantime, maybe I’ll get back to the second quilt that I have in progress. This one is totally completely and utterly different than any quilt I have done before. I already ordered a bunch of fabric so I would have everything I need, but I haven’t done anything past washing and ironing it.

I also have a skirt to make for my sister. I’m still trying to make good on the skirt I promised her last Christmas. I made her one and it turned out to be WAY way way too big. So, I need to do a size adjustment and then follow my own advice and make a muslin this time!

Updates to Commenting on This Blog

1. I have turned on threaded comments. Please feel free to chat amongst yourselves! I’ll join in as well and it will be like a big party!

2. I have turned on the avatars. Now you are all free to be yourselves. Not sure why I had this off!

3. I have installed reCAPTCHA. This means you’ll now have to type in two squiggly words before you can leave a comment. This will hopefully help with the crazy amount of spam I have been getting. Also, you will be helping to digitize books! The first word makes sure you are a person, and the second is an actual word they have been having trouble with in a digitizing project. Once ten people give them the same answer, they consider the mystery solved and move on! Cool!

Sketching in the Middle

Posted by Amy on August 9th, 2010

Long-time readers may recall the Pick & Choose quilt that I made last year. I started this quilt during the Denyse Schmidt class in Portland last July.

During the afternoon of day one, we were instructed to make six blocks by pulling bits of fabric blindly from paper bags and sewing them together. We were also supposed to choose one fabric of our own that we were to intentionally incorporate with the other fabrics whenever and however we saw fit. My fabric was the Prince Charming paisley print (there is a big chunk of it in the very bottom left corner below). These were the six blocks that I had at the end of the afternoon.

Before we came back for class on day 2, we were to choose some sort of theme that we liked from those blocks that we could build an entire quilt around. A pretty stressful assignment for some of us! So, I went back to my hotel with my blocks, my sketchbook, and my crayons and sketched them out and made some notes. Here’s one of my sketchbook pages showing three of the blocks and what I had to say about them.

You can see how much I am liking the big chunks of solid color. Bold punches of color were also good. In the end, I chose the block on the top left above (the bottom one in my sketchbook) as my model for the next day.

The next day before I started sewing, I made some sketches of possible arrangements of fabric pieces, based on the model I had selected.

You can see that I tried out a number of these ideas, and even switched it up for the center block and used the big patterned fabric for the larger sections instead of in the pieced strip. Not all of these ideas were implemented with the same amount of success. I definitely preferred some of these blocks to others.

After I got home, I raided my stash so that I could complete enough blocks for a small throw quilt. All the blocks I made on day 2 of Portland made it into the quilt unaltered (except to cut them to a regular size so I could sew them together), except for the one on the bottom right. I didn’t have enough fabric to replace that ugly peach color entirely, but I got rid of as much of it as I could!