70 West 100 North

My Liberated Round Robin piece is now complete.

For now it hangs above the fireplace.  My living room needs a little brightening for the summer months and it will stay there until I can get a quilt completed for the big wall where the stairs are.

Reporting on the serendipity of this quilt which would be to say that
Serendipity is the gift of finding valuable or agreeable things. 

I found some new skills while working on this quilt.  I paid attention to some posting on the Liberated Quilting Yahoo Group about invisible thread and decided I'd try my hand at using some.  I had some missteps and tension things to work out, but I'm sure I'll use this kind of thread again.  I also machine stitched the binding using the invisible thread and I liked how it works for that.  I have a hard time with hand stitching, so this could be a blessing for me!  It doesn't show up as much as using cotton thread for that finishing step.  The finished quilt measures 42 x 36 inches.

I also used some quilting ideas I'd not tried before:

I did a pebble stitch and some lines and on the dark blue small border I did a Greek motif to practice square corners.



  Serendipity happens each time I try something new!  I am glad it is completed though!  Now off to some other quilting project...

Step 3 Pattilou

I did a whack job this morning.  There was something about my piece that I didn't like and I decided it was the bottom.  This is my piece awaiting the last step:

Okay, here's what I'd done with what I had.  The pieces that I had last

Raggety Sister left a comment that it reminded her of a "hip city neighborhood."  My mind took a new turn from there!

I kept looking at the piece and decided to not use red, but use orange.  I moved things around and came up with this

The little piece with the girls playing dolls was a little scrap from some fabric I'd sent off to Sunshine Quilts and I'd planned just using it in a quilt for some child.  But, I thought, why don't I made a semblance of my childhood neighborhood.  I grew up for the most part in a business district of a small town.  Across the street was the elementary school and down the street was the butcher, the cleaners and and electrician's shop.  My dad had a bakery.  We lived in the apartment above it until I was about eight and then my parent's purchased the house just next to the bakery.  So the little girl is me playing with a friend at my house.  The house on the right is her house.  It was in a neighborhood.  I loved that neighborhood and thus I put the little window on my friend's house that represents the love I felt when at her house.  The black in front was to represent the street.

I decided I needed a sidewalk between the lawn and the street and added this

But, as I said before, it bothered me--too much black at the bottom and the strip for the dividing line was too big.  So, I cut it down and this is now my piece.

I think I like it better.  I have an idea for a border, but I'll wait until the next step for the directions.

I'm Really Not Sure Where I'm Going

I've got some crumbs going--and I've got more.  It's just that I'm not sure how I'll unify all that I have.

I found this cute little block in my crumbs drawer.  I don't know yet, if I'll use it, but I'm not discounting it as a possibility, not just yet, anyhow.

I've not cut any crumbs to specific sizes yet either, as I don't know how I'll put them together.  For now they are on the design wall waiting for some inspiration.  I've pulled a couple of strips that were in the drawer too.  They may or may not be used.

 Wow!  They really need some color to unify or define them.  Maybe they'll just go back into the drawer!  Some sort of definition is needed!  Just a bit of my hand dyed blue is left, so I'm not cutting into it yet.  Is this how liberation works?  Boy, compared to some others, this really looks like a mass of something--don't know what I'd call it.  I'll just let it incubate and make more crumbs!

a few minutes later...
a medallion perhaps?

 

Pattilou--Round 1

I'm trying not to overthink this, as I want to add more.  I had these blocks from Clare from last year's Worldwide Swap.

And I rearranged them thinking that since they were block pieces I didn't need to cut them.

I had some hand dyed fabric that I had dyed some time ago.  I made my first block.

I'm leaving the angle in the upper right corner as I may want to add something later on.

So, that is my first round--now complete!
Pattilou (aka Pat F)

So Where Are The Liberated Round Robin Participants?

I keep checking back and nothing has been posted for such a long time!!  Are you giving up?  Where are your progress reports?  Come on feed my curiosity!!!   

Thanks! 
Love, Pat--who has finished and given hers away.  See my post here:

Working on Phase 6

Finished picture after binding is completed.  Not much difference in the picture.  10/10/11

9/14  Quilting completed and ready for binding.

 

I've been slowly progressing towards a finish. My sis called the other day and needed a quilt for a wedding gift and wanted one of mine.  So, we decided on my Liberated Challenge quilt.  I've been very frustrated with making feathers.  They just looked too rounded or tight or something.  I've studied Patsy Thompson's feathers and I've got a DVD by the Pajama Quilter.  I've been practicing since then.  I won't show you my garbage can of practices but I hit on what my troubles may have stemmed from.  I was making my "loops" from the top.  When I started them from the bottom and worked up, they became more the style I was working towards.  Here's a sample of my practice next to my actual work on the quilt. 

And then a close-up of the actual quilt.

 

It may be a couple of days before I can work on the completion of my quilt, but with someone expecting it.  I'll get it done.  Maybe even next week!

Oh, my Dyslexic Self!!! Or, at last I can see!

Finally, some curves I like!!

After ordering some fabric to make the border, I approached cutting the curves with lots of anxiety!  I tried Debbie's http://stitchintherapy.blogspot.com/
directions as best I could.  She suggested:
Wait don't panic....it looks very good. Don't add more purple, go with the dark green. Here's what I would do. Press as flat as possible--stray starch a lot--- and don't trim the purple. Cut strips of green at least 4 in wide. While flat, slide the green strip UNDER the purple edges--one at a time. Then cut thru both purple and green and do a very slight, gentle curve. This way you are assured of matching curves. Flip the green to top of purple, match edge and sew a very little at a time, stopping and aligning as needed. Or the other option is once cut...press under the cuved edge of the green 1/4" and topstitch to the purple. You can do this and make it spectacular.

So I tried cutting it this way:

 With the green underneath, I tried cutting both wrong side and then right side.  You guessed it the curves ran the same way and didn't fit into each other!!!  Oh my, why couldn't I "see" that!

Then I tried it this way---running out of fabric here (panic, panic)

  Ah, ha!  It fits snugly and the resulting sewing it together WORKED!!!

I've trimmed it now, and hope I didn't take too much off the sides, as I don't know what the next round of the liberated challenge will be.  But, at last, I am satisfied!!! I'm liking it! http://pattilousquilts.blogspot.com/

Round 3 Rectangles

Finally!  I've been thinkin' and thinkin' and the result just looks so easy, but I had to get to a place where I could "cogitate" about the colors.  I wanted more lights and I picked a few at a time.  I was thinking I might want to make it into a curve and now with round 4: curves, I may just do that.  But before I do, I must practice.

There's a bit of a stretch through the middle, that I hope won't interfere with the quilt when I quilt it.

I think batiks stretch a bit more than other fabric when sewing them and the border is already curved a bit!  LOL!  :)  http://pattilousquilts.blogspot.com/

Second Border Completed--for now anyhow!

 

 I wanted to curve the border a bit on this one, but I only had one 2.5 inch WOF of the lovely purple batik.  So far I've finger pressed the squares on.  Will set them with iron when I'm sure and then I'll quilt them into the quilting rather than going around each small square.  I felt it needed something bright, and hope to brighten more as I move out--we'll see how it flows.  My blog: http://pattilousquilts.blogspot.com

Liberated First Border Complete!

The first border is now complete.  I've "auditioned" many fabrics and used HST's that I had previously made from cast offs from other blocks.  I also tried a folded border inside the two borders.  Never done that before and I like how it looks.  We'll see when it comes to quilting whether I still like it or not.

Center Block

Oh my, I just can't make up my mind.  This is what my design wall looks like:

This is my post about it HERE

I'm leaning towards the one at the top left--the iris.  I could dye some fabric to do with that one--but then the stars with black/white would be fun.

Heck--do ya think I should do all four in separate quilts????

p.s.  Clare do you recognize the crumb blocks???  They'll be step two I think!

Decision Made!  The IRIS--wouldn't a new spring quilt wall hanging be fun?!!!