Poets and Writers

When I was about done making the Austen Family Album blocks, my niece Jenn showed up on a visit and asked to see them.  She's a more recent convert to quilting and hadn't tackled any piecing as complicated as in some of those blocks.  While she was admiring them I asked if she'd like the quilt - she said she would.

After they left, I sent a note to her husband - what are Jenn's favorite colors?  He named at least five, maybe six or seven but blue was not on the list.  So to make the quilt more useful to Jenn, I worked to design a setting for the block that used colors that were.

So my Blue and Yellow blocks are now set in a Green and Gray quilt -

 (My quilt stand is broken, so that's as high as I can hang a quilt without an assistant to hold up one side.)

Here's a view of it on the bed in the guest room.  It's a queen sized quilt on a queen size bed.

I took the quilt with me on my recent visit to my father in suburban Chicago.  Jenn stopped by after work and got to see the quilt for the first time.  It wasn't exactly a surprise, but she had no idea what the finished quilt would look like.  She seemed very happy with the "new" colors - noting that my striped binding with black, gold, green and blue stripes picked up the colors of the new curtains in her newly painted bedroom.

Here are a couple of closeup shots - 

This next one shows the quilting in the large setting triangles.  They are large.  I wanted a lot of the green fabrics, so basically I created a design based on really large blocks set on point - that set each block into some fairly large pieces of green or yellow with a light gray or white (it all looks pretty white here, but the blocks with large yellow squares have a light gray fabric for the triangle.  The fanciest quilting is in the large gray setting triangles around the outside.

 

One more photo to show some of the quilting in the blocks - The quilting is mostly outline stitching with a few embellishments and those big curving lines that create an orange-peel like motif where the on-point blocks come together.  I did not quilt this very densely - it should be a comfortable quilt to sleep under, with a wool batt.

I called it "Poets and Writers":  Jenn may be a newish quilter, but she has long been an author and poet, and is recently reading her poetry in public, and has published a book of her poems. You can find some of her writing and poetry, and a link to her newly published book on her blog at this link:  https://jenmaypoems.com/  I liked that this quilt, inspired by the life of beloved author Jane Austen, should now be Jenn's.

Austen Family Album - Block 34

I did not care one bit for this block - Queen Charlotte's Crown. So I played with stripes.  I really like the way my version looks in the thumbnail where I changed the block design slightly to do something a little different.  I'm showing it to you in the smallest thumbnail because it shows the effect best.

My personal stamp on the block was to have two different stripes meet up going across the block from lower left to upper right.  The rest of the block is just background to that, and my photo shows that some of my seams are off.  I really did hurry through the cutting and piecing.

In the original block, the upper right and lower left squares were made of half-square triangles which met the "crowns" in Y-seams at the inner corners.  I don't really mind doing Y-seams anymore, but I did mind the block and thought it would be interesting to play the two stripes into each other in a more yin-yang coloration.

I like it a lot better now, so I'm thinking I should correct my sloppiness.

Austen Family Album - Week 33 - Corn and Beans

This is not the only block that goes by the Corn and Beans name -

I like how this one came out with that symmetrically arrayed stripe.  Funny, that stripe was the main reason I decided to participate in this block of the week project - I had used it in my tablet cover

and thought it would lend itself to this block-by-block quilt.  But I only used it in maybe two other blocks. The print is actually trickier to use than average - in fact the two horizontal bars in the block are colored slightly differently than the two vertical ones.  It's a subtle difference that will it probably never be noticed by the casual viewer.  But cutting other areas of the stripe, it would be noticeable and I would have had to waste so much of it for the blocks I thought I'd use it, so I just didn't.  There still isn't much left.

The dark blue mottled fabric with its unpredictable flashes of light is what makes this block work for me though.

Austen Family Album - Week 32 - Ladies' Wreath

This is one of those blocks whose name doesn't make any sense in isolation -

We made this block in the Grandmother's Choice series. I showed how it makes a wreath at the end of this post.  I didn't use the floral as I did the yellow roses in that block - the polka dots would hardly make a mourning wreath.  But I decided the name of the block didn't matter.

The block looks very wonky in my photo. It's just so hard to get a square photo with that little camera I didn't even try to get the block to lie flat.

Only four more bloks to go.

Austen Family Album - Weeks 30 and 31

This week's block is the Lady of the Lake.  There are many versions of this block - happily the one chosen works nicely with my 9 inch size so this was quick to make.

We still don't have our good SLR camera back.  These photos were taken with the little digital that tends to overexpose. It's also very hard to get this camera's small face squared up with the subject. My block really is square with the triangle points all nicely aligned.
 I never posted my block from last week - it's Caroline's Choice.

The block is constructed of two pinwheel and two hourglass blocks - I decided to make it as though I were putting together a scrappy quilt of blocks of each type so I could use more different fabrics.  I'm not sure it will wind up in my quilt - there are several blocks I'm not thrilled about that will probably  be set aside.

I still don't have a setting in mind for these.  I like each block, but as a sampler group, I'm finding them distinctly uninteresting. This one, with the iris print in the corner, doesn't fit in, but now I wish I'd had and used more fabrics like it to liven up the batch.  I think too, for a sampler, I miss the variety that a couple of applique blocks would have brought to the mix.  The whole group may languish while I finish up the WWI quilt and other projects that pop up ,,,unless I find some wild print like those huge irises to set it with - that would breathe new life into me, if not the quilt.

Austen Family Album - Week 29 Lend and Borrow

This almost seemed like a block that needed to be repeated like the King's Crown I did last week, but I decided just to let it be a single block.  The traditional setting keeps these all oriented the same way.

 

The little Olympus camera really washed out the color. The Pentax is in the repair shop where it will probably be for another 10 days. I really hope it can be fixed!

Austen Family Album - blocks 27 and 28

I was out of town last weekend for Dana's wedding so I have two blocks to post. This is Crossroads.

 

When I replaced the batteries in our digital SLR camera, it started overexposing the images. I tried taking the picture outside where there was no confusion about flash, and it was still making nearly white photos. The block got crumpled as I ran here and there and consulted the manual and tried again and again.  I gave up and used my phone and there's a wrinkled block. The camera is about 9 years old but still has value - we'll look into getting it repaired.

Today I was less hectic as I used the very small digital Norris bought a few years ago and got a better block photo.  I didn't have it set for the highest resolution, so we get a slightly soft-focus effect.

 The block is actually just 1/4th of this - I made four and put them together for the crown. My four little blocks are just 4.5 inches finished.  Doesn't Vicki Welsh's Shibori frame the crown beautifully?  I just bought more fabric from her to finish the WWI quilt and it is fabulous.

Austen Family Album - Fanny's Favorite

I always wonder why some blocks are (fill in the blank) Choice and some are (fill in the blank) Favorite?

I like my version of this block as a place to show some quilting. Only problem is, I'm not sure any of the rest of my blocks qualify for the same treatment. Not sure what I'm going to do to set these and there are a few that may not make it to whatever setting I decide on.

Austen Family Album - Anna's Choice

We made this block for one of the previous series -

It's a whole lot of triangles. I paired mine in slightly oversized squares, then cut them to the size for my 9 inch blocks. I featured one hand dye from Vicki Welsh (the darker fabric that makes up the star) and a commercially dyed fabric that looks hand-done (the darkest blue/purple). The only yellow in this block is in the centers of the little flowers.

Austen Family Album - Block 24, Wheel of Change

I've seen this block and think it a little awkward - and it reminds me of a swastika.

.... so I repeated my trick of using a busy print where I wish to de-emphasize the piecing. The shibori from Vicki Welsh for the rectangles makes all the statement I was interested in.

It's not the lighting that makes the block shade from top to bottom - I have a Daiwabo fabric that was printed in a gradation.  The lighter shades between the triangles at the top and the square in the center didn't make it into this block.

Austen Family Album Blocks 22 and 23

I never updated the blog with this photo from last week of my Friendship block -

The swirly stars fabric in the corner was one I had for patriotic quilts. We cut the triangles for Joyce's quilt in exactly the right size for this block.  And this this week, we have Old Maid's Puzzle, which used up all the precut triangles in that fabric -

Austen Family Album - Block 21 West Wind

This block was almost too easy, so I made it a tiny bit more interesting.

The triangle on the lower left was just one piece - I made it in two to miter that organic stripe. It would never match up perfectly, due to the uneven nature of the stripe, but I had fun trying to figure out which stripe to match and settled on the center part - it happily just worked out on the outer part as well.  The hand-dye is one I made at Judi's last winter.

Austen Family Album Block 20 - Best Friends

My block is not flat so the edges look pretty strange -

This block is just a bear's paw with the four patch in the paws and the proportions changed a bit for easier cutting in an 8 or 12 inch block (my block is 9 inches, so the small squares are 1 1/8th inch). It was fun to play with the lights and darks in the four patches to see how it changed the look of the block.

Three blocks for the Austen Family Album

I was working on the Birthday Banner for the couple of weeks before my Dad's 90th Birthday party, and got behind on this set of blocks.  Finally got two of them finished yesterday in time for today's installment.  Here they are - Water Wheel

Indian Star

and Cross Patch

 

My readers have asked if I know how I'm going to set this sampler:  no!  I had the collection of periwinkle fabrics for a scrappy Ocean Waves quilt and knew most of the pieces were too large to use up in that quilt, so I decided to make this one so I could have fun playing with the prints in different way.  (For the Ocean Waves, I'm not doing any of the fussy cutting I sometimes do with these blocks although some of my fabrics lend themselves to it beautifully.)  I'll figure the setting for this quilt out when we get closer to completing the series.

Another comment mentioned my lower level of enthusiasm with this set of blocks: I am enjoying making the blocks, but the stories behind the particular selection from week to week are not very interesting to me.  I've read some Jane Austen books because they were there, but I'm not a big fan, and although our leader, Barbara Brackman has done her usual research and has delightful illustrations to accompany the stories, the family relations themselves are not nearly as compelling as the stories she has told from the Civil War or the fight for equal rights for women.
  

Austen Family Album Block 16 - Lucky Pieces

A block of all triangles with many options for coloring.

 I had fun with a little shading.

Austen Family Album Week 15 - King's Crown

I like the look of this block with all the triangles, but I'd rather sew a Bear's Paw block - same configuration of little triangles around the outside, but you are spared the four seam traffic jams.

I used the solid lmedium periwinkle around the center and figure I can quilt something interesting and distracting there.

Austen Family Album Week 14 - Home Comfort

Not so sure about the outcome of my fussy cutting this week - I thought I'd try to place that interesting print in the four squares in the corners, which meant switching the pieces that make the center to the lighter value. But I'm not going to remake it!  The upper right corner appears dark - that's just some trees moving around changing the light while I was taking the photo.

The block's story came with the sad truth about what happened to the mentally disabled in Jane Austen's era: her older brother was placed in a home for his care and was not much discussed. Our author applauded that decision over placing him in an institution, something that was still encouraged when she was teaching special ed not many years ago.

Austen Family Album - Week 13 Crosses and Losses

This week's Crosses and Losses is a simple traditional block - quick to put together.

The big triangles were good for that Hawaiian print. I chose two other fabrics I had not yet used for the smaller triangles. We are more than 1/3 of the way through this 36 block series.

Austen Family Album Week 12 - Waves of the Sea

I thought I would do the more complicated original version of this block and that I would paper piece it for precision. 

Great idea except the block above (with the last three seams basted and not pressed) was 12 inches and I'm making mine 9.  I just didn't look at that setting when I printed the paper foundations.  

I took it apart down to all the sets of triangles - that is, I didn't not have to separate the two triangles that form squares, cut each square to the correct size for my quilt, and voila -

 

I left the paper attached but still lost some of the precision I had. In my photos, the only way to see the difference is in the scale of the blue and white print.  I didn't place them in exactly the same way the second time.

So this block was more than twice the work it should have been - all the unsewing costs about as much as recutting, but I didn't want to waste my precious periwinkle and yellow handdyes from Vicki Welsh!

Austen Family Album Week 10 - Good Fortune

(oops!) While trying to find my week 5 post, I realized, I never posted the week 10 block -

 

That striped fabric, purchased recently just for this quilt, seems like it was made for this block at this scale. I used it once before, for Week 6's odd Empire Star. You might not recognize it as the same fabric because I centered the piecing on the yellow stripe.  Here's the small thumbnail of that block.