House Block–Plain or Embellished?

I’ve hit my first detour from my list of priorities! I’ve made an Inklingo (School) House block to go in a ‘Heart & Home’ comfort quilt. The blocks in the quilt are 6 inches finished. The Inklingo block finishes at 9 inches. I added sky and a field of daisies to enlarge the block. It’s over sized now at 13 inches so the person who’s sewing the top together has plenty of trimming room for what she needs (12 inches or so).

Here the block is plain:

Here it is with a couple of embellishments laying on it:

Which do you prefer? If I embellish it, I’m thinking the windows look a little plain. Should I embroider window panes? I’m concerned that with the plaid any window panes may look awkward? Any suggestions?

’til later, Jillian

Prioritizing My Works in Progress

I’m planning on keeping up the momentum I’ve had with the Orca Bay Mystery. I needed to take stock of my unfinished projects and set priorities. This is my planned order for in-process gifts and their current status:

1. Tiny Triangle Table Toppers: Jan’s only needs binding; Bob & Patty’s partially pieced. Make 8 coordinating mug rugs.

3. Bind the Mug Rugs for Bree, Ginny, Nancy, Ruby and me.

2. Ginny’s Summer Porch throw, an Eleanor Burns pattern (has been cut for 4 years).

3. Vicky’s hearts and nine patches queen quilt (center pieced, piece borders); design and make matching shams and pillows.

4. Jason’s Flavors of Orca Bay throw (partially pieced–the Orca Bay Mystery Ohio Star blocks).

5. Justin’s Fishing in Orca Bay–No Strings Attached throw (partially pieced–the Orca Bay Mystery string blocks).

Projects that are in process but not committed to anyone: one inch hexagon Flower Basket quilt (medallion completed, all flowers pieced for first border); mini hexagon Flower Basket wall hanging (needs quilting); Amy Butler giant hexagons throw (needs quilting); Infinite Garden (wall hanging, shapes printed and cut apart); Incognito (design borders)–from this whimsical Marimekko Karkutella panel:

The list isn’t as long as I thought it would be. Guess that’s the advantage of writing it out.

But then there’s the endless list of Inklingo projects–Clamshell Pickles, Dresden Plates, Feathered Stars, etc., etc., etc. And there are a couple of Bonnie Hunter‘s quilts too. And, and, and… Sigh, I’ll decide on those later!

’til later, Jillian

Orca Bay Mystery Plan B Update: Flavors of Orca Bay

If you’re reading this and would like to know why I’m adjusting Bonnie’s beautiful Orca Bay Mystery pattern, please read yesterday’s post.

As I bemoaned to fellow blogger Anneke yesterday,  I really need to learn how to use my EQ software! (Check out Anneke’s blog, she’s a very competent EQer and brilliant quilt designer.) But then I’d have to stop sewing some. Nonetheless, EQ has to be so much faster than the scribbling and figuring I’ve been doing with pencil,  paper and my beloved (read that as well used) eraser. The added incentive for me is the Inklingo/Electric Quilt design contest, Love the Lines, Quilt More that has awesome prizes. Sigh, I need a new brain that retains more and a more cooperative body!  tee hee…

Thanks to my bestest friend Bree (Sabrina), my Ohio Stars quilt now has a name–Flavors of Orca Bay:

Without borders, this quilt will be about 56×75 inches. This is for a family member’s t.v. room so it’s a good size for cuddling under while hanging out. I’m going to use a slightly narrower seam allowance on the Ohio Star blocks so they’ll finish at 6.25 inches instead of 6 inches. Block 2 will have a full quarter inch seam allowance (cut at 6.75 inches). By making all the blocks this size I will be squeaking out a bit more width and length, and then I won’t feel the need to grade seams either as it’ll be done already!

My 9 block by 12 block setting will have 54 Ohio Star blocks (27 white, 27 black), and 54 block 2. ( I suppose block 2 has a name. Would it be considered a Square in Square? Please tell me if you know.)

I’m going to machine applique the 2 inch red squares on block 2 ‘cuz it’ll take less background fabric than piecing. I already had 44 extra red squares ‘Inklingoed‘ from the Ohio Star blocks. I printed out the rest… plus a few more. I do like to have those extras to play with.

I had 3 yards of the black swirl background fabric for block 2. I needed almost 2 yards for the block. I got 6 6.75 inch blocks per WOF (width of fabric), so I cut 10 strips and subcut them into squares. I then lightly pressed fold lines for the placement of the applique squares–pressed each block in half both directions so all I need do is line up the tips of the red square on the folds and it’ll be perfectly centered.

Today’s plan is to try different applique techniques to see which I prefer for sewing the red squares on the block 2s.

’til later, Jillian

Orca Bay Mystery!–My Plan B

Bonnie has revealed a stunning Orca Bay quilt. I think we should crown Bonnie the Queen of Scrappy Quilts! She has an amazing eye for color and how blocks fit together.

After laying my blocks in the final setting, I still did not like my black & white HSTs, but I also did not like the blue or purple I blogged about yesterday. I kept switching out my pieces and comparing what I was getting with Bonnie’s quilt, trying to nail down what I did and didn’t love in mine. I also was evaluating what you told me in your comments too as I did this. (Thank you all for your input, it was very helpful.)

In the end, the problem for me is that my Ohio Star blocks and the black & white HSTs are not scrappy–the black is one fabric and the white is one fabric. I love all my units individually, but for whatever reason, they just don’t play well together to my eye. For me this is a lesson well learned about what I love about scrappy quilts, that they’re scrappy!

Instead of trying to fix anything, I’m going to make a couple quilts from my pieces. I’m not disappointed in this. Actually it’s quite exciting for me. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed this mystery. I’ve learned a lot, and have loved being part of a big group sharing the process.

One of my quilts will be the string blocks, sashed in black with orangey-red cornerstones, kinda like this (note: the colors are not showing true, they are not this saturated/bright):

Yup, sashed with black. Can you believe it after my dilemma yesterday?  tee hee…

The second quilt will most likely be this:

Looks very tame after the intricacy of Orca Bay!

I haven’t decided if I’m going to use the black & white HSTs in this quilt as the borders. I had an idea yesterday on how to use them in another quilt. BUT that’s a really nifty border Bonnie has on Orca Bay–I may need to do it with these blocks! I won’t make the border decision until this one is on the design wall.

Of course I need to get the design wall hung back up after moving earlier this year…

I hope you enjoyed the Ocra Bay Mystery as much as I have. I hope Bonnie will take the time to do another one next year. If she does, my primary lesson from this year is: do Bonnie’s color scheme exactly, or wait until all the Parts are posted to decide on a different color scheme.

’til later, Jillian

Changes to my Orca Bay Mystery Blocks–Inklingo-ing Parts 3 & 5 Together

One of my goals with the Orca Bay Mystery was to only use fabrics I have. That meant that the reds Bonnie chose in her color scheme for me would mostly be light to medium tones. Because of this change, I’m not loving my flying geese units for this step. I love black in quilts that have high intensity colors–it makes the colors just sparkle. In real life my colors are washing out next to the black. I want that sparkle. I don’t want to settle for what for me is a ‘meh’ color scheme!

My bestest friend Sabrina and I had fun auditioning different fabrics yesterday as possible substitutes. The two finalists were a  purple and a bright blue:

The purple would do, but blue won for the look I want. What do you think?

I considered not piecing the HSTs again, but take the short cut and use just a ‘solid’ blue as in the pic. But then from a design perspective, in my opinion, there is no continuity of the black that’s in the Ohio Star blocks. So I’m going to remake all my HSTs from black and blue. What is black in the original design will be blue, what’s white will be black.

I tell you I would not ever redo all these 1,416 HSTs if it weren’t for the ease and accuracy of Inklingo templates!

Guess what I’ll be doing today?

And, I’ve figured out how I’m going to use these black & white HSTs for a new quilt project.

’til later, Jillian

Orca Bay Mystery!–Inklingo-ing Part 7

Bonnie Hunter‘s Orca Bay Mystery continues–only one clue to go. And, Bonnie is releasing the last clue early–on January 1.

In Part 7 we are making big (3×6 inch finished) flying geese from the red strip triangles (Part 4) and the ‘winged’ HSTs (Part 5). There are two shapes that can be Inklingoed with this part, 100 white/neutral HSTs that finish at 3 inches, and 4 black & white/neutral QSTs that also finish at 3 inches.

For the 100 HSTs, I printed 9 sheets of 8.25×12.25 inch white fabric. For the 4 QSTs, 1 sheet of 4.75×9.25 inch sheet of white fabric. Both give me a couple extra that I appreciate having.

’til later, Jillian

Orca Bay Mystery!–Part 6 Completed

I finished the 28 black blocks earlier this week. Today I finished the 28 white ones:

I’m hoping to grade the seams before the next step is released tomorrow, but I’m not sure I’ll have the time.

’til later, Jillian

Orca Bay Mystery!–Part 6 Update

Bonnie Hunter‘s Orca Bay Mystery continues–we’re six weeks into the mystery already!Last post I wrote about Inklingo-ing this step. Everything has been printed and cut for a couple of days, but I didn’t do much sewing. As of now, I do have all 28 of the dark cornered blocks finished:

My string blocks of ‘reds’ are mostly are pinks to purples, and oranges to reds. I’m using three different fabrics for the centers of these blocks: a batik with pinks, oranges and reds in the background, a novelty of orange and yellow bubbles, and a very bright orangey red. I’m excited on how this is all going to come together.

If you’ve been reading my blog, you may recall that I’m using a new to me vintage Bernina 801S. I was struggling and struggling with getting accurate quarter inch seams, straight seams, and I had a lot of thread problems. Everything else I sewed had a beautiful stitch, with no thread issues, but anything with a quarter inch seam fed crookedly. I had decided to take her in to the local Bernina dealer. In great frustration, I switched back to a regular Bernina foot from the non-Bernina quarter inch foot I had been using. That silly non-Bernina presser foot turned out to be the issue! I’m back to being in love with this machine. And, I’m going to scour eBay for the old style Bernina presser feet to round out the ones I have.

We’ve been having record setting high temperatures–in the mid-40s to 50s. Not a below zero temperature in sight. Been a weird December weather-wise for us. It sure will make the winter seem a lot shorter whenever the ‘real’ weather kicks in.

’til later, Jillian

Bonnie Hunter’s Orca Bay Mystery!–Inklingo.ing Part 6

Bonnie has released the instructions for Part 6 of the Orca Bay Mystery. We are making Ohio Star blocks from the QSTs of Part 1, and 2 inch FINISHED squares (this step). Each block has a red (for me pinks-reds) center, half have white outside squares, the other half have black squares.

For newbies to Inklingo I’m going to again detail my decision-making steps to how I’m printing my Inklingo shapes. Stop here if you don’t want to know those nitty gritty details!

1. I consult the Inklingo Index of Shapes in the Support & Goodies tab at the Inklingo website to see which Collections include 2 inch squares. They are: Lite # 4 POTC – 90 HEX 1.0 inch; Tumbler; Storm At Sea 6.0 inch; Storm At Sea 12.0 inch; Log Cabin 1.0 inch; Drunkard’s Path 2.0 inch; plus the original Inklingo CD #1 (sold out). I’m going to use my Log Cabin 1.0 Collection.

2. I open that pdf. (Remember Inklingo is not software, it is a pdf document of information and templates.) When I open the pdf, in the left column I find the 2 inch squares information and click that link. (These bookmarks in a pdf are like an index in the back of a book, but better ‘cuz there is a clickable link to the page you want.)

This is the 2 inch square page (used with permission):

One of the Suggested Custom printing Sizes, 8×10.75 inches, yields 12 squares. I need 10 sheets of this size for 112 squares; 5 sheets for the 56 red squares (giving me a couple extra of each).

I’m running low on my black fabric so I’m anxious to know if I have enough fabric for this step. Did you notice the illustration in the lower half of the page that shows I should get 180 squares from a yard of fabric? Whew, I need less than a yard so I have enough black for this step.

I am so thrilled Linda has all this information for every shape. I love, love, LOVE that I don’t have to figure any of it out.

3. I am going to ‘Layer to Cut,’ a nifty Inklingo technique. In essence, I’ll be using the printed white fabric as a template for the black. I am going to print the squares on the white fabric, layer that printed fabric on top of the black, then cut out the shapes in both fabrics. Linda has a great blog post on this technique. This is what the white printed fabric on top of the unprinted black looks like (it’s gray…  tee hee):

Depending on the project, I could layer as many fabrics under the template fabric as I feel comfortable rotary cutting accurately. For example, in this case I could layer another piece of white and two more blacks under the template fabric. But, since Inklingo is so easy, I’ve decided to print all the white squares and layer each one with one black fabric.

Note, it takes about 3 minutes to do the above, but a whole lot longer to write about it!

I’m off to cut my white and red fabrics, stabilize them on freezer paper, then print.

’til later, Jillian

PS: Linda Franz is offering a free shape collection, Diamond/Triangle/Square, so you can try Inklingo too!

Orca Bay Mystery!–Part 5 Update

Bonnie Hunter‘s Orca Bay Mystery continues. I am so loving this mystery. I am doing well with the self-induced determination to keep up with the clues each week. I’m grateful Bonnie has split the parts up the way she has.

For Part 5 we’re adding ‘wings’ as Bonnie calls them (HSTs),  to both sides of the 350 black & white HSTs from Part 3.

I didn’t Inklingo these ‘cuz this black fabric has a very black reverse side and there isn’t an Inklingo color that prints well on it. (Many dark fabrics are easily printable, but not this one.) I could have printed some Inklingo HSTs on a lighter fabric to use as a template, but my ink cartridges are running very, very (VERY!) low and they’re not budgeted until next month. So, I decided to do these the ‘old fashioned way’… tee hee–cut a 2-3/8 inch square in half diagonally.

I sewed one ‘wing’ on each HST Sunday. Here they are after chain piecing them:

Now to press and trim these… then cut and add the next wing.

’til later, Jillian