2007 Summer Quilt Project
"Stop Signs in Treadleonia
I originally set this page up as the beginning of a Summer Mystery Quilt. However, it turns out I am a terrible mystery quilt creator or author. Everyone kept asking questions, and I kept answering them, until there really wasn't much of a mystery. I became much more concerned with seeing that the particpants had a good quilting experience than with the mystery aspects. This was further complicated when several of the participants immediately began, very creatively, adapting the instructions to their own plans. I decided that encouraging creativity was, again, much more important than the mystery quilt aspect of things. I am now "modifying" the plan and turning this into just a plain old quilt project, for which I will publish the plans and background, and then everyone is just turned loose. The first page (this one) is very wordy... a discussion of the quilt and information on how to plan yours. The second page (link at the bottom) gets into the actual construction.
First, some background... Traffic isn't really much of a problem in Treadleonia. Most folks walk or ride horseback, though there are a few bicycles. Heavy or commercial loads are generally hauled in large wagons pulled by a small breed of domesticated dragons (non--fire breathing). However, at a couple of the major road intersections in the larger cities, here may be problems on market day. To control this, the Treadleonian Bureau of Public Safety (usually more concerned with needle punctures in fingers and dragon burns from the non-domesticated breeds) has put up some stop signs. Knowing that anything that becomes a permanent unchanging part of the environment is liable to become unnoticeable, the Bureau very wisely changes the stop signs' color regularly. The shape is always the traditional octagon, but Treadleonions regulalrly submit ideas for new stop sign designs.
This quilt pattern is an example of some of the Treadleonian creativity in regard to stop signs. Naturally, these patterns must be based on octagons. This page will be a lot os discussion of quilt size and design, and will then be followed by a link to the actual cutting and assembly instructions. First, let's look at the quilt...
Here are two examples:
"Even Stop Signs Get the Blues" by Captain Dick
This is the original design that I planned to get everyone to make as a mystery quilt. This example was produced by computer based on one block and a bit of border. In the actual quilt I am making, the border and sashings will remain the same, but each of the large octagons will be a different blue print.
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"Grandma's Stop Signs" or "Captain Dick's Chain" by Captain Dick
I had planned this one to be the same layout as "Blues" above, but when i finished one block, it struck me that putting multiple scrappy 1930's blocks together as shown here would look very much like "Jacks Chain", a pattern I have always wanted to make, but which is a real stinker to do. Hence, this quilt will be finished as shown here. Again, this is a computer mulitplication of one block
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Stop Sign Quilt by Katie Bachman
Well, I have finally finished the mystery quilt. I want to thank you all for the encouragement and help in the production of my first quilt. I made it for my mother's bed in the nursing home, and it was done on my grandmother's 1902 White VSIII. It turned out very well and will definately pass the 50/50 test.
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Stop Sign Quilt by Odile
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From this point, I have adapted the instructions and comments I sent to the original mystery quilt group in a series of emails... I've tried to cut and paste and allow the remainder to make sense, but you may still run into a few sentences or comments that are really appropriate to the mystery approach but not to this more open one...
Basically, this pattern depends on making octagons, plus a diamond. The octagon is a new pattern or block construction if you are familiar only with the standard Treadleonian TOBE blocks. I will provide the instructions for making the big octagons, and instructions for making the small octagons that make both the center of the big ones and the small octagons between the big ones. The diamond decoration between the large octagons is simply a small four-patch block made from four half-square triangle blocks (HST's). That's a standard TOBE block for which instructions have been posted for years. In the instructions, options will also be presented for leaving the large octagon centers square and you can use more diamonds between the large octagons rather than the small octagons. Lots of choices...
Here's info you need...
The Quilt:
This will be a project to build a modest sized quilt... a lap or sofa quilt.
Finished size will be either 4 x 5 or 5 x 5 feet, unless you opt to go bigger
on your own by increasing the number of full sized units you make. They will
be fairly big units; twelve will make a 4 x 5 quilt, 16 a 5 x 5. There is
always the option of going "on point" if you like that, but that
will require extra half units or trianglular filler units to fill the ends
of the diagonal rows. I will leave you to work that out on your own. Quilt
books will give you many examples. If you're not sure what on point is or
what I'm talking about, don't worry about it.
I originallyl saw this quilt as most suitable for a scrappy look, but after working with the pattern, I can say that it could be made with just about any fabric choices you want and look good. Some of you have outstanding color sense and will trust yourselves, others will be best off to stick to what I suggest. I will include some comments as we go that will, if chosen, increase the scrappy effect, or enhance a large blob of color effect. If you don't care that much for 30's repro, any selection of small prints will do. Mostly, I see it as a mix of colors, but it could be done subtly if that's your choice. One intriguing option, if you want to make a quilt for a kid, would be really primary colors... maybe even solids. More on that when I send you materials directions.
Background will be white or bleached muslin. I have conceived the quilt as a medium for 30's repro fabrics, based on the use of fat quarters. I am going to make a test block first to make sure you can get what you need out of each single fat quarter. (I built my quilts on the basis of 4" squares and yes, you can get your needs for one of the major unnits out of a fat quarter). I'm pretty sure I can get you to buy the right number of fat quarters, but extras won't hurt. On background fabric, I'm probably going to tell you to buy too much. Sorry about that, but I prefer that to trying to use my limited skills in this area to calculate exactly what you'd need.
Here are some thoughts I had along the way, as I tried making some test blocks:
I actually spent some time today clearing my work table and
trying one of the new (to me) techniques that will be required... making octagons,
and I made it work! Yeah!
I also gave some more thoughts to colors and options and had some (I hope)
good thoughts. One is that this can be anywhere from not scrappy, to kind
of scrappy, to very scrappy, to super-scrappy. The scrappier you make it,
the more work it will be, because you'll have to "scrappify" (new
word) some of the larger elements. I suspect that I will be going for super
scrappy, because that always works so well with the 30's repro.
If you're wanting to work scrappy fromyour stash, you'll want to be sorting your scraps into color families. You'll need either 12 or 16 groups, depending on whether you want to go for the 3' x 4' unit top or the 4' x 4' top. The finished top will call for 6" borders, so your finished quilt will end up either 4' x 5' or 5' x 5'. Once you see where things are going, you'll be able to plan a larger quilt if that's what you want, but I plan to explain only the basics of the sizes mentioned, and also to leave the borders to you. I'll also, briefly, cover the math that would be involved in going for larger blocks to make the quilt larger, rather than the more blocks approach. That will be brief and some of you will be comfortable with it while others may not and may prefer to more strictly follow the directions so that you can be assured of duplicating my success... or not...
In a non-scrappy vein, it occurred to me that this might be a really striking Amish quilt, using black for the background and typical Amish solid colors. In this form, it would also go very fast. A thought...
Someone mentioned doing it for kids, in crayola colors. I would agree with the comment that was made that in that instance, keep the background light. For instance, if you used a light yellow background, you would want to make sure that your crayola yellow was enough different to be striking. Of course, you could see to it that you didn't use a crayola color in the main block selections that was like your background, i.e., if yellow background, then no yellow block.
After some discussion, I came up with this "lesson" on modifying quilt patterns to fit the size and approach you want. Since we're all still gathering ideas and fabric, this seems a good time for such a discussion:
As to size... great minds and all that. Treadle Annie popped up with the suggestion that I leave the math to you at just about the same time that I realized that I had already actually made the math very simple. If I have any claim to fame at all in design, it's keeping it fairly simple. In this case, I had already done that without even realizing it.
I'm going to morph into Quilt Teacher mode here for a bit. I think it'll be helpful to the inexperienced and I hope not too boring a concept review for those who are actually way beyond me anyway. Throughout the following discussion, I'm going to ignore the issue of seam allowances. We'll just work with finished unit sizes as they would appear to the eye. Just remember, whenever I talk about 3" or 4" square, I'm talking about the quilt design. When I'm talking about making the units I'll talk about 3 1/2" or 4 1/2" squares... gotta have those seam allowances...
This design is based on squares, though it won't end up looking like squares. However, every sub-element of it is a square. The sub-elements are assembled into larger square, the big octagons in the pictured quilts, which are then arranged in patterns with space between (the sashings) to create the effects I want. This is a pretty standard approach for a lot of traditional quilt designs... at least the basic ones. For this quilt, your large elements will be made up as 3 squares x 3 squares, essentially a 9 patch. The spaces between large elements, what will be the sashings, will be 1 square. You can vary the size of your quilt in two ways... you can add more large elements and spaces or you can work with larger or smaller sub-element squares. If you want an impact effect... large color blobs... you work with fewer but larger of the "9 patche" large elements. If you want an effect of lots of repetition, you work with smaller 9 patches and more of them.
This will be a bit of a lesson in quilt planning for the beginners and will involve at least arithmetic, if not math. It'll be old stuff for the experienced. I'm going to teach you how to end up with the quilt size you want from any basic pattern that is based on squares.
Let's imagine a simple example, a quilt based on blocks such as I described, and look at some size changes.
First, we'll say we have already decided on a major plan of 3 x 3 of the large units. For most traditional pieced quilts, if you study the pattern, you can identify the "major block unit". There may be smaller units, sashing, etc., but once you have figured out what the basic largest unit is, you can do all kinds of things to vary your quilt size.
In my design, each of the "major block units" or large octagons, is going to be 3 small units or squares, wide x 3 small units high. Looking at quilt dimension, that's 9 small units in each direction, divided into sets of three. Now, I mentioned spaces between large units. OK, if there are three large units across, or 3 columns, that's going to be 2 small spaces between them. So, add 2 small units to the 9 we already have. Now, you may or may not choose to do the same, but I am going to center my design in the background space by adding another space, or small unit, on either side of the the "columns". This is not the quilt border, but actually a part of the main quilt pattern design. Adding a space on either side bring our total number of spaces across to 13. Since my quilt top is going to be square, the vertical count will be the same. If I was going for a rectangular quilt top instead of a square one, I'd add one row of large units plus one space to the bottom to get my rectangle.
Study that paragraph until you understand it. Sketch on a pad or cut little pieces of paper and arrange them if it helps. If you master what's in that paragraph, you will have conquered one of the key elements of adapting traditional quilt patterns to your needs.
Now that you understand that concept, you're ready for some arithmetic. You want to make a quilt that is 3 x 3 large blocks, with spaces between them as I described. By counting the sub-units or small squares across the blocks and adding small squares for the spaces, you know you will be working with 13 small squares. Want a doll quilt? Work with 1" for your small square size. Your finished top will be 13" x 13"; add a 1" border to bring it to 15" square. Want it rectangular for more of a bed shape? Add another horizontal row at the bottom, including a space between it and the row above. That will add 3" for your large block and 1" for the space and leave you with a top dimension of 13" x 17". Add your 1" border and you'll have a rectangular quilt of 15" x 19". the problem with going this small, however, is that if there is any piecing involved in those small 1" squares, you'd better be able to work mighty small, or to simplify the design a bit... but that's a lesson for another time.
(I am reviewing and adding to this at a later time... If you studied the pictures above, you know that I tried a version of the octagons with no sashing {Grandma's Stopsigns} and liked it. This is obviously another way to make the overall quilt smaller... leave out the sashings or make them narrower.)
Let's go to an opposite extreme in our quilt size. Still looking at our basic square quilt top of 3 x 3 large blocks with spaces as described, let's see what happens if we want a full size quilt. Let's carry the arithmetic out based on 6" "small squares". With 6" sub-units, your big blocks or 9 patches are going to be 18" squares. That's 54". Your spaces between will also be 6". You could choose to reduce that space width if you felt it was too much; sometimes scale does change overall effect. However, for our purposes we'll stick to what we have. You'll have two spaces between the 9 patches and one on either side as described above. That will add 24" to the total width and produce a top dimension of 78". Add 6" borders for another 12" and you have 90" x 90", which is virtually a queen size quilt!
Okay, now let's look somewhere in between. We know that 1" squares are going to make a miniature quilt and 6" squares are going to make a queen or full size. Let's look at 4". Thirteen squares by 13 squares times 4 equals 52". Add a 1 square border on each side and you're at 60", my own perfect sofa quilt or quilt to throw over the bed on an extra cold night. Again, if you want it rectangular, you add a row and a space. All of these examples are based on the 3 x 3 large block concept and are going to create "impact", i.e. be more noticeable as large color blocks than as a repetitive pattern. Let's examine what happens if we look at using smaller unit measurements to produce the same size quilt.
For this example, I'm going to say I want to end up with my favorite size quilt, 60" square, but I want more of a repetitive pattern effect. I know that a measurement of 4" for the small squares will produce my size, but will permit me to use only the 3 x 3 pattern of large block units. Let's say that I wanted to have more blocks, but end up with the same size quilt. I'll plan for a layout of 4 x 4. OK... the large blocks will still be 9 patches and the spaces between will still be one small square. To get more blocks, I'm adding one column horizontally and one vertically. That will also require another sashing space in each direction. In effect, I'm adding four small square units... 3 for the extra block, one for the extra space. I now have an overall design that produces a top that is 17 small squares across instead of 13. If I add the border squares, that will become 19 squares. If I want the same size quilt, i.e 60", I'm obviously going to need smaller small square units. I can approach this two ways... I can divide the size I want, 60" by the number of squares... that produces a horrible figure of 3.15789. Anybody want to work to that dimension in piecing? Didn't think so. However, it puts me in the ball park. I'll back into it... I'll multiply 19 squares by 3", an obviously better choice to work with. Result: 57"... close enough. I can add an extra border or vary the border width and get to exactly where I want. In fact, it's beautiful, because quilts shrink in size a bit as you quilt them. So If I use a full double border (21 small square units instead of just 19), I'll get a top with border of 63" x 63" and have a little fudge factor to allow for that shrinking that will occur when I actually quilt it. This is actually what I plan to do for my own quilt.
I apologize if all of that was daunting and pretty pedantic.
It took me quite a long time (and help from Ann) to get to where it's natural
to me, but if you master what is really a pretty simple concept, you can change
many quilt designs to produce more exactly the size and effect you want, making
this a lesson that goes far beyond the quilt we're actually making.
Okay... so much for this class at the University of Treadleonia. You may now
disperse to the quad and your usual forms of time wasting....
Materials
Was finally able to get to a real quiltshop and pick up a nice selection of 30's repro fabrics and a nice piece of off white or cream background. Now I can start. I'll have to wash and iron all of this first, of course. Doubt if there are any here who aren't aware, but just in case, yes, you do have to pre-wash the fabric to shrink it. This is, perhaps, less important when you are making the whole quilt yourself, as opposed to a block exchange, but it is still a very good idea. Anyway, here are two pictures of the fabric I bought:
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I plan to have 16 large units in my quilt and bought 22 fat quarters. This gives me some flexibility in deciding what colors are best and in what I use for the smaller units, which can be all the same, of two different fabrics, or all different for scrappy. You'll see.
I am also still intrigued by a Delft Blue approach, so I went to my stash of deflt blue fabrics, sorted them and cut what I wanted into fat quarters, so that I'd be working essentially the same from both fabric groups. Fortunately, all of these fabrics were already washed. Unfortunately, I was nearly out of pure white background for them. The off white above will work well with the 30's stuff, but the delft wants a pure white. So, had to run to Jo Ann's and get some bleached muslin, which is now in the washing machine.
Here I have 12 FQ's of delft blue, more or less alternating between darker and lighter, plus two extra FQ's below them that are darker and brighter and will be for the smaller units. I also held out a nice blue marine scene print, which I may decide to use in the centers. I'm still debating whether this blue quilt will be a 3 x 3 or a 4 x 4, so all of this fabric may not be necessary. |
I hope you're ready to start, because here you go! The links below will take you to:
Making Small Octagons and Assembling the Large Unit