On Ringo Lake, Rapid Fire Part 8 - A Distant Shore

The Rapid Fire series continues. Another day, another clue. I have seriously fallen behind now, but I'm going to try to do a little bit of this clue. Link to it here: On Ringo Lake

Today's clue puts the units from Part 1, Part 6, and Part 7 together to form a block. This is a significant clue! As soon as I saw it I realized that I was going to need at least 6 different salmon fabrics for the triangles in Part 7. Otherwise, my blocks will be too similar. The salmon really stands out because the triangles are comparatively large.

At this point my only Part 6 units are made from two different salmon fabrics, and I am out of other salmon fabrics. I am going to have to go shopping. I won't be able to go for a few days, but the roads should be better by then.

Several days later . . . 

I got some more salmon fabrics.

I didn't have time to work on this quilt for a few days after that, but I finally found a little time to cut out some Part 6 triangles from the new fabrics. I recalled that the size was a little different from what I was used to, so I looked over the instructions to refresh my memory.

Unfortunately, I cut the pieces an inch too small and I didn't realize it until I had cut many strips, squares, and triangles. I have wasted all that fabric and I probably will need to make another trip to the fabric store, but I do have enough right now to cut several more triangles.

My Scraps of Shame

What happened? I lost focus and I picked up the wrong ruler and started using it. I think I would have been okay if I had grabbed my wide ruler. I don't want to give away the actual measurements because Bonnie Hunter has asked us not to, so this will be intentionally vague and I won't show photos of the rulers or how I measured.

Also, my brain didn't immediately notice that my strips/squares/triangles were too small because I had not worked on Part 6 for at least 10 days and all the pieces were on another table and I didn't look at them. Ruler stickers probably would have helped avoid this mistake because they might have reminded me where to measure.

It was very time-consuming to make the two blocks pictured here. Issues:

• Some of my flying geese units were not square and I did not realize it until I had sewn them into a row. It would be helpful to check them earlier in the process.
• I laid out the blocks before sewing them to make sure there would be sufficient variety in each block. This made me a little nervous about chain-piecing the units and rows because I didn't want to get my layouts all jumbled up. Does anyone out there have a good method for keeping it all straight while chain-piecing?

I do like the finished blocks quite a bit, and I have learned quite a bit so far, so all's well that ends well.

Lessons Learned:

• Measure, check the directions, measure, check the ruler, then cut out two or three pieces and make test units before you cut all of the pieces.
• If it has been more than a few days since you last worked on your project, repeat the previous step, even if you have already made several of the same unit.
• Time to treat yourself to some ruler stickers.
• Try not to use a ruler with orange tick marks when measuring salmon fabric.

On Ringo Lake, Rapid Fire Part 7 - An Unexpected Sprint to the Finish

Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilts tend to follow a predictable pattern. One clue comes out every week, on Friday. This year Bonnie has surprised me by revealing Clue 7 only one day after Clue 6 was revealed. What happened to my "easy week"?

Well, maybe it's not so bad. All I have to do is join Week 2 and Week 5 pieces. (And make most of the Week 5 pieces, and a few more Week 2 pieces.) Love those flying geese.

"Ok, so this looks pretty easy," she said to herself optimistically. There is NO CUTTING, and just ONE easy seam. So, why was it so hard? Why did I have so many do-overs?

Earlier in the day I had set up my machine differently so I could work on a free-motion quilting project. I set it up with the needle plate that came with the machine. This plate allows zig-zag sewing. I didn't really think I'd need it, but as long as I was in there cleaning lint out of the bobbin area, it was a simple thing to switch to the zig-zag plate. I didn't realize I'd be returning to "On Ringo Lake" so soon. 

The zig-zag plate

I was too lazy to go back to the special needle-plate-for-straight-sewing that I use for piecing. I have always had problems with the zig-zag plate when working with small quilt pieces. The fabric tends to get sucked down into the larger needle hole. Guess I thought that problem had magically disappeared. Silly me. After I chain-pieced about 20 sets of flying geese I was forced to admit that I needed to go back to my more reliable needle plate.  

The special plate for quilting

By the way, this is a problem I have never seen mentioned anywhere. When I first encountered it, I called the sewing machine store and someone there suggested that I try the special needle plate. I did and it made a big difference.

I also had problems with the "bump" where the point of the brown triangle touches the seam.

The "bump" - Does it have a technical name?

 And there seemed to be a little slipping at the beginning and end of each seam, as with Part 6. I pinned and tried to be really careful and watched out for the bump but I had a significant number of do-overs. It turned out to be very slow going. Not a sprint. Not even close.

From these . . .

. . .  to these

Lessons Learned:

• Don't take the lazy route. Just change the needle plate already.
• Sometimes you can get great advice at the sewing machine store.
• Flying Geese are hard to make and once made, they're hard to work with. But they look cool.

 

On Ringo Lake, Part Six - Taking the Plunge

Part 6 looked like it was going to be pretty easy, but it called for salmon fabric, and I was down to one small piece and one even smaller piece, so I knew I would be needing more. (It may be called "coral" or "melon" where you live, but here in Alaska the name of this color is SALMON.)

(Image credit: Leela Cyd,on thekitchn.com)

The roads were very icy and I only had it in me to go to one fabric store. I could only find one salmon fabric that I liked there, so I bought it and went home to sew, with plans to get more fabric soon. 

The assignment for Part 6 was to cut orange triangles and sew them onto the brown and aqua triangles from Week 4 to make squares. Bonnie gives us two cutting methods. The "regular" method is to cut squares, and then cut them in half diagonally. The Essential Triangle Tool Method has you cutting a strip and then using the ETT to cut triangles from your strip. You end up with triangles with one dog ear missing (which is not a problem). You have to be careful because the cutting dimensions for the two methods are different. 

I decided to use the regular method because it seemed easier. I had used the ETT Method last year and I wanted to compare. (Maybe it's not realistic to try to compare methods a year apart, but . . . whatever.) 

This was going to be such an easy week! One piece to cut, and one seam to sew.The cutting seemed to go fast, though I quickly used up all my fabric.

The sewing - not so fast. I had a fair number of do-overs. I had hoped that I could just whip these out without pinning, but that was not to be. I found that there was quite a thick fabric bump in the middle of the new seam where two previous seams came together. It tended to push my presser foot to one side, so I had to be really careful. 

Another problem I had was at the beginning and end of each seam. The thin points of the triangles tended to slip one way or another and sometimes the seams would be too narrow and other times too wide at the ends. It later occurred to me that trimming off the dog-ears on the leading edge of each piece before sewing the Week 6 seam might help it feed into the machine more smoothly.

After pressing the squares open I had two annoying dog-ears on each piece. I used the Simple Folded Corners ruler to trim off the dog-ears while also checking to make sure each piece was square.  I was pleased that my pieces, for the most part, turned out to be very nice and square and the proper size. I think all the extra effort during Week 4 helped to give me good results here. The SFC ruler made it very easy to check squareness and also to check that the Week 6 seam was centered.

This week turned out to be quite a busy week for mystery quilters. Bonnie Hunter always has surprises for us. I like surprises! Read about it in Parts 7, 8 and 9.

Lessons Learned:

• I like the "regular method" better for making right triangles. I found that all the flipping around you have to do with the ETT tends to make you drift away from a nice 90° angle. I probably wasn't being careful enough.
• I learned from Bonnie that you don't have to (and perhaps should not) make the point of the aqua square touch the Part 6 seam.

On Ringo Lake, Part Five - Keeping My Feet Wet

I managed to do hardly any quilting this weekend. Just enough to keep my feet wet. It was another week for flying geese in the Bonnie Hunter mystery quilt. Lots and lots of them. (Here's a link to On Ringo Lake, Week Five.) 

I just started cutting without really thinking. Just mindlessly following the directions as to cutting size. Forgetting that the Simple Folded Corners Ruler had alternate directions. Forgetting that "folded corners = flying geese". Not remembering until I had made a bunch of unacceptable flying geese.

I had used the SFC Oversized Method for week three, which wasn't exactly flying geese, so it took a while for the little light bulb to go on. You have to think about using the Oversized Method BEFORE you start cutting.

So here are some pieces that turned out okay:

"Honk, Honk!" they said

I am sure I will be able to make quite a few more before Friday. 

These large squares will be cut diagonally to make large triangles for the oversized Method.

Is it just my imagination, or does this year's mystery quilt have a lot more pieces than previous Bonnie Hunter mysteries? 

The rest of the story, since Vireya asked:

This is where it was stashed. Bad idea!

It just doesn't want to lie flat any more.

I tried ironing the mat on the lowest setting (before the photo above was taken). It helped somewhat. I need to keep working on it. The worst that can happen is I can ruin the mat, right? 😉 

Lessons Learned:

• Before cutting all the fabric, make a few samples. Or, review all prior instructions carefully. 

On Ringo Lake, Part Four - Treading Water

I'm treading water. I'm working hard, but I'm staying on top of this project. Here is a link to this week's clue: On Ringo Lake, Week Four

This week we made triangles. 
I will need an awful lot of them, and I have only made about one-third because this is a very busy week. They do go much faster than last week's pieces, and I'll take that.

I used the Essential Triangle Tool to make the brown wing triangles. I like this method because it minimizes waste. I also like the way you end up with notched corners on one side.

My "Problem of the Week" is the failure of the wing triangles to align sometimes:

Yes, I pinned, but I still have about a 20% reject rate. (Pout.) I tried flipping the pieces over and sewing with the aqua square on top. That helped somewhat, especially when sewing over that seam while adding the second wing triangle, but I am still getting rejects. It's really frustrating because I have been cutting and sewing so carefully.

Last week I mentioned that the Oversized Method didn't waste much fabric. Here's the proof:

On the left: waste from the No-Trim Method - On the right: waste from the Oversized Method

I continued making Week Three pieces after I published my last blog. I really liked using the Oversized Method and found that I could use that method without pinning. How great is that?

I have also been thinking about two particular neutral fabrics I have been using. I really don't like them. They have a very low thread count, and I just don't like the way they look.

Not happy with the way these fabrics look

I got them at a "good" quilt shop. I KNOW that fabric from places like Jo-Ann's usually has a low thread count. I didn't expect it from the more expensive fabric sold at a good quilt shop. I was mainly paying attention to color and pattern at the time, not to fabric quality. I bought a fat quarter of each. I don't think I'm going to use them any more.

Lessons Learned:

• Always pay attention to thread count and fabric quality, no matter where you are purchasing it, and no matter how great the fabric color/print is.
• Don't lean your cutting mat against a wall where there is a baseboard heater.

On Ringo Lake, Part Three - In Over My Head

I did not quite finish the many pieces mandated for Week Two. I spent way too much time ripping out and re-doing. I had to re-sew 40 to 50% of my pieces because 1) I am a perfectionist, and 2) the pieces were slipping too much when I sewed them.  I tried pinning. It didn't help much. I tried using more pins. That only helped marginally.  I tried pinning more "strategically." I tried adjusting the presser foot. I tried sewing faster and sewing slower.  I don't know why this was so hard for me. The pieces were fairly small, and I think that magnified any discrepancies. Whatever the problem, it was very frustrating.

I told myself I would try another method when I finished using all the pieces I had already cut. I know I didn't have to do that. I could have just stopped using the already-cut pieces. I could have started to cut new pieces using a different method before I had used up all the old pieces. But I did not want to throw out perfectly usable pieces, so I just kept on keeping on.

When I finished up the pieces I had cut in advance, I switched to the Oversized Method. This method is described in the instructions that come with the Simple Folded Corners Ruler.  

This is what the Oversized Method yields, before trimming. I have drawn a blue box to show the trim lines. Notice how forgiving this method is.

Up to this point I had resisted the this method because I thought there would be a lot of wasted fabric. Once I started using the Oversized Method, and I began to understand it, it became clear that this method didn't waste any more fabric than the No Trim/Exact Size Method, which is the other method described in the instructions for the SFC Ruler. (If you really care about not wasting fabric, Bonnie Hunter also describes a no-waste method, using the Essential Triangle Tool, in the instructions for Week Two.)

I think I have found something that really works for me! Not only does the Oversizde Method seem to minimize ripping out seams and re-doing, I am finding that I can use it successfully WITHOUT ANY PINNING. And, as a bonus, it is not necessary to cut the corner pieces with extreme precision because you will be trimming them later. (You should still be fairly careful, but you don't have to be extraordinarily careful.) So I am getting my pieces done much faster.

That's a really good thing because Week Three's pieces also have folded corners, and there are even more pieces this week than last week. Here is your link to Week Three: On Ringo Lake, Part Three

Some of my finished pieces. How will they fit together?

I am also working very carefully with these pieces because I want to make sure I pay attention to the directionality. I am making twelve at a time so I can keep track of things.

Despite the method breakthrough I am still way behind on my Week Three pieces because I spent a lot of time on Friday visiting fabric shops. I needed more melon and neutral fabrics. I did well. I got more of one of the neutral fabrics I had bought as an experiment, and I got several new fabrics which either recently arrived or which I had previously overlooked. Whatever, I am happy! Pretty new fabrics!

I love this one so much I don't know if I can bring myself to cut it

Lessons Learned:

• There may be more than one method to cut and sew a particular piece such as the Flying Geese
• If one method isn't working well, or is a lot of work, keep trying other methods. I tried a total of four methods for Flying Geese.
•  When you have a lot of interruptions, it is helpful to break complicated work down into bite-size pieces.

On Ringo Lake, Part Two - Knee Deep

Flying geese. 😓

I've always had trouble with them. And this week I have to make A LOT of them. I will get through this.  I LOVE Bonnie Hunter's Mystery Quilts, and I learn so much while working on them. To see what I'm talking about you can follow this link to this year's mystery: On Ringo Lake

This week Bonnie has described three different ways to make the flying geese pieces. I am going to try the  method using the Simple Folded Corners Ruler from Antler Quilt Design. (There's an interesting story here. This ruler was apparently designed by a young man who started a quilting business when he was 14!)

With other methods I have had problems keeping the flying geese "square." (OK, they are really rectangular, not square, but it's easier to talk about them by calling them square. What I mean is that you have four 90-degrees angles on the finished piece.) Bonnie noted that the lines on the SFC ruler are a double-check that her squares are cut the right size and they are square on top of the rectangle. I didn't know what she meant until I started working with the SFC ruler. After A while I came to a piece that I had cut about 1/8" too short. I realized it immediately with the SFC ruler and I avoided a huge problem later on down the line. I also began to see how the ruler helps you to keep your cutting "square" and keep the corner angle just right.

(I deleted two photos of the SFC ruler with pieces of fabric because I didn't want to give away piece sizes.)
 

With other methods, I had many instances of misalignment in my flying geese corner pieces and it is not a good thing. In the past I have ended up with pieces where the corner triangle just doesn't square up with the rectangle. I am still having a problem, but at least I know my pieces are cut correctly.

My problem:

Here is my problem, and I would welcome any suggestions. When I sew the corner triangles onto the rectangles the triangle piece tends to slip and I end up with a less than ideal seam. I would welcome any suggestions on how to address this.

This is what the bottom looks like after the top triangle piece has slipped

Added a couple of hours later:  I should have mentioned that I tried pinning. It didn't seem to help. I have a special 1/4" quilting foot for my Janome and it has a metal piece that sticks out, so you can't sew up close to the pin. You have take the pin out at least 1/2" in front of the needle. This means that on small pieces like this there is nothing to hold onto when the pieces want to slide apart.

Ta da! Some of my finished flying geese.

On Ringo Lake, Part One - Wading In

I am so excited that Bonnie Hunter's newest mystery quilt has started! I have looked forward to this for months. The mystery quilt is called On Ringo Lake and you can link to it here.

A few weeks ago Bonnie released the colors for this year's mystery quilt. I LOVE these colors.

I shopped hard for theses fabrics. It was not easy to find fabrics I like. I was looking for smallish prints. I saw many prints that were quite large and I personally don't like to use them in a quilt with a lot of small pieces. I will probably have to go back and buy more of the prints I bought on my first circuit of shopping, but I can't remember which store some of these fabrics came from.

This was also the first time I had some fabric in my stash that I could use. Yippee! I have progressed towards being a bona fide quilter.

The first clue requires us to make some nine-patches. They turned out to be harder than I expected. I carefully followed Bonnie's very detailed, very clear cutting instructions, and I think I did a good job. I sewed strips together to make strips of three. But by the time I started sewing the strips-of-three together, I was beginning to have problems. They didn't match up at the edges and sometimes the center corners were off.

I ripped out a LOT of seams. I began to realize that I needed to press as carefully as I was cutting, and I needed to pin very carefully, too. These pieces are so small that the alignment can be thrown out of whack very easily.

Finally:

I made yesterday a Sewing Day and invited some friends over. I love having someone to discuss the intricacies of various quilting projects with. The sharing, the exchange of ideas, the feedback - it's a wonderful way to sew. It's also more fun and interesting to experiment when others are around.

Susan tested fabric samples to see if they would bleed. Once burned, twice shy.

Lessons learned:

• Press seams very carefully to flatten out the fold. It can make a big difference.
• Pin carefully to make sure nested seams are aligned.
• Sewing with friends is great fun.

Tops Ahoy!

I could have posted a few times during the last few months to document the progress I have made on Allietare, but I didn't. Oh, well.

Here is what Allietare looked like on January 28:

The borders are on!

More recently, I found a block of time I could use for the next couple of steps. Last time I reached this stage I had a bad experience with spray baste. I researched this step further and decided to go with pin basting. I used Warm & Natural Needled Cotton batting. So far, I have been very pleased with the batting, though I haven't washed it yet. I used refrigerator magnet clips to clip the quilt sandwich to a utility table. Then I pinned the sandwich.

My next step was stabilizing the quilt sandwich by stitching in the ditch. It has been a while since I have done that. I started out going crazy fast and had practically no control. I kept having to slow down. I finally remembered that I have a speed control on my machine.

I used my walking foot and and it did a good job. I did not have any bunching this time. I only ran into a safety pin once. 😅

I finished that part today:

I'm having a hard time to deciding how to quilt it. I will be doing some type of free-motion style quilting. I will be using gold/yellow thread. That's all I know.  It almost looks like I could get away without further quilting, but I want to at least quilt the large squares and the large white pieces along the edges. And there is no way to avoid quilting the black border.

I finished the En Provence top on June 15. It's going to sit on the back burner now until Allietare is all done.

Lessons learned:

• Save the spray baste for small projects.
• Don't skimp when pinning.
• SLOW DOWN when stitching in the ditch. 
• Use the speed control, too.

Le Jaune, Enfin - En Provence Part Seven

Rabbits!

The final pieces to be made used yellow fabric. I really love the fabric with the rabbits on it. It is part of the same collection as the lavender fabric with the horses. It seems so French to me.

 
These hourglass pieces are just the same as the ones from Part Six, except we are using yellow instead of lavender. In addition, I had to cut some plain yellow squares. (I have a few more hourglass pieces to make, but I wanted to get this post done in time for the final linkup to Bonnie's Blog.)

And this is the link to Bonnie Hunter's Link-Up Page. Visit her page to see what others have done with En Provence. You will see En Provence made with other color palettes, other fabrics, and more.

Yippee! 
All of my pieces are done now!

Difficile - En Provence Part Two (#4)

These pieces were hard.

I used the Tri Recs Rulers.

I preferred the Tri Recs Tools to the  Marti Michell templates. The fabric didn't move around as much while being cut. The Tri Recs Tools can be used to make many different sizes of the "triangle in a square" piece.

Tri Recs on the left, Marti Michell templates on the right.

Using these tools I was able to cut quickly and with relatively little waste. However, I ended up having to rip out and redo 10-20% of the pieces because of problems at the top of the neutral triangle. Either the pink pieces did not line up or the space between the tip of the neutral triangle and the top edge of the piece was too small.

I am picky about stuff like this.

 
Lessons Learned:

Take the time to pin these pieces before sewing, and make sure they don't slip around while you are sewing them.

Watch youtubes before using a new tool. I learned that the little notch on the tip of the right triangle (the Recs Tool) is a placement guide, and it makes your job infinitely easier.
 

Yarn Bombing

Today a group from Anchorage Guerrilla Knitters yarn-bombed some trees at Westchester Lagoon. For the record, it was 18º F when I got there.

I knitted a piece with a leaf motif.

I sewed it onto a tree and sewed a few more pieces donated by others onto some other trees.
I found a spot in the snow where a moose had lain down, but didn't think to take a photo of it.

Someone from the Alaska Dispatch News was there. Also someone from Channel 2. Everybody is looking for some positive, cheerful news, I suppose.

Beaucoup - En Provence Part One (#3)

I am now working on my third set of pieces for the mystery quilt. (This was Week One for most of my sister quilters.) For me it was a good time to stay home and sew.

If my car could talk, it would say "Stay home!"

 When I did last year's mystery quilt, Allietare!, I felt I made it a little too scrappy for my taste. I thought I would try to go less scrappy with En Provence. It seemed like a good idea in the abstract. It turns out that "Week One" calls for a large number of neutral four-patches. This presented me with two challenges.

First, I became aware that in order to make a half-size quilt I would need much more than half the number of four-patches specified for the full-size quilt.  It would require close to 75% of the number needed for the full-size version. Would I have enough fabric?

The first six neutrals I bought for En Provence

Second, and of greater concern, I was beginning to wonder if my idea of "less scrappy" was going to work for all the four-patches. Would I get enough variety with only 6 neutrals? To make a piece like the ones I made for weeks five and six, 6 neutrals would be more than adequate. But to make a variety of four -patches, I was going to need more fabrics.

To complicate matters further, I wanted to make every strip with one "darker" neutral and one "lighter" neutral. I was aiming for a subtle checkerboard effect. (I probably got something less subtle than intended.) But this plan really limited what I could do with the four-patches. I picked up a couple of extra darker neutrals and I fished through my paltry scrap collection for some of the lighter neutrals from Allietare!  (not shown)

After making dozens of four-patches and using up several of my fabrics, I decided the only way to do this was to buy more neutrals and mix them in before I finished any more four-patches. I didn't want to end up with two groups of four-patches, each lacking variety.

The day after a big snowstorm I went to a quilt shop and didn't find any fabric that I hadn't already seen. The roads were bad so I decided to skip the other quilt shops and stop at Jo-Ann's, which was more or less on my way home. I found some nice fabrics from their Buttercream collection and quickly retreated to my snug little sewing area to make more four-patches.

The top 3 and the bottom fabric are from the Buttercream line. The fourth one from the top is from the same collection as one of my lavenders and one of my yellows.

So, it took a while, but I finished a gazillion neutral four-patches, and I learned some good techniques in the bargain.

Bonnie had some great tips for cutting and for making the four-patches nest perfectly so that the center seams lined up exactly.

Perfectly nested

Bonnie also taught a very easy way to "spin" the seams on the back. I had learned a difficult way to do it and I always dreaded having to do it. No longer.

Spin, span, spun. Fun!

Here are the fruits of my labor and here is a link to Bonnie Hunter's En Provence Link-Up

A whole basketful

 
Lessons learned:
Scrappiness depends.
The line on the ruler goes up on the fabric, not next to it. 
Direction matters.