Tutorial: Making Improvisational Curved Blocks

Here is the tutorial I've promised on how to cut curved blocks free hand. Because the background fabric needed to make my "Falling Leaves" pattern requires you to find the feature fabric that will only be available for as long as you can purchase my fabric line, I'm offering this tutorial for those who would like to try piecing blocks for the background.

In these two samples of my pattern, the background uses the feature fabric from my "Falling Leaves" line by Northcott. This is a beginner design because you only need to purchase a piece of the background fabric and use my pattern to make the applique leaves.

  

In my original quilt (below) that inspired the fabric line, I pieced every single block by cutting free-hand. Let's use the word "improvisational" to describe this method. My original quilt measures 39" x 58-59". Each block is 7" square unfinished, and 6-1/2" square finished (once sewn together). 

Because each block is cut free-hand, and the fabrics each person chooses will be different (either by type or quantity), each person's quilt will be different. I urge you to read this post all the way to the end before you begin. WARNING: This method might be challenging for perfectionists. I also strongly recommend that you not pre-wash your fabric as it will have more substance and body and piece together better. One pre-washed fabric is limper and harder to piece. 

I begin by choosing the fabrics I want to use in my quilt and cut enough squares for my quilt. For a beginner, I recommend cutting squares 3 inches larger than the finished block size you want. So for a 6-1/2" finished block, cut squares 9-1/2".  Note, the "cheater" panel in my fabric line has 4 inch squares. If you are making your blocks this small you will need to cut your fabric squares 7" in this case, but piecing such tiny blocks will be more challenging than piecing larger ones. I generally like to use at least two squares of each colour.  You will need as many squares as the number of finished blocks in the quilt.  Both my original quilt, and my Northcott pattern, use 45 squares and blocks. But as you will soon see, you are always cutting squares by two's, so you will need 46 squares of fabric. By looking at the colour composition in each quilt you can determine an approximate proportion of each colour. I would say the piece is at least 2/3 to 3/4 greens and 1/4 to 1/3 golds. I've also decided to use greens from both the "Spring Rain" collection as well as the "Autumn Harvest" collection.

To cut blocks, I work in pairs. I pull two squares randomly (that look good to me at the moment), LAYERING THEM BOTH WITH THE RIGHT SIDE FACING UP.

I take my rotary cutter and cut a gentle curve across the squares, slightly diagonal. 

Then I pull out the bottom (green) fabric and match it up with the two pieces of gold fabric. Perfect fit!  I usually do many of these in succession and then take them to my sewing machine to chain piece.

Before I feed them in my sewing machine I always lay the pieces out on my table to the left of my sewing machine to make sure those are the curves that fit together (easy to mix them up or flip them).

I use a 1/8" seam to sew the curves together. You will notice that once I flip half of the pair over to allow me to sew my seam on the wrong side of the fabric, the fit on the curve isn't perfect anymore and I have to do a little manipulating.

I find it easiest if I hold the top fabric with my fingers on top and thumb on bottom and keep making it meet the edge of the bottom fabric.

I press each block after each seam. I simply lay the block face up on the ironing board, feel with my hand to check that the entire seam is pressing in the same direction and gently steam press. I strongly recommend you do not pull and tug from the back side because you will stretch the seam. It doesn't matter which direction you press the seam.

You can see I've cut and sewn the first seam in an entire series of blocks here.

Now you are going to begin randomly choosing two blocks, layering them, and cutting your second seam. This means that all the blocks you match should have all had one seam already cut and stitched.

Again, I LAYER BOTH BLOCKS with RIGHT SIDE OF FABRIC FACING UP. The more seams you cut and sew, the wonkier your blocks are going to grow. So I also recommend that you line up your blocks so they meet up on the side where you are going to begin sewing.  I am right-handed so I will cut from the upper right side to the upper left side, and will begin sewing on the upper left side, so I want my blocks to line up on the upper left and top side.

 
Taking my next cut.

I now have a block with two cuts. I'm laying it out before putting it through my sewing machine.

Second seam sewn. 

Now I'm going to randomly match up blocks again that have been pieced up to this point (two seams each, 3 fabrics in blocks) and cut a third curve, which brings me to the stage below. Each block now has 3 seams and four different fabrics.

One more cut to go.

Here are my blocks all sewn (5 fabrics in each block, four seams). No it doesn't matter if a fabric gets used more than once in a block. This is a pretty serendipitous looking quilt.

I'm going to use my square ruler to square them up. Some blocks are going to be larger or smaller than others.  I want all the blocks in my quilt to be the same size, so I'll square up all blocks to the size of the smallest one, or to the size I originally intended,

The block on the right has been squared to 6-1/2 inches.

Once I complete all blocks I start playing with them on a design wall. For this design, I place them all in the same orientation with the look of a downward flow from upper left to lower right. WARNING: playing with blocks on a design wall is highly addictive and you might not be able to get to bed before 3 a.m. If you think you like your layout, take a picture, just in case you change your mind and then decide you liked the previous layout better.

After you sew the blocks together, you can add your appliqued leaves. The pattern is available from the Shopping Cart on my website. Or you could design your own leaves.

I hope this tutorial makes sense. I am going to consider it a work in progress. I will be happy to entertain questions and make clarifications as needed. If you have taken my "Reflections" class, we are using a similar piecing method, except we are keeping a gentle diagonal cut to this block. In the "Reflections" class we are making our first cut from corner to corner, which has a different result.

Photography ... Capturing Inspiration

On October 22, a reader named Caroline left a comment regarding the blog posts I made about my recent teaching trip to the Okanagan Valley, British Columbia, Canada. Caroline's question was "how do you get these photos to look so awesome"? Thank you Caroline, I am honoured and thrilled that you like my photographs. It is my mission to capture beauty where I see it. I thought it might be a good idea to write a blog post about how I approach photography.

1. I take A LOT of pictures. For every lovely picture you see on my blog, I've probably taken at least 20 (and sometimes more) that I wouldn't even think of showing you. In other words, I only share the best. That means I take a lot of crappy photos too. I'm talking blurry, poorly lit, wrong colour and simply poor composition!  Here are a few examples:

The photo of this deer was taken early morning. There wasn`t enough light and so it is blurry. I tried flash but that left a glare coming from the deer`s eyes. In addition, the composition is bad. The deer`s head is almost dead centre in the photo. Had the photo been clear and well-lit, I could have cropped the photo and created a better composition. I would estimate that at least 90% of the photos you ever see on my blog, and that I use for inspiration for an art quilt, have had some sort of cropping done to them to improve the composition.

I loved the moss and lichen growing on this stump in the forest. The lighting wasn`t good enough and my hand wasn`t steady enough, so the photo is blurry. I should have adjusted the manual features of my camera and I should have brought a tripod.

The photo of a flour paste resist that Barb made in my Dyeing to Quilt class is not a great photo. It does not do justice to the subtle beauty of this piece of fabric. Could once again be a lighting issue.

So, my conclusion is that just because you take some crappy photos, doesn`t mean you should not keep taking photos. It is worth all the work for the one or two stunners you might get. Mastering any medium requires practice. 

2.  I am using a 14 Megapixel Canon Rebel T3i  DSLR camera. I have it set on the highest image quality. It captures a lot of fine detail so I can crop very close and not lose too much image quality. If you go back to my blog post of June 3, 2012, you will see what I mean about cropping compositions from within a photo, getting rid of extraneous stuff and honing in on a stunning design. 

3. Having said no. 2 above, I do have to tell you that several students in my Flowers and Foliage class this past summer took their inspiration photos using their Blackberry phones. I was amazed at the quality of these photos, and I would imagine many smart phones these days would give good images.

4. I use a polarizing filter on my camera on days that are bright and sunny.  It helps to cut back on the glare, avoiding that over-exposed look I used to get, and makes blue skies look really blue and wonderful.

5. I try different settings. While I haven`t gone fully manual, I have moved away from using Intelligent Auto most of the time, preferring to control some settings using the Program mode. In this mode I can select for cloudy day, sunny day, shade, different types of indoor lighting, etc. It is not foolproof by any means, but it gives options.

6. Last, but certainly not least, I think the one thing that has improved my photos over time is simply learning more about composition and design.

So that`s my view on photography. A professional I am not, but don`t sit back thinking you can`t take good photos. Just take more. Practice. Finding your own inspiration and capturing your own themes will make you a unique artist and make your work original.

Strip Facing Tutorial/New Work/Photographing Work

Red Stool Macro, 2012 (30" x 30")

 

Last week I created a new work in about five days from start to finish!  I think this is a record for me.  I really wanted to enter SAQA's new show, "Deux", which requires entrants to submit at least two, and up to four, works that relate to each other.  Those chosen for the show will have their work travel to International Quilt Festival Chicago, as well as venues in Italy and France in 2013.  The major obstacle I encountered were the size restrictions.  All works had to be at least 30 inches in BOTH directions.  I have been working long and narrow for the most part for quite some time.  I had only one recent work that qualified and that was Red Stool.  You will remember this one: 



 

Knowing the second piece I might create had to relate to Red Stool also posed a challenge.  However, I finally decided, days before the deadline, that I wanted to take the new piece to the macro level, right up close.  You know what?   It was faster to create than the complicated hosta patch above, that took me weeks.  I settled on a design on Wednesday afternoon of last week, worked on building the quilt top on Wednesday night and Thursday, and part of Friday.  I had to prep for Saturday's class on Friday as well, and was out teaching Saturday, but Saturday night the quilting began.  It continued all through Sunday, with the strip facing going on late Sunday night.  The piece was photographed, artist statement written, and on-line entry made on Monday.  I'm so happy that I made this deadline.  Keep your fingers crossed that my work is accepted.

 

I'm really excited that during the creation of Red Stool Macro I finally had the opportunity to document the strip facing method I use on many of my works.  I will share the full facing method in a future post.  I prefer the strip facing to a full facing because it allows the quilting to show on the back of the work. 

 

Before you make your strip facing, you need to trim and square your quilt top.  For the facing you will need to cut four strips of fabric.  For this quilt, I cut mine 2-1/2 inches wide.  Two of the strips are cut the width (or length) of the quilt, and two are cut the length (or width) of the quilt minus 2 inches.  In other words, it doesn't matter which side the longer or shorter strips go on, only that you need to decide and measure accordingly. 

 

I press the edges of the strips under on the long sides by about 1/4 inch and machine stitch along this to form a small hem. 

 

The facing strips are pinned to the quilt with the right sides of the strip face down on the front of the quilt, meaning the hemmed edge faces you.  Note the strips along the top and bottom are the exact same size as the width of the quilt, while the strips along the sides (which are 2 inches shorter than the length of the quilt) are pinned so the ends are one inch away from each end of the quilt.  I've used two different greens here to make it easier to see, and because I was running out of suitable fabric.

 

You can see how the strips are pinned to the quilt better in this closeup.  Make sure the shorter strips are layered on top of the longer strips.

 

I then stitch all the way around the perimeter of the quilt to attach the facing, stitching about 1/4" away from the quilt edge.  Remember that you will lose 1/4" all the way around by adding a facing, so plan accordingly when you are squaring your quilt.

 

One trick makes for crisper corners, and that is turning and stitching three stitches on a 45 degree angle across the corner, rather than stitching into the corner and making a 90 degree turn.

 

You can see what I mean here.  If you click on the photo you can also see a closer view.  After the facing is sewn on, the corners need to be clipped.  Now you can see why one set of strips has been cut shorter: there will be less bulk in the corners as a result.

 

After the facing is attached, I press as much of it back from the quilt front as I can.

 

On the sides with the shorter strips this is easy.  Not as easy on the sides where the facing is sewn into the corner.

 

The entire facing then gets steam pressed to the back of the quilt, being careful that the facing stays slightly behind the quilt front so it doesn't peek out the edges (of course this could be a design feature too in some cases if you just want a hint of a different colour to show).  The facing basically forms a frame on the back of the quilt.  Honestly, it is a coincidence that my scissors are also red!

 

It takes a bit of muscle power and manipulation to get the facing pressed nicely to the back of the quilt.

Here it's all pressed back and I'm starting to pin it.  Once pinned I tack the facing to the back of the quilt by hand.

 

Here is the finished work.

 

Please do let me know if any part of this tutorial is unclear because I can add clarification to this post.  I intend to refer students here so I want it to be as clear as possible.

 

Although many artists choose to have their work professionally photographed, I have not gone that route.  Part of the reason is that I am often creating work at the last minute.  During the winter months, and when the weather doesn't cooperate, I do my photography indoors.  While I still maintain that better texture can be achieved outdoors on a cloudy day, I am often rushing at the last minute or late at night, and I'm not prepared to set up in a snowbank.  I learned my method for setting up inexpensive indoor photography lights from artist Holly Knott.  She has a very helpful section on her website called "Shoot that Quilt."  In her section on Lighting Holly provides information on how you can build your own photography lights, like mine below.  This gives you enough light to not have to use the camera's flash, which often results in washed out, off-colour photos.  I should also mention I have my camera on a tripod to avoid hand-shake.  The tripod is placed at a height near the middle of the quilt to avoid keystoning and distortion.  Holly's site discusses this in more depth.

 

Here's a closeup.  Of course the photos I submitted were much larger (at 1800 megapixels on the long side, while these are only just over 600).

 

So Red Stool below and Red Stool Macro (above) were entered.  I hope they appear to be speaking to each other when the juror views these images.  The colours are certainly appropriate for the season, aren't they? 

 

The Making of Red Stool II

In my last blog post, I shared a photo of my latest piece, Red Stool II.  It was made for the 2012 SAQA Benefit Auction.  Anyone can bid on these quilts.  The auction is a reverse auction, meaning that on day one the quilts start at $750 and the price drops each day.  In the last four years my quilts have auctioned for anywhere from $750 to $250.  Proceeds help SAQA spread the word about the art quilt as a fine art medium, and support the many SAQA exhibitions travelling around the world.

I think I have pretty much decided I will never teach a class to make a hosta quilt, at least not where I provide the pattern.  There are several reasons for this.  As an artist I just feel that I want to keep something for myself that is original.  I have taught absolutely everything I know, and in fact I have taught the method I use to make my hosta quilts ... it is the same method I use in my "In Full Bloom" class.  But equally important is the fact that I think it will be extremely difficult for students to find mottled green fabrics in such a variety of values.  You might think that I would jump at the chance to provide these fabrics and earn a little money.  The problem is that I would have to make sure I had these fabrics in stock for every student in each class, and sometimes I simply don't have much turn-around time between teaching gigs.  I also want to spend some time in my studio designing new quilts.

You may have noticed, however, that I have a new week-long class called "Fabulous Flowers and Foliage", which was scheduled to run at the Abruzzo School of Creative Art in Sulmona, Italy in June 2012.  It appears, however, that registrations continue to be low for these classes as the school is not yet well known.  Additionally, the depressed economic climate in Europe is probably a factor in the lack of registrations.  In other words, I am almost certain it won't happen this year.  I am scheduled to teach the class again in June 2013, and hope there will be more interest.  But I am also available to teach this new class anywhere that anyone wants to hire me to do so.  I will teach others how to make floral and foliage quilts inspired by their own photos.

Having said all that, I thought it would be fun to share how I made Red Stool II above so you can see what goes into the making of one of these pieces. 

I am seldom satisfied anymore with one particular photo, so I have begun to put together compositions based on several photos.  Red Stool II contains sections of three different photos.  I start with photos that have a lot of highlights and shadows. I combed through hundreds of hosta images in my photo library for this design.

There is a particular section of the above photo that I really liked, so I cropped out that section and show it below.  I love the sweeping curve of the hosta leaf at the bottom of the photo below.  If you look closely, you will notice that I cropped it from the lowest and fullest hosta leaf from the photo above.  I then printed it on my HP Inkjet printer.

I then cropped out the section below from another hosta photo I took, and printed it.

Last year when I decided to Make Red Stool 1, I needed a real stool as inspiration.  I mean, I really wanted a red stool, as I have developed an obsession for red stools, chairs and benches.  What do you suppose that says about me?  I had a vision in my head of what the stool would look like, searched the internet for red stools I might purchase, but didn't find any I liked.  One day I found an unpainted stool at Michaels, and it had the shape I envisioned, so I purchased it and painted it.  I set it in my backyard and shot it at a time of day when there was light coming in from the side (late afternoon) so there would be lots of hi-lights and shadows. The stool lives in my studio now and I love it.

I do have Photoshop Elements software, but am not very adept with it  Everytime I spend time with it I feel like I've just wasted a few hours I don't have.  So I put together my composition manually, using a scissors and tape.  I cut the sections out of the hosta photos that I liked, cut out the red stool (which I printed in several sizes so there would be one that was the proper scale) and fit the red stool in behind that lovely sweeping curve.

Below is the composition I came up with, all taped together. 

In the past I have often relied on tracings of the composition, by laying a transparency film over the design and tracing out all the colour and value changes.  I then projected that line tracing onto a wall with an overhead projector to enlarge the design.

Not this time.  I decided to draw the composition, and am I ever glad I did because I learned that I can.  I think I will probably choose to challenge myself to draw every composition from hereon in.  It really isn't hard because you don't have to shade or colour the drawing.  You do all of that with fabric, so you really only need a simple line drawing.  Below is the line sketch I settled on.  I always number the pieces of my design starting at the sections furthest in the distance, so I start numbering anything tucked behind the stool first, then the parts of the stool, and finally the leaves that sweep over the bottom of the stool.

I trace my drawing on to a piece of muslin, which will provide the base on which I fuse all the parts.

Once that is finished, I take my drawing and flip it over and trace the drawing onto the back of the paper that contains the drawing. I will need a pattern in reverse to trace to my fusible web. I used a fairly sheer paper here to make it easy to see the pattern through the paper.

I trace out all the parts of my pattern onto fusible web (Steam a Seam Lite).  Of course I don't want any gaps where the muslin shows through, so I have to add a little bit of extra (approx 1/4" around some of the pattern pieces).  This all has to be worked out.  I make my decisions about this as I trace.

Then I pick out the palette of fabric I think I might use.  Here are all the greens for the hosta leaves.  I line them up from darkest to lightest.  I don't number them and I don't plan what value will go where or note it on the pattern as many artists and teachers do.  That would be too restrictive for me.  I make a decision about the value of every piece in the design as I go by observing my photograph.

Here are the reds. 



Each part of the design that has been traced to the fusible web is then ironed to the back of the fabric I've chosen for that piece.  Of course since these are hand-dyed fabrics there is no right or wrong side.



All the pieces for the quilt are then cut out and I'm ready to put them in place.

Below you can see how the piece looks as I start placing the pieces on the muslin base that contains the design.

This is how I prepare the leaves with veins.  There are two layers of fabric, with a lighter one on the bottom, and the top piece cut apart.  I call it cut-away applique, but that probably is not the most accurate term.

Below is the final "Red Stool II".  It was shipped yesterday and once it arrives at its destination it will appear on the auction page.

Hope you enjoyed this tutorial.