Photo suite 214 -- taking the gloves off

Using up leftovers

Perhaps you noticed when I showed pictures of my second flag quilt earlier this week that the back of the piece is quite a mishmash.  I'm deliberately using up leftovers in all phases of my flag quilts -- leftover chunks of batting, leftover and recycled fabrics for the quilt tops, and miscellaneous fabrics for backing.  Since I'm constructing the quilt in modules, it's easy to find some poor misbegotten piece of fabric the right size, or augment it, to back a small module.  Sometimes I'm using pieced work that never made it to prime time as backing.

The yellow composition at the top was made several weeks ago for my drawing and design class -- I got permission from the teacher to do some color exercises in fabric instead of in paint.  Then it made a fine quilt backing.  The log cabin square at the bottom came from somebody else's leftover bag.  The rest of the fabrics were given to me by somebody who wanted to get rid of her stash and didn't know that I don't much use commercial prints.  Except they were perfect for this project.

So here's what some of the back looks like now that the modules have been cut into stripes and rejoined.

My stash of fabric that was too good to throw away but not what I would ever use on a quilt top has gone down considerably, and I'm delighted with the scrappy, miscellaneous look.  Since these quilts are flags, I'm calling the backs melting pots.

How I sewed the flag together

Yesterday Camilla left a comment on my post about finishing my flag quilt, wondering how I sew the modules together.  Here's the step-by-step:

After each module is quilted, cut neat, straight edges.

Cut a narrow strip of fabric to stabilize the seam -- a little less than one inch wide.  Stitch it to one of the modules.

Butt the edges of the two modules and zigzag over the join.  I use a stitch that goes five stitches in one direction, then five stitches back.

Here's the finished seam.

All those loose threads caught under the quilting stitches are deliberate.  It is what you might call a distressed finish.

Sometimes I do additional stitching to join more strongly, or just because I feel like it.  Here's the back view.  This is pretty distressed as well, with raw edges and miscellaneous fabrics.  I'll write more about that in my next post.

The second quilt is finished

Fittingly, I finished my second big flag quilt on Memorial Day!  This is going to be a Quilt National entry so I won't show you the whole thing, but here it is awaiting its next-to-last seam, joining the blue union to the seven short stripes.

I have been constructing this quilt in modules, quilting them densely, then butting the edges and sewing them together into larger and larger expanses.  I have been very pleased with this method of working because until the very end there has been no physical stress.  Quilting in an eighth-inch grid would be horrible if not impossible on a huge quilt, but when you're only doing a piece the size of a placemat it's child's play (in fact, my 5-year-old grandson quilt helped quilt on one of the panels).

I knew there would be a day of reckoning when it came time to sew the last pieces together and feared that the last seams would be hard to do, but I decided to play Scarlett O'Hara and worry about that when it came.  So yesterday it came.  The next-to-last seam was fairly simple, although it went slowly as I had to shift the rolled-up bundle across my shoulder a few inches at a time.

For the last seam, horizontally across the quilt right under the blue union, I decided I needed help and enlisted my husband to stand behind me and hold the rolled-up quilt, feeding it gradually onto and over my shoulder as I sewed.  (Behind the sewing machine, the quilt was supported by a card table so it didn't drag.)  What a difference that made!  And when you have only one seam that needs a helper, you can probably bribe a helper into helping. He probably wouldn't have agreed to hold my work for 25 hours or 40 hours or however long it takes to
quilt a huge piece, although it would certainly have made those huge quilts of the past a lot easier.  This one is 98 x 59 inches, by the way.

So I am feeling rather giddy right now.  I'll have a week of vacation, going to Auburn NY for the opening of the Surface Design Association show at the Schweinfurth Art Center on Friday.  Then when I get home, on to flag #3.  

Sunday funnies 17

Happy Memorial Day!

FNF 5 -- representational

Only one of the 20 quilts in Form, Not Function had a realistic representational image. That might be surprising in itself, because realism is such a standby in quilt/art shows, but I've already commented on the fact that this year's jurors voted strongly for abstraction and piecing.  What I liked about this quilt was not just that its image was striking and well-executed, but that its method was something rarely seen.

Deborah Hyde, Leda (detail below)





















Yes, this is a pieced quilt, made entirely out of half-inch squares.  And you can see in the detail shot that some of the half-inch squares are themselves pieced to give smooth edges to the shapes of the image -- a lot of piecing going on here!

Also notable, from the design standpoint, is how she has superimposed the traditional sunshine and shadow quilt pattern of concentric squares on point over the realistic image.  It takes careful consideration of color and value to achieve this effect while keeping the representational quality of the original image.  Good work!