Supernova Quilt-Along: Let's Start Piecing

Welcome to the second installment of the Supernova Quilt-Along. I can't tell you how much fun it's been watching all of you select your fabric and put together the color progressions for your blocks. I've especially enjoyed interacting with everybody in the Flickr group. But now I'm about ready to start piecing some blocks! How about you guys?

1. Remember the photos you took of your color progressions? You'll want to be able to reference those as you start piecing. Here's the photo for my first block.

2. Now get out the pieces you cut for the first block. Find your printed rectangles, and pull out one of each print. Then pull two 3" print squares in the corresponding prints, two solid background rectangles, and two solid background squares.

3. Mark the diagonal on each of your 3" squares. If you are using darker fabrics (as I am with my background fabric), you may need a light-colored marking pencil.

4. Now pair up the print squares with the solid rectangles, and the solid squares with the print rectangles, right sides facing. Important: Three of your marked diagonals should go in one direction, and one should go in the opposite direction, as shown above. Look at your color progression photo: The diagonal that goes in the opposite direction should always be a solid background square paired with the bottom print from your progression. It doesn't matter which direction your diagonals go in (although if you have directional fabric, check out the tips at the end of this post). The only thing that matters is that three go in one direction and the last one goes in the other.

5. Sew on the marked diagonal line. (You may want to pin your marked square onto the rectangle, to keep it from slipping around.)

6. Trim off the excess, 1/4" from your sewn line.

7. Press the whole unit flat (as shown above) to set in the seam, then carefully press back your newly-sewn triangle. Press seams open, using a dry iron. Steam can stretch and distort bias seams.

8. You will now have what essentially amounts to half of a flying-geese unit. (Be sure this half-goose unit still measures 3" x 5.5"—if it doesn't, it can affect the accuracy of your piecing as you continue.)

9. Repeat the process above with your other paired squares and rectangles, until you have four half-goose units.

10. Lay out your half-goose units, just like I did above. You'll start piecing with the two lower-left horizontal half-goose units, so pair up those two, right sides together.

11. This part can be tricky—matching up those angled, biased seams. To do that, I pin the pieces at each end, then flip down the top edge to see if the bias seams are lining up approximately 1/4" down, where the new seam will be. If it lines up (and it does in the picture above), put another pin right there in the middle and sew. If it does not line up, unpin your pieces and adjust accordingly. If you still find you're having trouble getting the seams lined up, you could always go the extra mile and baste the seams first. If it looks good after basting, sew again with a shorter stitch to make it permanent.

12. When you're done, you should have something that looks like this. Again, I pressed my seams open—in fact, I pressed all my seams open throughout the entire block. Seam-pressing is a matter of personal preference, so you could probably press to the side if you prefer, but I found pressing seams open to be more accurate, especially with the bias seams.

13. Now you'll be adding the vertical half-goose unit on the lower right. No worries about bias seams matching up on this one! : )

14. You should now have a pieced unit that looks like this. To complete the sub-unit, choose another 3" square from the pieces you cut for Block 1. I recommend choosing the top print (if you have 5 or 6 prints in your progression) or second or third print down (if you have 7 prints in your progression). I chose the yellow oval print shown above.

15. Sew your remaining half-goose unit to the 3" square, as shown above.

16. Join your final seam, again following the process in Step 9 to line up your bias seams. You should now have a completed sub-unit, measuring 8" square (6.5" square if you're using a jelly roll).

17. After you finish piecing this first sub-unit, make three more exactly like the first one. Use the same prints, same layout, and the same direction for your marked diagonals. You must stay consistent with the direction of your marked diagonals, or the seaming pattern created by this design won't be consistent. Now you should have 4 identical sub-units. (The only difference may be the orientation of directional fabric, as shown above with my yellow oval print—see below for more info on using directional fabric.)

18. Just turn each of your four sub-units 90 degrees—and ta da! You can see now how these sub-units will begin to make up your Supernova block.

NOTE ABOUT DIRECTIONAL FABRIC: If you are using any directional prints, keep the "X" formation shown above in mind, because you may need to orient your fabric differently depending on which part of the "X" you are piecing. I recommend laying out your pieces in the "X" formation shown above and piecing them from that layout, so you can easily see how your directional fabrics need to be oriented.

Repeat each of the above steps for all nine of your blocks. When you're done, you should have 36 completed 8"-square sub-units (6.5" square if you're using a jelly roll).

Next week, I'll be posting about how to complete the Supernova blocks. In the meantime, don't forget to post pictures of your progress in the Flickr group, and have fun!

WIP Wednesday #20

What? It's Wednesday again? Already?

Unfortunately I don't have a whole lot to show you this week. I spent most of the last week either working on my Project Selvage print or writing quilt-along instructions. But here's what I've got going on at the moment.

New projects:
Make Mine Modern swap
These strips, plus many more, will hopefully become my final item for the Make Mine Modern swap. I've got a plan for these little strips—a plan that is either ridiculously awesome or completely insane, I'm not sure which. Maybe both? I guess the only way to find out is to just make the darn thing and see what happens. Preliminary tests yielded promising results, but I have a history of coming up with grand visions that are either beyond my skill level to execute, or physically impossible to make from mere fabric. Fingers crossed that won't be the case here!

Ongoing projects:
1. Hope Valley, 2. Supernova Fabrics - Arcadia, 3. Supernova Fabric choices, 4. supernova-color-scheme, 5. nova block mosiac, 6. all, 7. I did it!, 8. Cut Pieces, 9. IMG_3037, 10. FlourishingPalms cut blocks, 11. Supernova QA fabrics 2, 12. supernova placement

Supernova Quilt-Along
Some very pretty fabric up there, don't you think? These are all Supernova quilts in the making, and I can hardly wait to see how they all turn out! You can see all this and more in the Flickr group. And no, it's not too late to join! Click here to find the previous posts on fabric requirements and block planning and cutting. Catching up is still very doable. The first set of piecing instructions goes live tomorrow, and I'll be hosting my first quilt-along link up next Tuesday. Come show off what you've gotten done!

Completed tops awaiting quilting:
Hope Valley (the original Supernova)

Completed quilts awaiting binding:
Modern Meadow

On hold ... yes, still!
Blockapalooza
Central Park jelly roll quilt
Figgy Pudding quilt
Wonky Log Cabin

This week's stats:
New projects - 1
Completed projects - 1 (Project Selvage print)
Currently in progress - 10 (same as last week)

So what have you been working on? Link up your WIP posts below—remember to link back to my blog in your post, and please comment on at least a few of the other links. Happy sewing!

Happy Mail!

Look what I got in the mail yesterday!!! That's right, I got my swap goodies for DQS10. And I couldn't have been more thrilled to find this little beauty, made by the delightful Jessica of SewCraftyJess.

I've been following Jess's fabulous blog for a while now, and she regularly links up to WIP Wednesday, so I followed along with the whole process of creating this stunning quilt from start to finish—without ever once realizing that it was actually mine. Although I do think I begged her to be my partner at one point, because, well, who wouldn't want this amazing piece? Here it is, already hanging in its new home above my machine. Doesn't it look great? (Admittedly, at the moment it's just stuck up there with painter's tape. Anybody have a good, slightly more permanent way of hanging mini quilts?)

The curved piecing, the hand-quilting, the way all those prints work together so beautifully—wow. Every detail is just perfect, right down to the carefully chosen thread colors for the quilting. Believe me when I tell you that the pictures just don't do it justice.

And that's not all! Jess also made me this adorable matching pincushion. Would you believe that the only pincushion I owned (prior to this one) was a tomato that I bought at Joann? I know, how sad is that? And check out those adorable buttons! My daughter is already begging me to make her something—anything—with those buttons. I've already got several possibilities in mind!

Last but certainly not least—how flipping cute are these little pin toppers? Cupcakes! And an apple! And you guys, Jess made them herself! For real!

Thank you, thank you, thank you to Jessica for such a sweet package and amazing doll quilt. As beautiful as it is, it means that much more to me coming from one of my blog friends. It is the perfect addition to my sewing room. And be sure to check out Jess's blog, if you haven't already!

Project Selvage: Pick Me, Please!

Here's the thing. My daughter goes to the best preschool in the history of ever—her school is at a nature center. They take those kids outside every single day, rain or shine, regardless of temperature. There aren't any playgrounds there, at least not in the traditional sense. Instead, the kids are encouraged to splash in puddles, dig for worms, climb on logs, play with sticks, run after butterflies—in short, they're encouraged to be kids. I think it might just be where childhood makes its last stand against the modern age.

What better place, then, to look for inspiration for my Project Selvage contest entry? And there is no better symbol of everything my daughter's school stands for than colorful rain boots, which can be seen cramming the shelves and cubbies on any given school day. My entry may not scream "baby" (which could be a problem, given that the entries were supposed to be "baby boy"-themed), but I hope it reflects one of the simple joys of being a young child: Pulling on your boots and exploring a pond. Or the world in general.

Going into this, I had several other ideas all inspired by my daughter's school, so on the off-chance I make Spoonflower's 75 finalists, I know I could come up with a whole line centered around this print. In fact, I might just do that anyway, even if I don't make the 75 finalists. At the very least, I could make some awesome potty-privacy curtains for the school. : ) And of course, with a real live contract with Michael Miller on the line, the Project Selvage competition is unbelievably steep. Click here to check out some of the other entries—there are some very talented people over on Spoonflower, you guys. They announce the 75 finalists next Thursday, March 31, and voting will begin at that time.

As an aside, if Project Selvage is Project Runway for fabric designers, then where's our Tim Gunn? As I toiled into the wee hours on my entry, I longed for somebody who would walk past, peek over my shoulder at the computer screen, study it thoughtfully with his chin in his hand, and say something along the lines of, "Those colors are fabulous. But the scale is all wrong." Maybe they'll line up somebody to make home visits to all the finalists? Think about it, Spoonflower! : )

Supernova Quilt-Along: Block Planning and Cutting Instructions

Welcome to the first Supernova Quilt-Along weekly post! Let me just say that I am blown away by all of your interest in this quilt-along. I really was not expecting this kind of turn-out. But I have so enjoyed seeing the pictures of the fabric everybody is using, and I can hardly wait for all of your quilts come together.

Anyway, I hope you're ready to give those rotary cutters a workout. But before we cut a single scrap, we have to do a little planning and strategizing. Don't worry, it's more fun than it sounds like it is. : )

Planning Your Blocks

Start by cutting some strips from each of your prints, 3" wide by the width of fabric. At this point, the length of the strips doesn't matter, so we can leave them at the width of fabric for now. You'll cut them down to the correct sizes after you use them to plan out your blocks.

For each of your nine Supernova blocks, lay out your strips to create a progression of color from top to bottom, like I did in the photo above. Your strips could be all one color, progressing from light to dark or dark to light, or you could have more than one color per block. The progression can blend gradually or in more abrupt steps—the choice is yours. There's no right or wrong answer. Just play around with your strips until you come up with a progression that you like. I decided I liked this one, ranging from a golden yellow at the top to a plummy pink at the bottom.

You want to use a minimum of five prints and a maximum of seven prints for each block. The top print will be in the center of your block and the bottom print will be at the outer edge of the block. Edited to add: You do NOT need to have the same number of prints in each block. I happen to have six in all of my blocks, but there's no need to be consistent. It won't be noticeable in the finished quilt.

Repeat this process until you have nine sets of strips that you like—one set for each block. Once I had all nine of my sets, I took pictures of each set. These pictures will serve as my visual record of the prints I'm using in each block. That means I won't have to keep my strips laid out and in order. I also used the photos to help decide on the block layout (see above).

You now have a detailed plan for your Supernova quilt! Great job! You're ready to start cutting!

Cutting instructions - prints:
We're going to cut the prints on a block-by-block basis, so grab the 3" strips you laid out for your first block, and let's get cutting.

If you have seven prints in your set:
1. From the top strip in the set, cut (1) 3" square. This will be the center of the block.
2. From the bottom strip in the set, cut (4) rectangles, 3" x 5.5".
3. From one of the middle strips in the set, cut (4) rectangles, 3" x 5.5". (I almost always used the strip that was three from the bottom.)
4. From each strip in the set except the top strip, cut (4) 3" squares.

You should now have (25) 3" squares and (8) rectangles 3" x 5.5." Keep these pieces grouped together and labeled as "Block 1." (I use ziploc bags to store my pieces, one ziploc for each block). Repeat the cutting process for each of your other eight sets.

If you have six prints in your set:
1. From the top print in the set, cut (1) 3" square. This will be the center of the block.
2. From the bottom print in the set, cut (4) rectangles, 3" x 5.5".
3. From one of the middle prints in the set, cut (4) rectangles, 3" x 5.5". (I almost always use the strip three from the bottom.)
4. From each print in the set, including the ones you've already cut from, cut (4) 3" squares.

You should now have (25) 3" squares and (8) rectangles 3" x 5.5." Keep these pieces grouped together and labeled as "Block 1." (I use ziploc bags to store my pieces, one ziploc for each block). Repeat the cutting process for each of your other eight sets.

If you have five prints in your set:
1. From the top strip in the set, cut (1) 3" square. This will be the center of the block.
2. From the bottom strip in the set, cut (4) rectangles, 3" x 5.5".
3. From one of the middle strips in the set, cut (4) rectangles, 3" x 5.5". (I almost always used the strip three from the bottom.)
4. From each strip in the set, including the ones you've already cut from, cut (4) 3" squares.
5. Choose one print from the middle of the set and cut an additional (4) 3" squares.

You should now have (25) 3" squares and (8) rectangles 3" x 5.5." Keep these pieces grouped together and labeled as "Block 1." (I use ziploc bags to store my pieces, one ziploc for each block). Repeat the cutting process for each of your other eight sets.

Cutting instructions - background solid:
• Cut 5 strips measuring 5" by 44" (width of fabric). From one of these 5" strips, cut 4 pieces 5" by 8." From each of the other 5" strips, cut 2 pieces that are 5" by 15.5", and 1 piece 5" by 13." (So you should have a total of 8 pieces 5" by 15.5," and 4 pieces 5" by 13.")
• Cut 14 strips measuring 3" by 44" (width of fabric). From those strips, cut (72) 3" by 5.5," and (72) 3" by 3" squares.

Cutting instructions - contrasting solid for borders:
• Cut 12 pieces 3" by 5."

That's it! Hopefully this post didn't scare you off—believe it or not, I think this is the most complicated part of the quilt-along. Next week, we'll be piecing the sub-units that start to make up the blocks. Happy cutting, and don't forget to post your progress in the Supernova Flickr group!

P.S. If you are using a jelly roll, I've posted modified cutting instructions in the Flickr group.

WIP Wednesday #19

Welcome to WIP Wednesday. First, let me apologize: I wasn't able to get around and visit all of the links from last week. I really hate that, because I love that you're all here to share, and it's so inspiring to see what everybody's been working on. But I've had swap deadlines, quilt-along preparations, and sick kids to boot (again!). I promise I'll visit everybody's links this time around, although I may not get there until the weekend. Don't wait up for me.

So what's been happening around Freshly Pieced headquarters? Well, you already heard: Sick kids, deadlines, yadda yadda yadda. Somehow I managed several finishes anyway. Not to worry, there's plenty more where those came from.

Ongoing projects:

1. supernova rainbow, 2. supernova1, 3. SQA - Fabric Selection 2, 4. Stacks of color for Supernova, 5. OZ Stack, 6. Supernova fabric picks, 7. Supernova Fabric.jpg, 8. DSC_2076, 9. 03-22-11 Supernova QA fabrics (I think)

Supernova Quilt-Along

Cutting instructions tomorrow, you guys! I can hardly wait! Check out just a few of the fabulous fabric stacks on display in the Flickr group. All that fabric is just dying to be cut up, don't you think? : )

Project Selvage
Since I spent the last week pushing to meet swap deadlines, I haven't had much time for this. But I've had plenty of opportunities to think about my entry—and it's starting to look really awesome in my head. Unfortunately, Spoonflower prefers .tifs or .jpgs over the "imaginary" format. But I have quite a few sketches and some rough digital drawings. I'm going to devote the next two days, hard-core, to getting these designs out of my head and officially entered into the contest. In the meantime, please enjoy this drawing by our budding artist-in-residence, Miss E. It's loosely based on one of my Project Selvage sketches, and actually made me seriously consider entering a print that she made instead. : )

Completed tops awaiting quilting:
Hope Valley (the original Supernova)

Completed quilts awaiting binding:
Modern Meadow

On hold ... still:
Blockapalooza
Central Park jelly roll quilt
Figgy Pudding quilt
Wonky Log Cabin

This week's stats:
New projects - 1 (commissioned pillows)
Completed projects - 3 (DQS quilt, 3 x 6 bee blocks, and the commissioned pillows)
Currently in progress - 10 (down two from last week! yay!)

Okay, let's see what you guys have all been up to. Link 'em up, link 'em back, and comment, comment, comment. Happy WIP Wednesday!

Friday Night Sew-In: The Results

I did my first official Friday Night Sew-In last night. And I have to say, it didn't feel much different from all my other nights over the last two weeks! THAT'S how much I've been trying to do lately. Fortunately, I checked another big project off my list last night. And I think I'm seeing the light at the end of my to-do list the tunnel.

I recently sold my wonky sun pillow (the second one from the right) in the Quilt Hope In store on Etsy. (Click here for my wonky sun tutorial on Fat Quarterly.) And the buyer asked for three more coordinating pillows! I've never really been commissioned before, beyond doing things for friends and family, so that was kind of fun. I'm not sure I want to do that kind of thing on a regular basis, since I have enough of my own stuff going on, but it felt pretty good to be a "professional" for one project, anyway.

The buyer asked for three more pillows using the same color scheme, but with the addition of a yellow-green. She also wanted to keep it fairly simple, and without quilting, in order to bring the cost down a little. So these are the pillows I ended up creating during last night's sewing session. I think the four of them look adorable together. She didn't mention what type of room she'll be using them in (child's bedroom? sun room?), but I could see them working in a lot of different settings.

I hope she likes them. And I enjoyed the Friday Night Sew-In (even though every night has been a sew-in for me lately). I'm sure I'll be signing up for it again.

A Mini-Finish

I finished stitching down the binding on my DQS10 swap mini-quilt last night. Hand-stitching binding was the perfect thing to do while watching my Spartans play a game of basketball that was, in turns, awful, pathetic, semi-okay, decent, amazing, incredible, infuriating, and heartbreaking. I'm used to watching these guys win come March. What am I going to do with myself now that I have no team to root for? Guess I'll sew. : )

At any rate, my DQS quilt is now finished. I'm pretty confident that my partner is going to like it. I paper-pieced these blocks from a pattern that I created. It's a fairly standard New York Beauty block, and there are probably dozens of similar paper-piecing patterns available online, but I had trouble finding any that were small enough for what I wanted to do, which is why I ended up creating one myself.

Normally, with a New York Beauty block, you would paper piece the entire thing—the rays, the background, and the center. But I wanted to fussy cut the centers out of a print from Tula Pink's Parisville collection. Since NY Beauty blocks are pieced in quarters, that wasn't going to work. So I appliqued the centers onto the completed blocks instead. Hey, it works for dresdens, right? I think it was a good solution.

I was a little stumped with the quilting, but eventually decided I didn't want to put too much quilting on the New York Beauty blocks themselves. As you can see, I've got some busy fabrics going on in there, and the overall look is very ornate. I thought quilting over the top of that might just be a little too much. So instead I just did echo quilting around the outer circles.

I really love how it turned out and I hope my partner will like it too! It's ready to be shipped and will hopefully be en route, along with a few little extras, by the end of the day.

WIP Wednesday #18

Welcome to WIP Wednesday. I totally overcommitted for the month of March, and at the moment my brain is zapped, so let's get right to it, shall we?

Ongoing projects:

DQS 10
Very nearly finished! I might even have a completed quilt to post about tomorrow.

3x6 Bee blocks
This is such a cool bee: Everyone uses fabric from their own stash to make blocks for 6 other ladies, according to their stated color preferences. You can make any block you like, but all 6 of the blocks have to be the same design. It's a great way to use up your scraps! Also very nearly finished, and I'll post those with my other March bee blocks.

Supernova Quilt-Along
Yes, I'm hard at work on this as well. And I am officially overwhelmed by the response to my quilt-along—as of last night, 54 of you have joined the Flickr group! Seriously, you guys? You rock my world, as always!

Completed tops awaiting quilting:
Hope Valley (the original Supernova)

Completed quilts awaiting binding:
Modern Meadow

On hold ... still:
Blockapalooza
Central Park jelly roll quilt
Figgy Pudding quilt
Wonky Log Cabin

This week's stats:
New projects - 2
Completed projects - 0
Currently in progress - 12 (up two from last week)

Okay, your turn! Everybody is welcome to participate—I love to see new faces here. So if you haven't joined my linky before, jump right in, the water's fine! Just link up any post from the past week featuring a work-in-progress. Or, if you're obsessive like me, you can write up a list of ALL your WIPs and link that. Just please remember to link back to my blog, and comment on some of the other links. Because who doesn't enjoy a little comment love?

Supernova Quilt-Along: Fabric Requirements

<a href="http://freshlypieced.blogspot.com"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5059/5523344476_e529c39a99_m.jpg" width="150" height="164" alt="Supernova Quilt-Along with Freshly Pieced" /></a>Welcome to the Supernova Quilt-Along! I hope you are all as excited as I am to get started!

First, a little about how we'll be piecing this quilt. My original design was made up almost entirely of 2.5" squares, including quite a few half-square triangles. This time around, you will not have to piece a single HST. I can promise you that much! There is an easier way (which, of course, didn't occur to me until after I finished the original Supernova top). It includes a little strip-piecing as well as some standard piecing.

The finished quilt will measure about 62" square, and is made up of 9 asterisk-type blocks that I'm calling Supernova blocks. Each of those 9 blocks is made up of smaller sub-units. So we'll be piecing the top in three stages, over three weeks—first the sub-units, then completing the blocks, and then assembling the top and borders. See, I told you the pace would be doable!

Material Requirements
Top:
• 2-1/4 yards total of various prints (see below for specifics on choosing your prints)
• 2 yards solid for the background and borders
• a fat-eighth of a contrasting solid for the pieced strips in the borders

Binding:
• 1/2 yard

Back:
• A total of 3.25 yards

Schedule
March 24: Cutting instructions
March 31: Piecing the sub-units
April 7: Completing the Supernova blocks
April 14: Assembling the top and adding the borders
April 21: Making the back
April 28: Quilting and finishing (with final link-up - you will have two weeks to link up your completed quilt)
May 12: Prize winner drawn (winner gets a FQ bundle of Castle Peeps)

My fabric selections for my new version

Fabric Selection
One of my favorite things about a quilt-along is seeing how everybody takes the same design and really makes it their own. I love my original Hope Valley version of this quilt, so I'll be thrilled to see more versions made with that fabric line. But at the same time, I give you all my blessing to go crazy with your fabric selections and colors. I can't wait to see what you all do with this!

If you would like a little guidance, here are some tips for choosing your fabric:
• You will want a minimum of 5 prints in each of the 9 Supernova blocks. Six or 7 prints per block would be even better.
• I used a total of 20 prints in the original Hope Valley version of this quilt, and I have 22 prints lined up for the new version. Fat-eighth or fat-quarter bundles would be ideal for this design.
• This would also make a great scrap quilt. However, for some of the prints, you should have at least 9" by 12" worth of fabric. For other prints, you'll be able to get away with a little less. (I wish I could be more specific about this, but it will depend on which prints you choose to put where, whether you repeat prints within the quilt, etc.)
• In the original version of this quilt, I kept each Supernova block in one color family. I also tried to arrange the prints so that the darker ones were in the center of the Supernova and the lighter ones were toward the outside, or vice versa. (This wasn't always possible, but I tried to stick to that scheme as much as I could.) So if you want to achieve a look similar to the original quilt, keep those two things in mind.

Okay. You've got a little over a week to make fabric decisions and get that fabric in hand. What are you waiting for? Don't forget: If you post about your quilt-along plans by March 23, I'll include your blog on the blogroll in my sidebar. And please join the Supernova Quilt-Along Flickr group, where you can post pictures of your fabric selections and ask questions. Looking forward to seeing you all there!