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Kind of Blue

With profound apologies to Miles Davis the great jazz trumpeter, and one of his most famous albums, I give you "Kind of Blue". I swore I would never do a tumbling block quilt again, but that was last year, and I guess my memory is getting foggy so I thought it would be a great way to use up an excess of blue solids, in other than another of those pesky nine patch patterns; not wanting to stir the ire of Poly Ester. I am happy with this quilt, but mostly that it is finished. The points match as perfectly as can be. The colors are very nice gradations of blue from the lightest to the darkest, and a bright blue binding. But doing all those inset points, in a large quilt, is enough to drive a person over the edge. I had planned to make it much bigger, but I ran out of patience with all that fiddly insetting, of points. I know you can do the pattern without insetting a lot of the points, but that involves the addition of another seam into the perfect symmetry of the hexagon pattern, and that is something I did not want to do. I just decided to stop at the size you see here, and call it finished. It is lap sized and if you have a cold lap, this will warm it up as it is encasing wool batting. The size is 60" tall x 55" wide. But if you turn it sideways, it is

55" tall and 60" wide. I honestly don't think there is a right way to look at this pattern, as there are a lot of views contained in the pattern. They seem to pop in and out. My wife says, she gets Vertigo when she looks at it. I get happy when I look at it, as I know that it is truly the last time I am doing this pattern, at least this year. I sit here listening to the album of very good Jazz, by the same name, and think Miles might like the image of the quilt. Very Cool, and all that jazz.

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John

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John
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Atta boy, John. Way to go! 500 points and a Gold Star. That is simply stunning. (And yes, I am very happy to see you venture out of your 9-patch zone if only once a year.) I'm piecing Wonky Town from Quiltmaker #126 and listening to Bob Ross paint happy little trees. Polly

"John" With profound apologies to Miles Davis the great jazz trumpeter, and

Reply to
Polly Esther

Beautiful quilt! Thanks for sharing.

Lenore

Reply to
lenorel95

Love it, John!! One day I will get up enough courage to try one of those.

Reply to
Donna in NE La.

Be careful what you wish for. They are the kind of pattern that tries mens, or women's, souls.

John

Reply to
John

Reply to
Joanna

Fantastic!

Reply to
Estelle Gallagher

I have always believed and operated under the premiss that "understatement, says the most". I see some of the things that designers like Kaffee Fassett do, and I just have to shake my head. Of course, if those things appeal to you, then disregard the above statement. It is all very subjective, and personal.

John

Reply to
John

It's awesome - I love your precision.

Musicmaker

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Musicmaker

Reply to
Roberta

Just for an experiment I looked at your quilt in the "Magic Eye" mode. Those block really stood out in 3-D for me.

It is a lovely quilt.

I did a weekend course with Kaffe Fassett a few years back, it was a knitting workshop. It was really a fantastic weekend. We were given a picture and told to pick 20 colours of yarn and if twenty was not enough to pick twenty more. We had to knit our interpretation of the picture. My sample is on my web site. Shirley

Reply to
Shirley Shone

Amazing, John -- I don't think I'd have the patience to fiddle with that many inset seams on a big piece! Your quilt is just lovely!

Reply to
Sandy

How did you approach this project? Did you mark all the corners? Billie Lauder has a great technique in her book "Diamonds Can be a Quilter's Best Friend". She marks the seam allowances on one diamond as her master template, places it under the sewing machine needle so the stitching starts at the intersection of the first seam. With the template in place she places tape on the bed of her machine along the lower two sides of the point opposite of where she is sewing. She then sews to the end of that seam and places another piece of tape to mark the end. These serve as a placement guide for all seams to create the three diamond tumbler. If you don't understand my description buy her book. There are great illustrations and several very nice patterns using diamonds beyond just the tumbling block.

The problem is she didn't expla>With profound apologies to Miles Davis the great jazz trumpeter, and

Reply to
Susan Laity Price

On Apr 26, 11:16=A0am, Susan Laity Price wrote:

I have done three different examples of this type of quilt. The process has evolved into one that is best described as estimating where to place the needle. I have a Bernina sewing machine that has hash marks on the quilting feet that correspond to the 1/4" seam allowance for various angled types of pattern pieces. Over the passage of time I have gotten a "feel" as to where to start and stop the sewing process. Let me also say, that the handy availability of a nice sharp seam ripper is something that you will be happy you have. When I first tried this pattern, on some of my templates, I drilled a hole at the exact place that the 1/4" seams intersect, and placed a pencil mark in that hole, onto the pattern piece, as it relates to the end and beginning of the seam. That was then, and this is now. I now just rely on my past experience to "know" where to start and stop the seam. More often than not I am right on when it comes time to join those pieces to other sewn pieces, and the project continues. But each time I have done one of these quilts, It has taken me a few pieces to get back into the "game" as it applies to needle placement. There is where the seam ripper pays for itself. If you just start sewing and don't back stitch, it is easy enough to just pick out the errant extra stitch, but you have to be a bit more careful about handling the quilt as it evolves, or otherwise you might undo some of those seams, that are left un-sewn. Another challenge, is folding the sewn pieces out of the way as you sew the next piece into position. That is, also, one of the things that makes this pattern so challenging, the constant need for perfection as to placement of crossing seam lines. This pattern is definitely not one for the close enough is close enough approaches to quilting. The whole quilt making experience of this pattern is so very time consuming. I could probably do three 9 patch quilts in the time it took me to do this one. Only right on, is good enough, and therein lies the pleasure when you are finished. Pleasure that you are finally finished, with the darned thing, if not pleasure with the finished product, of your labors. I am very happy with the finished product, but I am also glad it is finally over. It is the only pattern that has elicited that type of response, from me, since I started this whole quilting thing. I actually felt drained, when I placed the last piece into position and sewed it down. Enough, Already!!!!

John

John

Reply to
John

As to the direction of the seam pressings. I always choose to press the seams over to the darkest color, no matter what I am doing. It does make for a rather thick intersection of seams where you are joining each of the three color octagons to the next octagon but that is the way it goes. That intersection of seams is the one that is the most problematical of the whole process, and the one that you will find yourself tearing your hair out to make correct. That is unless you shave your head like I do, and thereby eliminate the ability to teat your hair out.

John

Reply to
John

I wonder if this might be one of those times it would be handy to have the

1/4" painters tape stuck to a thumbnail? Since your hand is right next the fabric anyway, you could just use the "tape measure" to gauge the 1/4" stopping points.
Reply to
KJ

John, if you really enjoy this, and other patterns using 60=B0 diamonds, you should try Inklingo, from Linda Franz. Inklingo is software that allows you to print the cutting and stitching lines, including crosshairs at the seam intersections, on the back of your fabric with an ink jet printer. Makes sewing this type of pattern a lot easier. For more information check out the website ( Linda Franz.com ) for pictures and more. There is even a free collection you can download to try the program. (The free collection has the shapes/sizes to make a 4

1/2" LeMoyne star. And suggestions for lots of other blocks that can be made from those shapes.)

Yes you can machine sew them together. Since the start/stop points are clearly marked it makes it easy. You can even print only half your shapes, and cut/pair them with un-printed fabric if you wish. (Or have very dark, on the back side, fabric.)

There are also pressing suggestions given. While I agree with your basic, "Press to the dark", there are times when pressing otherwise gives a better result. When you can press all seams around an intersection you distribute the bulk and have a much flatter, and "squarer" quilt.

Have fun, Pati, in Phx

Reply to
Pati, in Phx

Simply stunning in it's perfection, John. I'm glad you forgot you weren't doing another one. :-)

Best regards, Michelle > With profound apologies to Miles Davis the great jazz trumpeter, and

Reply to
Michelle C

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