Make the Pink Pig Squeal

Okay, Lynley, this is a Gee's Bend meets Liberated Amish class so it's time to play. I seriously want you to cut apart your quilt top that you're not happy with. It's the big blue rectangles that aren't working - so cutting them up reduces their impact. Plus, the pink triangles are the marvelous bit and this way they'd stand out. You can cut it apart any way you want - just don't use the seam ripper. Here are a couple of ideas. Straight lines:

Slanted lines:

Then you'll have some interesting pieces to play with. And yes, you're "allowed" to cut the new pieces down further - depending on how you cut you could end up with globs of seam allowance that might be better whacked off.

Add another really strong color and play with sashing idea or setting squares or who knows what you'll come up with. Cut them apart, play and if you have any questions, post another pic of the new pieces and we'll do this step by step!

Next Challenge?

You guys have made some absolutely awesome quilts. I am sooo very proud of you. I admit I've been neglecting to write a post because I'm embarrassed that I didn't finish a quilt top myself. eek. If you haven't finished either, keep working at it - I bet you'll make a great quilt.

I have to tell ya though, the letter tutorials are no longer at Quiltville. I had Bonnie take them down in anticipation of the book. (self-promotion: Word Play Quilts available December 7th) So if you still want to add letters to your quilt top, you can wing it and figure out your own great ways to make them. Or wait for the book.

If some of you want to keep playing, we can come up with another challenge. I figure we can just keep working in this blog. new folks can join in if they want.  I'm thinking of it as "One Step Beyond" Amish or maybe Improvisational Amish.

As in, I'd love to see you take another step, push yourself a bit further. I figure you're challenging yourself, so you can decide just how far you want to go with it. So depending where you are in the liberated spectrum, you could:

• make your quilt actually wonky this time. 
• piece crumbs together to make new "fabric"
• don't make all the blocks the same size, change them up. 
• use half blocks as well as whole blocks.
• Go for a Gee's Bend meets Amish Improvisational Lollapalooza.    
• Use leftover strips and pieces - but work from here on out only using scissors or tearing.
• No rotary cutters or rulers used whatsoever.

"Rules" to this challenge:

• use solid fabrics (or solidy, mottled, marbled, batiked, hand-dyed). this time you can add prints if you want.
• state which quilt(s) from the Brown collection is going to be your inspiration OR be a rebel and pick an Amish quilt from a different source.
• you don't have to use the same inspirational quilt that you did before, although it might just be fun to work in a series...
• you do not have to use letters - just to make that clear.

What do you think? Anyone want to keep playing?

This Sort of Counts

I'm doing a quilt top swap with Lynne. She's working on a secret project that just blew me away and I wanted one too. So I made this for her. She wanted something very me. Which this is. 

Back when I was playing with Rumspringa quilts in Paris, I made lots and lots of extra L-O-V-E blocks. And I can't even remember what I was working on that I made some I's for Lives as well as Loves. (Definitely did that in the last year after Pokey got sick.) Anyway, it was easy to just put this top together with letter blocks I already had. The border is actually more purply than it looks here.

I have to admit, I have been struggling with a quilt for this challenge. I know, I know it should have been easy. I get started and then lose focus.

Meanwhile you guys are making some amazing quilts. I'm so proud of you all. Send me photos of finished quilts if you want them on the UnRuly Quilter website. Right now I only have Laura's.

Houses?

Not sure my border is going to stick with these quilt blocks. Not even sure how many quilts I'm going to end up with, not to mention orphans.

             

I made a wonky house block to show someone how to make them. (that first one is middle bottom in this next photo). Thought the block was incredibly dull, and was then amazed how much I liked it with the components I was working on. So I made a couple more houses, this time incorporating some of the strippy bits I'd already made

     

I took my blocks home and when I put them on my design wall, I was no longer sure I should include the X blocks. I'm not always sure where the line is between fun busy and too busy.

Taking out almost all the X blocks and the triangles:

I have a few more houses to finish up. And I want more components that have wider strips, bigger pieces. Then I'll play some more.

What do you guys think?

Medallion Center Components

I haven't been able to get much sewing in, but after a fun yesterday I have this

these are strip components that I may sew together to make string blocks like the ones in #100 Crazy Star. Some of you picked that one and were just sewing things together and it looked fun, so decided to make some too. I'm thinking this will be in my medallion center:

This is all just playing right now, making bits before I decide how to put them together. I'm going to do some letters to toss into the mix for the center. My problem right now is I love how this center looks put together like this, rather than using them to make the Crazy Star blocks where they come in at all sorts of angles. That way is definitely more lively, but this has a simplicity I like too.

As far as class stuff goes, have you all picked a quilt to be inspired by? You can see from my work that you don't have to choose just one quilt - you can grab bits and pieces from many. Have you got your fabrics? At a certain point, it's better to just go with your gut and PICK rather than overthinking it. I do that myself and it doesn't get me anywhere. Just sew.

Inspiration

Tonya here. 

I'm still having fun making and playing with components, with no idea of where I'm going.

I just want to clarify a few points of this challenge/project we're all doing. You're being inspired by a quilt - that's your starting point. You can go any direction you want to from there. Make this YOUR quilt. In the end it doesn't have to look like the original.

Also, I wanted to leave the interpretation of "Liberated" pretty loose. There's no one way a quilt has to be liberated. You don't have to do "wonky" if you don't want to. Be free how you choose to be.

Medallion

I started out knowing I wanted to play with the triangles in the Ocean Waves quilt but after sewing a partial lozenge I realized I sooo did not want to play with triangles on the edges and Y-seams.

This is a picture of the back of the Oceans Wave quilt that I love so much (image from Amish Abstractions: Quilts from the Collection of Faith and Stephen Brown).

I'm thinking now of combining the two sides of the quilt and using the triangles to form one or two borders in a medallion quilt like this:

I'm also considering making one bold border in the triangles and maybe getting some of the Ocean Waves motion with a string pieced border (these blocks are just partially done):

Looking at this in a photo, I get a different perspective. Might be too busy. Or maybe these two borders need more room between them. I've been thinking of using black or red for the solid between borders, but actually love how light and lovely this looks.


The plan right now is to do a word in the middle. Haven't made my mind up yet. This is the third quilt in my Rumspringa series, so maybe it should be Love. Or Live or Hope or Be Kind or Be Sweet.... 


Any thoughts on the borders or word choice????


I'll still have a lot of playing to do, to work on getting the sizes right. By the way, those half-square triangles finish at 1.5" squares. I figured making them small would help with the sparkly-ness.


I started with 2" strips and cut the triangles with the Easy Angle ruler. I made a bin of darks and a bin of lights and mixed the fabrics - in each bin - up so that I wouldn't always get the same colors matching up. Some fabrics like the reds ended up in both bins.

I have sooo much more work to do. It has been wonderful to see all of your fabrics and blocks and words and even a finished top! 

Bitty Triangles

Tonya here. I've been busy sewing! I'm beginning to think I'm a bit crazy for picking this size of triangle - the unfinished squares are 2".  Right now I have lots of triangles and some squares. I've got a LOT more sewing to do.

But I had to see how my colors were working. I've already cut some additional golds and warm colors. And I was trying to not throw in too much pink and purple - I didn't want it to look little girly. But I think this quilt needs it!

I have no idea how many triangles I actually need and how many I've actually cut. I'll have fun with any leftovers...

My Inspiration and Choosing Fabric

This is Tonya and this is the quilt I've chosen as my inspiration. It's an Ocean Waves circa 1920, made in Holmes County, Ohio.  Click on the pic and you can see it BIG.

Image from Amish Abstractions: Quilts from the Collection of Faith and Stephen Brown (www.pomegranate.com). plate 51 (page 100). Big thank you to Pomegranate for letting me have an excellent copy of the photo so that I could use it as a teaching example. 


I love the tiny sparkly look of this quilt. When I look at it in the thumbnail version on the Browns' webpage it shimmers (it's number 065).


So what I want to capture from this quilt -- my inspiration -- is the interplay of the colors in small triangles. I may end up doing an Ocean Waves design or it could go a completely different direction. 


On another day I'll talk about the pattern, but for this post I wanted to focus on the color. I think this is my favorite part of making a quilt. I spent several hours sorting (and fondling) my fabric. I want to use a similar color scheme to the quilt, so I'm using reds, pinks, blues, purples, grays, beiges, creams, rusts, and blacks. I'm leaving out turquoise although I may add it in later if the quilt needs it. Here's what I've pulled:

I'm almost embarrassed at how much fabric I have here. But hey, I've been collecting solids since 1987! I have no idea if these are the actual colors in the quilt but they have the right feel to me. 


Okay, yes, there is a lot of duplication. I don't know how many of you have read Roberta Horton's book An Amish Adventure but it was one of my early quilting books. Roberta explained how if you looked at Amish quilts you'd often find that there was never just one blue fabric or black. There might be several, all slightly different: lighter, darker, grayer, brighter. That's a lesson I haven't forgotten.

So there is some of that going on, plus I'm trying to minimize using my expensive hand-dyes - when I have almost the exact same color in a solid I'll use more of that. Did that make sense?

I'm going to cut strips of these and then individual triangles using the Easy Angle ruler. I know that goes against the whole make quilts fast with strip piecing but I LOVE choosing each individual pair. And sure there are Thangles too and other ways to improve your precision making triangles, but I don't care about that a bit. 

I got some cutting to do. I think it's pretty clear this is not going to be a fast quilt for me to make.

Oh, I've put a link in the sidebar to the online store Fabric Shack. I've had good luck with them - the solids are really inexpensive AND they let you buy small amounts AND just charge what it costs to ship. Your experience may vary. (Isn't that what they always say in the commercials? Lose 50 pounds! Results not typical.)


Once you've picked out a quilt, I'd love to hear WHY you've chosen it. Please indicate the title/pattern of the quilt plate/page number or link to it on the website. Of course you can always change your mind after you've started or pull inspiration from more than one quilt...  I'm a big believer in starting a quilt and letting it go where it leads you.


p.s. eeek, Blogger lets you pick an extra-large option for posting pics and then cuts it in half when you actually post it. Do a PREVIEW and if the photo is chopped up, then you need to pick a smaller size. 

Fixing No-Reply and a Request for Blogger Deputy

Hi, this is Tonya.


So wonderful to see you in this class, including some new faces. Welcome to all of you.
First off, instructions for getting an email address added so that you don't come up as "no-reply"


Log into blogger on your dashboard page, click where it says "edit profile" on the left side of the page. Then check "SHOW EMAIL ADDRESS" in the 3rd line down, and at the bottom of the page click SAVE CHANGES.


It's a much better way to interact with other bloggers because when you leave a comment on their blog, they can email back to you. Except not on this group blog - I'll be the only one to get those emails.


I know that Diane in NY (still haven't gotten your email), Kathy in FL (I did get yours) and Heidi (I know who you are and will be mailing shortly) are all no-reply.


Second thing, I'm hoping someone is willing to be my deputy in this class, with a specific focus on helping students with blogger. I'll add you as an admin so you can list links with helpful information and you can even pretty up the place if you want.


By the way, I updated this to the newest Blogger posting set-up so it looks different than what I'm used to. But look we can do the crossing out thingie.


I am going to be a baaad girl today and play. I  have so many things I should be doing -- to say my house is a disaster zone would not be an overstatement -- but I am feeling a real need to just sew and play. So that's what I'm going to do! Hope to show you what I'm working on soon.

Welcome

Tonya here. Welcome to the Lazy Gal Liberated Amish 2010 Get Together Blog.

The theme is Liberated Amish. What is that you ask? Well, we're taking our inspiration from Liberated Quiltmaking (including letters) and from Amish quilts.

To be more specific, in this class (or should I call it a challenge?) we will:

1. Each pick an Amish quilt from the Faith and Stephen Brown collection to be our starting point. You can pick one from their website or get ahold of the book Amish Abstractions (buy, borrow, or get it from your library - interlibrary loan is a wonderful thing). Whichever quilt you want - it's okay if everybody picks the same thing or nobody does.

2. Use solid fabrics (generously interpreted - hand-dyes, mottled batiks, blenders, marbles....)

3. Make the quilt liberated.

You can use any of the methods Gwen Marston showed in her Liberated Quiltmaking books (Liberated Quiltmaking, Liberated Quiltmaking II, and/or Liberated String Quilts) or come up with your own method of liberation. (You know how I feel about these books - they make my heart sing. Read them if you haven't, please)

Just as a note, some of the quilts in Amish Abstractions are already liberated to begin with - you don't have to make them even crazier.

4. Throw in some liberated letters or numbers somewhere on the front of the quilt. You can do this however you choose, for instance incorporating letters into the blocks themselves (or the center of a medallion) or put your name and date in the border.

The goal is to complete the top by the end of June. It can be any size you want.

Helpful links are in the sidebar.

There will be no set instruction. I'm not going to tell you what to make. But you will hopefully get lots of encouragement and any needed assistance from me or any of the other participants. I love figuring out different ways to make a quilt, that's part of the fun. So if you get stuck at any point, just ask.

You don't have to have a blog but you will need a Blogger account to make posts on this blog. To participate, leave a comment on this post if you have your address set up to show OR send me an email (tartbr47 at hotmail dot com) if you are a no-reply or don't have a Blogger account.

I need the email address to send you your invitation to join. (If you don't already have a Blogger account, you will be prompted to create one. I repeat, you don't have to have a blog, or a blog on Blogger, just the account).

Once you've gotten the invitation to join, hop on in and write a post introducing yourself. Please put a label on your post with your name. See how this one says Tonya? It also helps if you indicate who's writing the post at the very beginning of it.

Any questions? Just ask.