Dust Off an Old Book: Cultural Fusion

Welcome! It is my time to dust off an old book for the blog hop.  Today, I am featuring Cultural Fusion Quilts by Sujata Shah. The subtitle is A Melting Pot of Piecing Traditions.  It shows you how to make 15 free-form block projects and has a lot of inspirational photos and ideas.

When I cleaned off all the dust, I discovered that it came with a project that I had already started.

I started this quilt way back in 2015.  In November 2015, I showed I was making the blocks.  I had already made one improv quilt based on Sherri Lynn Wood pattern and I was intrigued by Sujata's book because the blocks are improv, but once you trim them up, they are easy to sew together in a traditional fashion. It is an easier way to step into the world of improv without becoming overwhelmed.

By December 31, 2015, it was a complete quilt top.  I had a lot of fun making the blocks and the hardest part was choosing the fabric and the layout. I had another quilt that was ahead of it in line to be quilted so it was folded and put on the hanger.  And there it sat until it was time to dust off the book this year. I figured I could just quilt it in time for blog hop day.

When I laid it out again, though, I decided that the quilt was too small, which may have been another reason why it wasn't quilted yet.  I decided might as well play with some more free form design. The leftover fabric had already been put away or used, and I think I had tried to use up as much as I could for this quilt, so I had to get creative in the borders. I decided I could carry on with different fabrics that would go with the original fabrics.

I decided I wanted to add two borders, a rail fence border and triangles. After lots of thinking and auditioning, I decided the rail fence would go first.  Instead of making the rows into same size blocks, I cut them random sizes. I like how some of the skinnier rails look like they are folded. All this decision making took time, but I decided it was better to take my time so I would be happy with the outcome, even if it meant the quilt might not get finished by blog hop day.

After debating yet again about whether it still needed the triangle borders, I went ahead and added them. I only trimmed the part where they would be added to the quilt because I will need to trim after quilting anyway. I figure I can save myself the trouble of doing that twice.

The pictures so far make it look rectangular, but it really is more of a square quilt. 

For my efforts as a part of this blog hop, I offer you two additional borders. It gives you more insight to the ideas in this book than if I had just quilted it. I think this is now plenty big enough and is ready for quilting. I need to piece the backing and the batting as well as finish another quilt that is ahead of this one in line, so unfortunately, am not able to show you a finished quilt today.

This post is a part of the Dust Off a Quilt Book Blog Hop hosted by Beaquilter.  To celebrate, I am going to draw a name from all of the people who comment on this post and send them these two books of quilt patterns. I got them both from a library book sale. They offer a variety of patterns for the beginner and intermediate quilter. Let me know if you want them in the comments, and I will  I will draw a winner on Monday the 25th to give people time to find this post.

Thank you for visiting me, Shasta Matova, here at High Road Quilter. I've enjoyed our visit and you are welcome back anytime.

Here's a list of the other participants so you can continue your hop.

Monday Feb 18^th

Turid at densyendehimmel

Pamela at Pamelaquilts

Joan at Moosestashquilting

Anne at seems like a plan

Susan at Desertsky Quilting

Selina at Selinaquilts

Kathleen at Kathleenmcmusing

Tuesday Feb 19^th

Cindy Stitchin at home

Jennifer at curlicuecreations

Stephanie at stephjacobsondesigns

Kathy at Kathysquilts

Shasta at High Road Quilter (that's me!)

Theresa at bumbleberrystitches

Wednesday Feb 20^th

Sharon at Vrooman’s quilts

Suzy at Websterquilt

Nancy at patchworkbreeze

Brenda at songbirddesigns

Karrin at karrinscrazyworld

Denise at craftraditions

Thursday Feb 21^st

Anita at Domestic Felicity

Leanne at Devoted Quilter

Jennifer at Dizzyquilter

Carla at Creatin' in the Sticks

Lee Anne at Podunk Pretties

Andree at quiltinglearningcombo

Lyndsey at Sew Many Yarns

Friday Feb 22^nd

Bea at Beaquilter

Barbara at Bejweledquilts

Laura at slice of pi quilts

Sherry Powered By Quilting

Pat at Life in the Scrapatch

Carol at Just let me quilt

Kathy at Kathy's Kwilts and More

Marian at seams to be sew

Also linked with:
My Quilt Infatuation

I Can Stop Anytime I Want

When I started making the butterfly wreath blocks, I decided to just make a few and when I get bored, put whatever I have together into a quilt and call it done. Each set of fabrics make 8 HSTs and there are two HSTs from each set in each block, so each set of three fabrics make four blocks. Some of the HSTs do have to get rejected for size, especially ones that use charm squares.  Charm squares are sometimes slightly bigger or smaller than 5 inches so they don't play well with the others.

I made a few, and a few more.  Yesterday, I laid them out to see how they would look in a quilt and get an estimate of the size.  [I even counted them and safety pinned them in sets of ten to be all organized, but had to take out the safety pins to recreate the picture for you.]

It is a good size and I could easily put them together and get a quilt about the size of a bread box. I would work great as my mini for the month of March. But I am having fun with making these blocks so I made a couple more sets. They are like potato chips. You gotta have more. I don't want to use bright blues for this quilt, so the blues from On Ringo Lake won't go in here.  Since I am having a hard time finding the right tone of blues in the scraps, these blues came from the stash.

The decision making for this quilt has been surprisingly easy.  It is strange when I am looking for blue and green fabrics and the Cave of Wonders delivers a red fabric. I think it is a mood and not a color it is delivering.

 

Week 7 of 15 Minutes to Stitch

There was no work this week, so I had plenty of unexpected time.  I spent it doing household chores and getting appointments in and otherwise generally whittling down the to-do list on my calendar. I got my blog  post ready for the Dust Off a Quilt Book Blog Hop and scheduled it to post on Tuesday morning.

I was able to sneak in a lot of quilting time, which I spent cutting up the shoe box of scraps. There weren't a lot of pieces big enough or the right color for Butterfly Wreath, but lots of one and a half inch strips for Four Rails.  I put together the pieces that weren't long enough for Four Rails and made a long chain. While it was tempting to make another Matchstick Mansion, I decided to go with my original plan and cut them into rails. I want Four Rails to be less boring than the traditional rail quilt and if I get lots of these sewed pieces, then it will look like a natural part of the quilt instead of a few making-do-when-I-ran-out-of-fabric pieces.

I read a comment on a blog that said that a shoe box full of scrap fabric makes a queen size quilt. I guess that explains why it took so long for me to get through my box! It was my latest scrap box, and it was full of scraps from On Ringo Lake and other projects I worked on last year.  Since I had made snippet quilts [I Llike you a Llot Llama and the elephant], it included everything, including dog ears, orphan blocks (bonus HSTs mostly), and scraps and bits of fabric. I put the orphan blocks in the orphan blocks box but everything else was cut up for the rails and trash. I didn't generally keep dog ears and selvages and fabric dust so hopefully going through the rest of the scrap boxes will be easier. I do have a huge tote of scraps in addition to little containers which is scary but I am sure I will be able to get them all a little at a time.


The fabric trash can is now full, and the shoe box is empty.  I want to make something out of those little pieces in the trash can before I move on to the next container of scraps.

15 Minute sessions of stitching this week:  7 out of 7
15 Minute sessions of stitching this year:  41 out of 41 sessions
Success Rate: 100%

Linked to:
Life in Pieces 15 Minutes to Stitch 
Can I get a Whoop Whoop? 
Off the Wall Friday 
Lets Bee Social

Decisions Decisions

There are some quilts which make decision-making easy.  The next step is pretty clear, and it is easy to tell which decision is right and which decision is wrong.  This quilt is not so easy.  It wasn't difficult for me to decide I would make a rail fence and triangles for the borders. I was doubting myself because I didn't think I had enough bright colored fabric for the border until Wanda said I could make black and white border.

Then I had to decide which would be the inner border and which would be the outer border. Rails and triangles or triangles and rails?  I decided to do the rails first because the triangles looked really busy against the body of the quilt.

I doubted myself throughout the process, and the first two rails didn't inspire much confidence. It wasn't until the last border was put on that it looked like using a rail border was a good idea.

One of the decisions I had made was that I liked the black triangles against the black rails.  I like the way they merge, but this means that the white triangles, which is probably what people will see when they look at the quilt, point inwards. Which could be good because they draw attention into the quilt.

But don't most people expect the points to go outward, radiating like a star?

And will the triangles add to the quilt and make it better or is the quilt better off without the triangles?

What do you think? I was going to put the triangles all the way around so it would be easier to see the whole impact but it was windy and these pieces are not stitched together. I was worried they would blow away.

Linked to:
WIPs on Wednesdays 
Oh Scrap! 
Silly Mama Quilts Works in Progress 
Let's Bee Social

Yet Another New Project

I know what you are thinking. This girl needs a new project. I am happy to oblige!  I haven't started it yet, but this one has been percolating for a while, and I want to make sure I post the links to the path that got me to this idea, because I am going to need them in the future.  It is just an idea so it is subject to change, but here are the thoughts that are leading me to it, in no particular order. I am not going to be using their pictures, so this post will just have pictures from my own archives of things I have made, which probably won't help you very much in figuring out where I am going with this.

Do you remember Life of Plenty quilt? It was about that time when I was making that quilt that I kept seeing all of these beautiful quilts that included embroidery with the piecing.

Things like Leann's Journey of a Quilter and the Life is Beautiful quilt pattern. These patterns are expensive and I figured I could get the mood of the quilt using my own embroidery.


 

I have been following Spirit Cloth on Bloglovin'.  Jude posts beautiful, relaxing stitcheries. Just taking some pieces of fabric and adding some stitches. These aren't projects, but simply little pieces that bring joy and peace.


There is also Wendy at the Constant Quilter who makes beautiful projects. She shared her tutorial for how to make potholder quilts. A potholder quilt is basically made up of blocks that are made as individual quilts, quilted and bound, and then joined together.

Next up is this video on Stitching Meditations by Liz Kettle. It explains what Jude has been doing.  Just stitching for no purpose except to meditate and relax. She also shows you she makes a meditation piece. Apparently Stitch Meditations is quite a movement, and there are lots of quilters who do this for their 100 day projects and beyond.

There are a lot of tutorials for quilt as you go hexagons, and there are several quilters who are using hexagons for their 2020 crazy quilting challenge.

There is also Jenni of Elefantz and Allie Horton who generously share their beautiful stitchery patterns. There is Kathy who hosts the Slow Sunday Stitching link every week.

All of this is just to say that I am going to start a stitchery project, probably made into hexagons using the potholder, quilt-as-you go method.  It might be one hexagon or a whole bunch. The project will be done as each hexagon is done, so I will be able to stop at any time without guilt.  No 100 or 365 day project.  It will happen when it happens. It will be as many hexagons big as it wants to be.

Week 5 of 15 Minutes to Stitch

This week, I finished the Vintage Holiday quilt and worked on the borders for the improv rail fence quilt.  For some silly reason I thought the border wouldn't take very long, but with pressing, and decision making, and side tracks to work on cutting scraps and dreaming about other quilts, it is taking a long time.

15 Minute sessions of stitching this week:  7 out of 7
15 Minute sessions of stitching this year:  34 out of 34 sessions
Success Rate: 100%

Linked to:
15 Minutes to Stitch

I've Been Working On the Railroad

All the livelong day!

Okay, maybe not railroad, as much as rail fence.  There are three rail fence projects currently in progress. Yes there were two the last time I talked to you, but numbers tend to be pretty flexible here on the High Road.
 

First up is the four rails quilt which is my current scrap quilt project that I started earlier this year. I think the official name for this quilt will be Fourth Rail, sort of a play on third rail.  For the rails I am cutting 4 1/2" rails.  If the fabric is too short to cut that long, I cut them however long I can, and sew them together. The plan is to piece the short rails until they are long enough to fit, and add them into the quilt.

Next is the rail fence border I am making for the improv rail fence quilt. Here I am trying to see whether I want the rail fence as the inner or the outer border. I've decided inner border and have already started sewing. This one is actually the first priority, but I didn't want the fuzzy picture to be first on the blog.

Then, since I finished up my small quilt of the month, I have been thinking about my next small quilt of the month.  I've been thinking about making all of the quilts in this quilt pattern. The one on the right reminded me of a quilt I've been wanting to make for a while. Instead of courthouse, the idea s to make it log cabin style, and to use pieced rails instead of whole ones like this pattern does.

Turns out I have a start to this quilt already in the Fourth Rail quilt box.  So I am re-purposing some of those short rails to become my small quilt of the month.  I'm sure I will still have plenty of short rails to add to the Fourth Rail quilt, but for this month, they are diverted to this quilt. So this is my third rail fence quilt, although technically it would be called a log cabin quilt.  Like the Fourth Rail quilt, I am using whatever scraps I pick up without discrimination and letting serendipity have its way. Hopefully it will turn up some nice delights in this small quilt. This one probably won't have the wow factor the other quilt had, but maybe if I am quick enough, I can think of and make another quilt to also make that does have a wow factor.

Lego Rails and Improv Rails

When I am cutting the scraps for the Four Rails quilt, sometimes the fabric is not long enough to cut into a 4 1/2" strip.  When that happens, I have been cutting it into whatever length rectangle I can get out of it. I sewed them together to each other so I wouldn't confuse these pieces with the rails that are just the right size. These will be subcut to 4 1/2" pieces and used as rails.

When I first started cutting these fabrics, I was disappointed with the lack of variety and pizazz in the scraps, but now that I have gotten farther into the scrap shoe box, I really like how this quilt is turning out. The scrap shoe box doesn't seem any emptier, but the scrap trash can is almost full.

Being rail happy, I am also making rails for the border of the improv rail fence quilt. I haven't decided which of rows (the rails or the triangles) should serve as the inner border and which of the rows should serve as the outer border. Today I spent time trying to figure out how to make the rails turn the corner, which is strange because I wasn't planning on doing anything special to make the triangles turn the corner.

It's been super cold here, below zero.  You can tell because Zeus, who is normally blond, turns into a redhead. It was a very short walk.  The street is really icy, and you have to go uphill to turn the corner. I'm so glad it was a holiday and I didn't have to drive in it. Zeus loves the snow though and wanted to keep going outside throughout the day.

This has been Yesterday's News, Today.

Linked to:
Let's Bee Social

Improv triangles

I have been cutting and sewing improv triangles for a border of the rail fence quilt. I am thoroughly enjoying the process.

Today, I am appreciating the sun and the rainbow, and my sister for telling me to go outside to see it.

Yesterday, I appreciated my coworkers for their helpful advice and for showing that they have the same concerns I do.

15 Minutes to Stitch 2019

My original plan was to change my blog posts to Monday so I can show you 7 days of stitching this week, but Sundays are really a better day to do this, both for me, and for the other people on this challenge, so here goes this week's numbers.

 

15 Minute to Stitch Challenge: 

This week, I spent a lot of time cutting up pieces - for Sunlight in Winter and for the ATC holder. Earlier in the week, I also did some quilting on the drunkard path quilt. Today, I worked on a pieced border for the rail fence quilt so I can be finished in February. Once again, I am jumping back and forth from the precise piecing of the first two quilts into the improv rail fence.

15 Minute sessions of stitching this week:  6 out of 6
15 Minute sessions of stitching this year:  6 out of 6 sessions
Success Rate: 100%

Linked to:
15 Minutes to Stitch

End of February Recap

For the month of February, I had two quilting goals.  One was to meet my one monthly goal (OMG) of piecing the blocks together of my rail fence quilt.  The other was to keep up with the Quilty 365 project.  I have met both of those goals.  Here's the proof.

One Monthly Goal: Rail Fence

For the Cultural Fusion Rail Fence, here's the pieced top.

I know I've shown it to you earlier this month. I don't want to start quilting this one yet, because I already have a sandwiched quilt that needs to be finished first. The Daisies Chickenpox quilt, which has been sandwiched and ready to quilt since December 2013. Yikes! Wasn't that just yesterday?  I have two sandwiched quilts, and I decided that instead of buying more safety pins or making do with the ones I do have available, I would finish quilting one of the quilts that are holding my safety pins for ransom for March's One Monthly Goal.

Quilty 365: Rule Breaking Quilt

The second goal was the circles. I showed you earlier in the week that I had caught up with making 100 circles in 100 days. Today, I want to show you more circles. Today is Day 105 so I should have 5 more circles to show you, but I should have 6 more for a true end of the month recap.

Blocks 101 and 102

I saw a quilt made of drunkard path blocks to represent sunrise or sunset, and thought I should use that in my quilt.

 Block 103

This skinny block is only one inch wide finished.Who said all blocks have to be square? I didn't sew the circles individually but made a grid pattern to secure the circles.

 Block 104

The pattern for this block comes from the Splendid Sampler quiltalong.  I reduced the pattern to fit the size of this block.  This block doesn't do the pattern justice.  I highly recommend looking into this quilt-along.  The Facebook page shows all sorts of color choices.  Many quilters have also added applique and embroidery to their blocks.  The creativity is amazing.  It is a good lesson on how to take a pattern and putting your own spin on it.

I know there are a lot of Quilt-Alongs this year, and I found a great resource that provides a list of the 2016 Quilt-Alongs and shows you what they each look like.

Block 105

These are scallops made the lazy way.  This block is made to commemorate some new fabric I purchased from Connecting Threads.  I have been feeling guilty about my fabric purchases this year and last because I've probably bought more in this time period than the previous decade. I'm not used to buying a lot of fabric at any one time without having a purpose for it, but when you buy online, you have to buy enough to get the free shipping!

 I also had a hard time using this in a block, but I made myself do it.  It's only two pieces from a charm pack and this quilt is worthy of using new fabric!

This block is very thick because of the layers of fabric and fusible.  I decided not to try to follow the curves when sewing this down because of all the applique blocks I still need to sew.  Those will need more precise work.

 Block 106

I was originally planning on making a large circle with two smaller circles like this in a horizontal setting, but once I had them cut up and ready to place, I found I liked the diagonal placement better.

I now have enough blocks to make a row.  I will add these to the quilt top and show you tomorrow.

 Blocks 107 and 108

These are the scraps from Blocks 101 and 102. It didn't seem right not to go ahead and sew these too.  I didn't want to put them side by side with those other blocks so I waited to make these.  I debated turning these around to make a big four block square, but have decided to leave each as a separate pair.

I know I am making more blocks than I need to.  I am breaking the rule that you can't sew ahead of schedule!  With spring coming, I will be entering a busy season at work, and with yard work, I will be much busier.  I feel better getting a few circles ready ahead of time.  It will mean fewer catch-up blocks further down the line.

Blocks 109, 110, 111 and 112

This one gets four block numbers because it is an extra large block.  I still need to sew the applique down. This one is inspired by the 1857 quilt and uses the fabric from that quilt (I bought less than I need for that quilt and I am using up the fabric before they are truly scraps!)

The pattern for this block is from a Quilt-along at Legends and Lace. Click on the block in the sidebar.  There are several free patterns.  I really, really like the way the background works with the applique in this piece, and am debating whether I should add busier backgrounds to the 1857 Quilt.

1857 Quilt

Speaking of the 1857 Quilt, I have prepared the last block.  I need to sew down the applique for all of the blocks for this quilt.  Besides being boring, the white background makes the blocks hard to photograph.  This block uses the same beautiful fabrics as the last picture I showed you of the Rule Breaking Quilt, but they don't look nearly as good in the pictures for this quilt.

Linked to:
One Monthly Goal 
Moving It Forward Monday 
Let's Bee Social

Too Long To-Do List

It's been a few days since I posted, and although I have been doing quilty things, they didn't seem very post worthy.  I had a large list of things to do, not an official list, but things that I had been planning on doing.

• Quilt leftovers quilt
• quilt rail fence quilt
• clean up sewing area
• prepare scraps for vortex quilt
• catch up on circles
• start 1857 quilt

I have been making progress on much of it, but each one took other steps that slowed it down.


For example, I found a fat quarter that was perfect for the leftovers quilt.   But the leftover quilt is almost exactly the size of a fat quarter, which meant I had to do a little piecing of the backing to quilt it.  Not a big deal, but I hadn't expected that.  It is  now sandwiched and ready for quilting.

It's also snowed several days, so some time has been taken out for snow shoveling, which I also enjoy doing.

Most people did not find a mistake with the balance with the rail fence quilt, but I had already taken a set of blocks out to fix it.  Here's the revised version. Hopefully I didn't do anything to make it worse.  This means I have met my goal for the month for OMG, although I do hope to quilt it this month too.

 I've been working on cleaning the sewing area / dining table, which mostly means trimming up scraps into rectangles. There are a lot of pieces that aren't rectangles because of all the improv and applique I have been doing lately, but I started a nice stack and the dining table looks much nicer. I just have to trim the rest of the scraps and put away the bigger pieces in the storage area.

I have bought,  washed, dried and ironed the fabric for the 1857 quilt.

I was trying to focus on cleaning the area before working on anything new, such as the 1857 quilt or the circles, as a way to motivate the cleaning, but it seems to backfire.  Do you know what happens when you don't make the circle for the day?  There are two, not one circle to make the next day.  They keep adding on, making it harder and harder to catch up.  Even though I enjoy making the circles, this fact makes me lose my motivation.  My 100th day is coming up on Tuesday, and my goal was to have a post entitled "100 Circles in 100 Days."  I need to make lots of catch up circles so that post can happen.

Linked to:
Amanda Jean at Crazy Mom Quilts

Happy Valentine's Day

Hello my dear readers and welcome back.  I hope you have a splendid Valentine's Day.

There isn't much to show you, but there has been a great deal of progress.

When last I left you, I had pieced another set of circles.  This week, I pieced that set of circles into the row, added the big circle.  I am now left with two parts, which makes me happy.  I haven't made many more circles so I will show you those later.

The 1857 quilt has been tempting me and I have decided to make it.  Since I promised June,  I decided I needed to get the rail fence quilt into a top first.  Here it is.  I need to do a quality inspection step and press it.  I really like this layout because every time you look at it, you see a different configuration.

I could have balanced the darks better.  I had laid it out in a balanced way, but when I sewed it together, I made some impromptu changes.  I wasn't thinking of the pink and black block as a dark, but it certainly looks like it from this picture. I am going to think of some simple changes I can make to balance this more. I think the top row just looks darker because of the lighting, but I don't like that diagonal row of darks.

I also made another block for the Adrinka 2016 BOM and a corresponding Circle 78.

Linked to:
Moving It Forward Monday

Rail Fence Happenings

Yesterday, I promised to talk about rail fences today, so here I am!

The reason that the Cultural Fusion rail fence became sidetracked was because it needed more blocks to make the layout.  And I have misplaced the book, and because I had forgotten the size I had cut the strips to make the block.  Even if I looked for and found the book, it might not have matter, because I'm pretty sure I had altered the size.

It turns out that it was a simple matter of measuring the parts of a block that was already made and I was good to go!

The purple fabric was already out, so I must have chosen it for this quilt, and the B&W fabric was in my scrap box and in just the right amount. It was used in my improv quilt using one of Sherri Lynn's scores.

I have been sewing together all of the leftover rails end to end and I added the leftover rails of these blocks to the chain. I kept the values the same throughout the chain - all the darks in one row the lights in the other.  Since the leftovers were done, I considered different options.  It is a little hard to show since the rails were in one long chain.

 Alternating light and dark.

Alternating two rows of lights and two rows of darks. I like this better because it better emphasizes the darks and lights.

Courthouse square or log cabin  While this method intrigues me, I had already used it for the Elephant improv so I decided not to make another one of those.

I cut the pieces to one size and sewed them together. While I did reject some combinations because I didn't want big blobs of one color or fabric in any one section of the quilt, for the most part, I just combined them as I picked them up.  I think this is how the Mile a Minute quilt is created.

Here's the finished top.

The whole time I was making it, I expected it to be horizontal. But the seam allowances took quite a bit of the length, and now it is wider than it is long when you look at it this way.

I like the little raindrop or teardrop that wound up in this piece.

This is the same picture turned vertically so you don't have to turn your head.