flekka journal: thinking, making, wishing there were more hours in a day

my very first mini

By nina on April 12, 2012

Recently I’ve come across stunning Fine Line quilts by Kathleen Loomis. I was inspired. I needed to try the technique. I have always been attracted to free form quilt but just couldn’t see myself making one. You see, I like numbers, order. Anything free form, or wonky, just seemed too, well… disorderly. But then I saw these Fine Line quilts, and thought – well, that’s just slashing and sewing. How difficult could it be. So I tried once… then once more (I will show you those in a second). Kathleen Loomis posted a little tutorial here.

But then I thought – if I can do straight lines, why not curved. I had some bias tape left over from the Flutters quilt, I cut it into 1 in wide strips; then I took some linen, 4 different colors to be exact, cut up some squares and slashed away. I figured if I use a 1 in bias tape and make 1/4 in seams, I would not get in trouble with the curves. And here is what I ended up with…

I didn’t use any templates, as you can see, I just put the 4 squares next to each other and slashed curves. I wanted them to be nearly circles, but I didn’t even care if the edges meet. The first square was tricky, and there was a lot of ripping and false starts, but once I got a hang of it, it was all smooth.

Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures of the progress, because I really just wanted to finish it, and I really wanted to finish it before the Spring break, so I didn’t take any pictures. I didn’t finish it before the break, but I did as soon as we got back. Yesterday.

The quilt is about 21 in square. I didn’t know if it would work, so I wanted something smaller. Initially I thought I would make it into a pillow, but it looks so nice hanging on my wall, that I just made it into a mini quilt.

Recently I noticed I like my quilt fairly densely quilted. The distance between these lines was less than 1/2 in. Quilting linen is a bit tricky as it is stretchy, but all in all not too bad, it is a small quilt after all. I would like to do a bigger version of this… You can easily slash the square multiple times, making concentric or intersecting circles. That would be fun!

OK, and now to those other two “things” I made. I quilted them, but not finished, because I didn’t quite know what to do with them. Minis? Pillows (they are just about the right size)? Or, could I make a few more of these, in different colors and them put them all together in a big quilt – something like “quilt as you go”? I thought that would be fun – you cannot really make a big quilt using this technique – but since I was not planning this initially, and I did not leave any top fabric or batting selvadge, could it be even done? I am not sure, I never made a “quilt as you go quilt” even though I like the basic idea.

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Pieve skirt

By nina on March 20, 2012

I finished Challenge 13 at flekka-challenge: knee high, slightly flared skirt with no darts in the front. I drafted from a basic straight skirt pattern. You can read all about it here.

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Two new projects

By nina on March 1, 2012

Two new projects are in the works…

This one uses the same method as the Tolva quilt, but only thee “colors”, all linen. Love the look of linen, not so much working with it in a quilt.

This one is for my son. I had the fabrics for a while but I wasn’t sure about the design. I never start with fabrics, I always start with an idea for a design and then I find the fabrics for it. For this one I sketched two designs already but I wasn’t feeling either. The third one, I like. I am just about to make a block…

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Tolva quilt – finished!!!

By nina on February 28, 2012

I think this is the first quilt that I photographed right after it came out of the dryer.I am glad that I decided to finish it – I really like how it came out! And my kids already wanted to cuddle up with it. Nice.

I quilted this one pretty densely, free motion, your basic all over swirls. I wanted it to be densely quilted because of all the seam, a lot of which could not be pressed open. I prefer pressing my seam open because than the seams lay flat, if I press them to the side – there is always that tiny little “step” on the front, which I don’t like.

I was lucky that my machine didn’t give me any problems. The whole quilting process went pretty smoothly, with the thread breaking only once. Last quilt – the dash-dot – I just could not free motion quilt. Skipped stitches, breaking thread – you name it. It just would not work. I tried everything. This time – Not one problem.

I think my machine has a problem free motion quilting vintage sheets (dash – dot was 100% repurposed sheets) – The only place I did have a problem with this quilt was in a place where I used vintage sheets. I can’t really explain it. Is it the fact that vintage sheets are 50/50, not 100% cotton? But why would that be? (I did try different needles – no luck)

I was a little worried about using all the colors – but I think it worked out.

I don’t have a good binding picture – you can sort of see it below. It’s an orange stripey vintage sheet.

The back is another thrifted find. It’s from an Ikea comforter cover. Cotton, a little stretchy, so I had a few snags – but when I washed and dried it – you can barely see it.

I liked how it looked against light, so I had to take a picture of it…. See all the seams?

I always liked hexagons, and one of those days I will attempt to do those tiny little ones. But for now, the big hexagons will have to do. Cutting for this quilt was very easy – each of the hexagons is made out of six rectangles in different colors. Two by two rectangles are sewn together and then cut apart – same as half square triangles – except that the end result is a little kite shaped piece, not a rectangle. Then you combine those into hexagons. And the white – simply strips. So there was no triangle cutting (I am not very good at that), or sewing on a bias (even worse at that). There is a bit more trimming maybe, but for me, that beats cutting and sewing triangles any time.

I think my next quilt will be quite different but will use the same technique…

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dash-dot quilt block tutorial

By nina on February 27, 2012

Do you remember this quilt I finished recently?

I just learned from a commenter to my post that the striped block is called the Bright Hopes block. Well, if I had know that, it would have been much easier. I saw a vintage Vera shawl with this design, and then tried to figure out how to make it. Well, if you didn’t know about this block and are interested how to make it see this tutorial by A Girl in Paradise.

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Editt top and Marina top finished

By nina on February 19, 2012

Sometimes I forget to tell you here when I finish my project over at flekka-challenge. Since the last one, I made two: Editt top and Marina top. Go on over to flekka challenge for more pictures and step-by-step instructions.

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Tolva quilt:: basted

By nina on February 19, 2012

I just realized I did not take a picture of the finished top. This is as close as I got when I took this picture. Close enough.

And today I basted it. And started quilting. I am doing free motion, just your basic random swirls. I am quilting it quite dense, because I think this quilt, with all the seam lines requires that. I want it to be nice and flat.

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Tolva quilt:: final layout

By nina on February 6, 2012

Just briefly… I finished the last four hexagons today. And then I worked, and worked, and worked… on the layout. After a few iterations, here is the final layout:

I probably should have taken one in focus. Oh, well…

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Tolva quilt

By nina on January 30, 2012

I have been thinking about Half Rectangle Traingles ever since I saw this post by asquaredw. More specifically I have been thinking about the little kites she created by mistake. But I liked them and kept thinking how I can use them. Then just before the holidays I got to try my idea and I created this mug rug. And then on Friday I started working on a quilt using the same hexagon block made up of little kites… This is the first one I created (as you can see this quilt will be much more colorful than the mug rug!).

I like the way it looks, but there was a little problem. If you create a hexagon like this you end up actually with two and I did not want to repeat them in the quilt (these are quite large… unsewn like this one, it’s about 14 in from tip to tip). So what am I going to do with two of each? (why two of each – because to create each kite, you use two rectangles of the same color. when you slash the rectangles in two – you get two kites, two same kites).

Then I made this one:

Again, there are 6 colors – three yellow and three blue, but instead of cutting 2 rectangles from each color, you only cut one. then you sew one yellow and one blue together to get two-color kites). This one is a little busier, but does not create any leftovers. And… actually I like how it seems I cut 12 triangles to create this.

This is another hexagon I created. You can see what each 1/6 of the hexagon, or the “kite” looks like. To assemble this I will sew half hexagons first, and then when they are all arranged, I will add strips of white around every other row of half-hexagons, then sew together half-hexagons in rows and finally sew rows together. I am being very clear, I know…

I am getting out of my comfort zone here, creating such colorful blocks. I am much more comfortable with single color blocks or even single color quilts. I am a little afraid that it will be too busy, but hoping, of course, that it will all fall nicely together once all the blocks are finished.

This was the first arrangement (I like to do this as I go. I also don’t select all fabrics up front, I do it block by block.):

But I did not like it that much. So I changed it, and this is what is currently on my design wall (minus one more block I did after I took these pics):