2007 Summer Mystery Quilt
I have set up this page as the beginning of the Summer Mystery Quilt, which I will not reveal the name of until it is done,because that would be too... well, revealing.
To begin with, here are the initial instructive posts I sent in setting up the group and telling you all what to expect:
April 6, 2007
well, like a herd of turtles. I don't know why I thought I could
approach this slowly, but heck, pressure's the way i work.
Here's info you need... or at least some of it.
We have 20 people, plus me, on this special email address. If at any point
you feel you need or want to drop out, just let me know and I'll take you
off the list. You can send a message to everyone on the list by using "Reply
All" in response to any single email I send. You can reply to an individual
only if you either have your computer set to permit the "Reply"
or "Reply All" options, or, alternatively, you can always copy and
paste out any individual address. These posts will not appear on Treadle On.
I will be setting up a web page, which I will give you a URL key to. That
key will not be otherwise released.
My first job is to get out, probably tomorrow, and get some fabric and start
setting up instructions for the first unit of the quilt. I'll try to get that
done reasonably quickly so you can do the same. This first unit will be something
new, that we haven't done on TO before. Once I teach you how to do it, you'll
spend your early time making a lot of it! After that, things will be a piece
of cake.
The Quilt:
This will be a project to build a modest sized quilt... a lap or sofa quilt.
Finished size will be either 4 x 5 or 5 x 5, unless you opt to go bigger on
your own by increasing the number of full sized units you make. They will
be fairly big units; twelve will make a 4 x 5 quilt, 16 a 5 x 5. There will
be an option for going "on point" if you like that, but it will
require extra half units to fill the ends of the diagonal rows. If you're
not sure what on point is or what I'm talking about, don't worry about it.
This quilt will be suitable primarily for a scrappy look, but could be made
otherwise. Some of you have outstanding color sense and will trust yourselves,
others will be best off to stick to what I suggest. I will include some comments
as we go that will, if chosen, increase the scrappy effect, or enhance a large
blob of color effect. If you don't care that much for 30's repro, any selection
of small prints will do. Mostly, I see it as a mix of colors, but it could
be done subtly if that's your choice. One intriguing option, if you want to
make a quilt for a kid, would be really primary colors... maybe even solids.
More on that when I send you materials directions. Don't run out and choose
materials yet!
Background will be white or bleached muslin. I have conceived the quilt as
a medium for 30's repro fabrics, based on the use of fat quarters. I am going
to make a test block first to make sure you can get what you need out of each
single fat quarter. I'm pretty sure I can get you to buy the right number
of fat quarters, but extras won't hurt. On background fabric, I'm probably
going to tell you to buy too much. Sorry about that, but I prefer that to
trying to use my limited skills in this area to calculate exactly what you'd
need.
OK.... I think that covers it to this point. I'll try to get things started
by the end of next week.
Oh, yeah, some of you show up on the list at the top as only first names or
as list names. If you want your full name shown, just email me direct. I worked
from your email responses and took what was there
.Dick Wightman
aka: Captain Dick
April 9
In response to Di's post...
Don't everyone get ahead of yourselves... or me :^)
Remember, this is not a case of my working from a finished quilt and then
making it into a mystery quilt. This is a design I have come up with, basically
as a simplification of something I saw. I liked what I saw, but wanted simpler
and since I wanted to share what I came up with, it had to involve going back
to variations of traditional blocks that weren't any kind of copyright problem.
I actually spent some time today clearing my work table and trying one of
the new (to me) techniques that will be required... making octagons, and I
made it work! Yeah!
As to how we'll go about it, there are going to be quite a number of small
blocks and assembly units that will take most of the time. I will be showing
those first. Once they are out of the way, we'll work the large blocks, which
will be fun, easier and faster.
I also gave some more thoughts to colors and options and had some (I hope)
good thoughts. One is that this can be anywhere from not scrappy, to kind
of scrappy, to very scrappy, to super-scrappy. The scrappier you make it,
the more work it will be, because you'll have to "scrappify" (new
word) some of the larger elements. I suspect that I will be going for super
scrappy, because that always works so well with the 30's repro.
If you're wanting to work scrappy, you'll want to be sorting your scraps into
color families. You'll need either 12 or 16 groups, depending on whether you
want to go for the 3' x 4' top or the 4' x 4' top. The finished top will call
for 6" borders, so your finished quilt will end up either 4' x 5' or
5' x 5'. Once you see where things are going, you'll be able to plan a larger
quilt if that's what you want, but I plan to explain only the basics of the
sizes mentioned, and also to leave the borders to you. I'll also, briefly,
cover the math that would be involved in going for larger blocks to make the
quilt larger, rather than the more blocks approach. That will be brief and
some of you will be comfortable with it while others may not and may prefer
to more strictly follow the directions so that you can be assured of duplicating
my success... or not...
In a non-scrappy vein, it occurred to me that this might be a really striking
Amish quilt, using black for the background and typical Amish solid colors.
In this form, it would also go very fast. A thought...
Someone mentioned doing it for kids, in crayola colors. I would agree with
the comment that was made that in that instance, keep the background light.
For instance, if you used a light yellow background, you would want to make
sure that your crayola yellow was enough different to be striking. Of course,
you could see to it that you didn't use a crayola color in the main block
selections that was like your background, i.e., if yellow background, then
no yellow block.
All food for thought... but remember, it'd be better to wait till I have my
fabric and share it with you, and pass on instructions for the small pieces.
There will be two "new" things to learn, at least things that have
not been covered in the standard TO block instructions. One is making octagons,
the other is quarter square triangles. I really hope to do instructions on
both of these this week, so you can get started. As is my practice, I'll try
to do them in such a way that you can work oversize by a bit and trim down
to accurate components. Naturally, if you are used to working precise, you
can do that
.Dick Wightman
aka: Captain Dick
April 10
After some discussion, I came up with this "lesson" on modifying quilt patterns to fit the size and approach you want. Since we're all still gathering ideas and fabric, this seems a good time for such a discussion:
As to size... great minds and all that. Treadle Annie popped up with the suggestion that I leave the math to you at just about the same time that I realized that I had already actually made the math very simple. If I have any claim to fame at all in design, it's keeping it fairly simple. In this case, I had already done that without even realizing it.
I'm going to morph into Quilt Teacher mode here for a bit. I think it'll be
helpful to the inexperienced and I hope not too boring a concept review for
those who are actually way beyond me anyway. Throughout the following discussion,
I'm going to ignore the issue of seam allowances. We'll just work with finished
unit sizes as they would appear to the eye.
This design is based on squares, though it won't end up looking like squares.
However, every sub-element of it is a square. The sub-elements are assembled
into larger squares which are then arranged in patterns with space between
to create the effects I want. This is a pretty standard approach for a lot
of traditional quilt designs... at least the basic ones. For this quilt, your
large elements will be 3 squares x 3 squares, essentially a 9 patch. The spaces
between large elements will be 1 square. You can vary the size of your quilt
in two ways... you can add more large elements and spaces or you can work
with larger or smaller sub-element squares. If you want an impact effect...
large color blobs... you work with fewer "9 patches". If you want
an effect of lots of repetition, you work with smaller 9 patches and more
of them.
This will be a bit of a lesson in quilt planning for the beginners and will
involve at least arithmetic, if not math. It'll be old stuff for the experienced.
I'm going to teach you how to end up with the quilt size you want from any
basic pattern that is based on squares. Let's imagine a simple example, a
quilt based on blocks such as I described, and look at some size changes.
First, we'll say we have already decided on a major plan of 3 x 3 of the large
units. For most traditional pieced quilts, if you study the pattern, you can
identify the "major block unit". There may be smaller units, sashing,
etc., but once you have figured out what the basic largest unit is, you can
do all kinds of things to vary your quilt size.
In my design, each of the "major block units" or large units, is
going to be 3 small units wide x 3 small units high. Looking at quilt dimension,
that's 9 small units in each direction, divided into sets of three. Now, I
mentioned spaces between large units. OK, if there are three large units across,
or 3 columns, that's going to be 2 small spaces between them. So, add 2 small
units to the 9 we already have. Now, you may or may not choose to do the same,
but I am going to center my design in the background space by adding another
space, or small unit, on either side of the the "columns". This
is not the quilt border, but actually a part of the main quilt pattern design.
Adding a space on either side bring our total number of spaces across to 13.
Since my quilt top is going to be square, the vertical count will be the same.
If I was going for a rectangular quilt top instead of a square one, I'd add
one row of large units plus one space to the bottom to get my rectangle.
Study that paragraph until you understand it. Sketch on a pad or cut little
pieces of paper and arrange them if it helps. If you master what's in that
paragraph, you will have conquered one of the key elements of adapting traditional
quilt patterns to your needs.
Now that you understand that concept, you're ready for some arithmetic. You
want to make a quilt that is 3 x 3 large blocks, with spaces between them
as I described. By counting the sub-units or small squares across the blocks
and adding small squares for the spaces, you know you will be working with
13 small squares. Want a doll quilt? Work with 1" for your small square
size. Your finished top will be 13" x 13"; add a 1" border
to bring it to 15" square. Want it rectangular for more of a bed shape?
Add another horizontal row at the bottom, including a space between it and
the row above. That will add 3" for your large block and 1" for
the space and leave you with a top dimension of 13" x 17". Add your
1" border and you'll have a rectangular quilt of 15" x 19".
the problem with going this small, however, is that if there is any piecing
involved in those small 1" squares, you'd better be able to work might
small, or to simplify the design a bit... but that's a lesson for another
time.
Let's go to an opposite extreme in our quilt size. Still looking at our basic
square quilt top of 3 x 3 large blocks with spaces as described, let's see
what happens if we want a full size quilt. Let's carry the arithmetic out
based on 6" "small squares". With 6" sub-units, your big
blocks or 9 patches are going to be 18" squares. That's 54". Your
spaces between will also be 6". You could choose to reduce that space
width if you felt it was too much; sometimes scale does change overall effect.
However, for our purposes we'll stick to what we have. You'll have two spaces
between the 9 patches and one on either side as described above. That will
add 24" to the total width and produce a top dimension of 78". Add
6" borders for another 12" and you have 90" x 90", which
is virtually a queen size quilt!
Okay, now let's look somewhere in between. We know that 1" squares are
going to make a miniature quilt and 6" squares are going to make a queen
or full size. Let's look at 4". Thirteen squares by 13 squares times
4 equals 52". Add a 1 square border on each side and you're at 60",
my own perfect sofa quilt or quilt to throw over the bed on an extra cold
night. Again, if you want it rectangular, you add a row and a space. All of
these examples are based on the 3 x 3 large block concept and are going to
create "impact", i.e. be more noticeable as large color blocks than
as a repetitive pattern. Let's examine what happens if we look at using smaller
unit measurements to produce the same size quilt.
For this example, I'm going to say I want to end up with my favorite size
quilt, 60" square, but I want more of a repetitive pattern effect. I
know that a measurement of 4" for the small squares will produce my size,
but will permit me to use only the 3 x 3 pattern of large block units. Let's
say that I wanted to have more blocks, but end up with the same size quilt.
I'll plan for a layout of 4 x 4. OK... the large blocks will still be 9 patches
and the spaces between will still be one small square. To get more blocks,
I'm adding one column horizontally and one vertically. That will also require
another space in each direction. In effect, I'm adding five small square units...
3 for the extra block, one for the extra space. I now have an overall design
that produces a top that is 17 small squares across instead of 13. If I add
the border squares, that will become 19 squares. If I want the same size quilt,
i.e 60", I'm obviously going to need smaller small square units. I can
approach this two ways... I can divide the size I want, 60" by the number
of squares... that produces a horrible figure of 3.15789. Anybody want to
work to that dimension in piecing? Didn't think so. However, it puts me in
the ball park. I'll back into it... I'll multiply 19 squares by 3", an
obviously better choice to work with. Result: 57"... close enough. I
can add an extra border or vary the border width and get to exactly where
I want. In fact, it's beautiful, because quilts shrink in size a bit as you
quilt them. So If I use a full double border (21 small square units instead
of just 19), I'll get a top with border of 63" x 63" and have a
little fudge factor to allow for that shrinking that will occur when I actually
quilt it. This is actually what I plan to do for my own quilt.
I apologize if all of that was daunting and pretty pedantic. It took me quite
a long time (and help from Ann) to get to where it's natural to me, but if
you master what is really a pretty simple concept, you can change many quilt
designs to produce more exactly the size and effect you want, making this
a lesson that goes far beyond the quilt we're actually making.
Okay... so much for this class at the University of Treadleonia. You may now
disperse to the quad and your usual forms of time wasting....
Dick Wightman
April 10
Was finally able to get to a real quiltshop and pick up a nice selection of 30's repro fabrics and a nice piece of off white or cream background. Now I can start. I'll have to wash and iron all of this first, of course. Doubt if there are any here who aren't aware, but just in case, yes, you do have to pre-wash the fabric to shrink it. This is, perhaps, less important when you are making the whole quilt yourself, as opposed to a block exchange, but it is still a very good idea. Anyway, here are two pictures of the fabric I bought:
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I plan to have 16 large units in my quilt and bought 22 fat quarters. This gives me some flexibility in deciding what colors are best and in what I use for the smaller units, which can be all the same, of two different fabrics, or all different for scrappy. You'll see.
I am also still intrigued by a Delft Blue approach, and will cut out a selection of blue fat quarters from my stash tomorrow and picture them here as well.
Dick
April 11
This morning I got out my stash of deflt blue fabrics, sorted them and cut what I wanted into fat quarters, so that I'd be working essentially the same from both fabric groups. Fortunately, all of these fabrics were already washed. Unfortunately, I ws nearly out of pure white background for them. The off white above will work well with the 30's stuff, but the delft wants a pure white. So, had to run to Jo Ann's and get some bleached muslin, which is now in the washing machine. Much of this morning will be spent in ironing all of this fabric.
Here I have 12 FQ's of delft blue, more or less alternating between darker and lighter, plus two extra FQ's below them that are darker and brighter and will be for the smaller units. I also held out a nice blue marine scene print, which I may decide to use in the centers. I'm still debating whether this blue quilt will be a 3 x 3 or a 4 x 4, so all of this fabric may not be necessary. |
April 12
I hope you're ready to start, because here you go! This link below will take you to:
Lesson 1: Making Small Octagons and Assembling Unit 1