Solomon Strips Squirrel

This week I've been inspired by this photo from Anita Grossman Solomon's website. This is her Self-Mitered Log Cabin, and she teaches classes on how to make it. The class description, including the materials list, gave me a few clues on how to create something similar for myself. I know it isn't exactly the same as her method, because she refers to vellum foundations and I did simple strip piecing without any foundation.

I decided to try a few blocks to see if my reverse engineering worked, just using scraps. The crux of the block construction involves choosing fabrics in the entire range of values from lightest to darkest. So I needed to lay out my scraps, and while I was doing that anyway, I did a bit of organizing.  Then while we were cruising down the Intracoastal Waterway between New Orleans and Morgan City, I sorted and selected strips. 

I chose groups of 8 strips from my blues, greens, purples, pinks and reds. In this photo, I have a grouping fanned out so you can see the range from light to dark. I kept the little groups together with WonderClips. Good thing, too, since the entire box of strip sets fell on the floor at one point. Doh! Being clumsy forces one to be more organized, I think.

Here are two sets sewn together, but not pressed yet. Color value work is a real challenge for me. I tend to purchase and use saturated brights in the medium range, so my quilts often lack contrast. Sure, they are bright, but too much bright can lack focus and movement. So this is a good exercise, even if I can only work on it in short bursts before my brain overloads. 

Here are a couple of final blocks. They are basically half square triangles sewn from two strip sets. The way they are combined, the dark part of one strip set and the light part of the other intersect in a way that sort of makes an ombre effect when multiple blocks are laid out. I think they are super neat!

I originally thought I would use my little groups of strips as a leader and ender project, but once my brain started chasing this SQUIRREL! it just wanted to keep sewing and sewing.

That's fine, because we had another episode of our shower sump overflowing and now the bilge needs to be dried out. This fan has been precariously perched across my studio doorway, making it a bit dangerous to step back and forth through here. I need to step inside once, and stay there for a while. The other WIPs I'm working on, two Hands2Help charity quilts, are at a stage where I'm laying them out on the bed in the other room and then carrying pieces from the bed to the sewing machine or ironing board. That means crossing the fan threshold too often, so they'll have to wait for another day to continue working on them.

Thanksgiving reveal

Happy Thanksgiving to all my US readers. I'm grateful for the community of gracious, creative and generous quilters online. I've learned so much from all of you. Because of our mobile aquatic lifestyle, I'm rarely in one place long enough to take classes or join a face-to-face guild. So pretty much everything I know about quilting comes from the internet. Every photo, tip, comment or tutorial you post helps me so much. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

I'm also grateful for my non-quilting friends, and thrilled to be able to share my latest two finishes. Both quilts have made their surprise appearances in California, so I can share them here.



This is Cats of Hope, made for my friend Jeri. The block is an old, traditional one called Star of Hope. It has a few other names, too, but "hope" is the message I wanted to send to Jeri. I dove into my stash of cat fabrics and picked out all the ones with more realistic colors: black, brown, grey. The accent colors for most of them are various shades of reds and oranges.



Each block has a different neutral background, and I made sure to include a couple of musical notation ones in a nod to Jeri's brother. I hope he doesn't look TOO closely at those, though, since they were clearly designed by a non-musician and are rather nonsensical.



I've never visited Jeri's home, so I had no idea if this color scheme would match her decor. However, I knew for certain that it would match her cats!



Sunshine was the first to discover the quilt, and settled right in. Cats instinctively know where to find the softest place to curl up. That grey and black plaid is fuzzy flannel on the back.



Soon Moonshadow claimed the other end.



Here's a glamour shot of Moonshadow on the front of the quilt with the block he matches the best. So handsome and stylish! Clearly Jeri's two cats have excellent taste. Jeri was delighted with her quilt, and that makes me happy happy happy!



The second gift quilt now in its new home is Tessellated Tannenbaum. Whoa, that's one bright quilt! It was inspired by a photo I saw on Pinterest. I eventually tracked it down to a Craftsy pattern called Wander Through the Woods, but by that time I had reverse engineered it so I didn't need the pattern. However, I would encourage you to purchase it if you want to make something similar. I won't share my version of the pattern so the designer (Hope's Quilt Designs) can continue to profit from her idea. It's listed as a beginner pattern and my method was quite fussy, so I'm sure Hope's way is simpler.



Most of the fabrics are from a jelly roll of a Laurel Burch holiday line. Even though the colors are non-traditional (hot pink! lime green! turquoise!) the motifs are all Christmas. Well, and cats. Stockings, cats, decorated trees, cats, mistletoe, cats, snowflakes, cats, presents, and cats.



This quilt is a gift for my friends Lisa and Steve. They have cats, T-Boy and Juice. And like the cats on Tessellated Tannebaum, their young, exuberant cats get into everything. They also have an elderly beagle named Stella, who is beseiged by the cats. So I had to add a bit of dog fabric to the quilt to help Stella hold her own. I had some leftover Laurel Burch from the "Dogs and Doggies" line that I used in C's quilt, so there are a few trees made up of only dogs.



I don't have any photos of the quilt in their house, because they are in the middle of a big kitchen renovation project. In fact, Lisa said this quilt may be their only Christmas tree this year because of the chaos. But next year it should look great on the bright green couch in their family room.

Quilts that are for friends and family get my personalized labels (charity quilts are given anonymously.) The back says, "Machine Wash, Tumble Dry, Use Often." I hope Jeri, Lisa and Steve (and Moonshadow, Sunshine, Stella, Juice, and T-Boy) enjoy these gifts for many years!

Columbus, MS

Let's Go To The Races quilt top is finished. True to its name, this was a speedy project! Now it will go into my pile to be quilted after we're at a dock for a while. It will probably get an all-over type quilting design; maybe I can figure out a flame motif.

While we were cruising slowly upriver yesterday, I brought my bin of 2.5" strip scraps up to the pilothouse and sorted them by color. Then I pulled out ones that were at least 36" long.

Ever since I saw this photo of Fons and Porter's Pretzel Twist, I've wanted to make it. The bright pile of scrap strips should work well. I have the perfect background: cream with tiny pink hearts. It's actually a pretty simple design, and I was able to easily figure it out just from the photos. (But you can follow the link above if you want to purchase it; I just happen to really enjoy reverse engineering!)  The challenge will be in laying it out so that there's plenty of contrast at each point where the squares interlock. Should be fun!