Second Hudson River Valley workshop project

     For the next project, we were challenged to pick two colors we do not like and link them with a third. Uh, oh brain is not liking this process and is not cooperating. I chose grey and orange. A couple of wonderful women gave me some orange strips because I did not bring a color I did not like. The little store in the Inn had some greys fat quarters I bought. So, I cut up lots of strips and started sewing them together. Rayna recommended that I sew the orange ones really thin as it was not looking good. After staring at this for a long while, I thought of rock formations which I love. I started to arrange these pieces as a rock wall. 

First placement

Current placement at home

    This will take more work and careful arrangement, but I think it will go somewhere.
     Well, one of my goals this year to was to travel to a big deal workshop like this and learn. And so I did even though it was painful at times. I would love to show you the others' work, but I don't feel comfortable without their permission. Rayna has many of them on her blog, http://studio78notes.blogspot.com
     I wish I could have worked faster and caught on sooner, but I did it. I want to finish the grey orange one and start on a new piece, but I will work from my photos or a sketch next time. I definitely pushed outside my comfort zone and lived to blog about it.

Hudson River Valley Workshop and me

     Well, I can't put it off any longer, I will have to write about the workshop I took at the Hudson River Valley Artist's Retreat on March 29 - April 1st with Rayna Gillman. I had looked forward to this for a whole year. I have Rayna's books, so I knew her work. 
     We worked on improv type quilts. There were 12 students from all over the US and all of them were great people to be around at a workshop. They were sharing, kind, helpful and good at what they did. The accomodations are an old Bed and Breakfast Inn from 1889 and the studio is the old carriage house. We ate breakfast and dinners together. Watching the other people work taught me a lot. I always thought that I could do improv type quilting as I make art quilts. I found out that some ways of working are very difficult for me to think through. Our first work was to sew little pieces, like squares or scrap units. Then these units were put into a larger piece trying to find relationships to unite them. Trouble for me. I usually start my work with some composition or inspiration to hang the work on. No matter how many times I put the pieces on the design wall, I could not make sense of them without it looking like chop suey.

The carriage house/studio

Some of the units I made

Rayna's units, tiny

My units on the wall, larger

Trying to evaluate in B&W

More evaluate in B&W

Really trying

Not getting it

What I left with

What I have now after ripping out much of the top at home

     I am going to save the other project's photos for another post, because this is getting long.

Finish quilt with facings tutorial

  Working on an orphan block challenge for my guild and inspired wildly by Rayna Gillman, http://www.studio78.net, author of Create Your Own Free-Form Quilts and the video, Free Form Fabric Art, I realized that I needed to use a facing instead of a binding on my art quilt. 
  I had some bad attempts on other pieces, so I searched around and Cathy, from my guild, had a method of attaching facing that looked great. She gave me a copy of some hand drawn instructions. To help me along, and to help you, I took pictures of the steps and am posting them here. I was very pleased with the facing. It let the front of the quilt lie flat and the edges were fairly crisp to view.
  So, here we go!
1. Cut 4, 5" Squares for the corners
    Cut 4, 1 1/2" wide strips for the sides, minus 7" less than the length of the side. I cut mine long, and then trimmed later when pinning. I hate measuring and subtraction.
    This fabric can match the backing or be completely different.

2. Once the quilt is trimmed and squared up, take the squares and measure 2" from the bottom and left of the square. Fold the square on the diagonal so the 2 marks meet. Draw or eyeball a curve from the marks to the fold. Cut. Press under 1/4" on curved and the two short legs of the sides.

4 corner squares cut with curves

Corners side leg and curves pressed 1/4"

3. Place a curved piece in each corner of the quilt, right side of quilt to right side of curved square and match the corner of the facing to the corner of the quilt. Pin in place. 

4. Pin the 1 1/2" strips, right side to quilt right side overlapping the corner facings. If you subtracted the 7", you are all set. I trimmed my strips here, making sure they overlapped the corner facings. 

Corners pinned, strips overlapped and pinned

Facings pinned, right side to right side

 5. Sew around all four sides with 1/4" seam allowance. You may have to use a walking foot. I have a slant needle Singer 301 that sews flawlessly through this with a regular foot.

Corner and strip sewn

6. Trim excess batting and fabric on the diagonal at the corners (about 1/8" inside the corner). Do not cut away top facing.
7. Turn the corners, poke them out nice and sharp. Fold facings to the back and turn the edges under, press a crease and pin closely. 

Turn corners to back. Poke out corners sharp.

Pin corners, fold under long strip edge, pin

Whole back pinned

 The strips should now be about 3/4" wide. Hand stitch all the edges down. 

Hand stitch detail

Hand stitched back

 Turn over and enjoy your work.

Final Quilt with facing using two orphan blocks and Rayna's thin strip method

If this seems complicated, it is because I did not explain it simply enough. It is simple and looks great. Let me know if you have questions or suggestions!