I know I’ve been acting a bit like the narrator in Nabokov’s Despair--I say something, and it just isn’t true. I said I was going to be making sweaters this week, but instead I have been pursuing a quilting idea I just could not let be.
It started with the quilt I was making for the annual SAQA auction. I am a machine piecer from my skin to my core. It is what I love to do. I use traditional quilt making techniques in my work. I do not paint, stamp, or glue my quilts. Some day I’ll take that leap, but for now I am firmly grounded in these old school methods.
So, how do I use my methods of choice to create a small 12 inch by 12 inch quilt? That is the hard part for me. I want the piece to look like my work, but be small-a mini me.
I decided to take one of my Color Grid quilt sketches which are usually 18 inches by 18 inches and see if I could shrink that sketch down to 12 inches by 12 inches. Habenaro was the quilt I selected to try this experiment out on. It worked!
And this is the point where things went awry. I thought I would just take one more day and make minis for all of the Color Grid quilts I had been working on. And while I was at it, I had another idea. Why not make a mini, a solo (which I had been calling a sketch or a proto-type), a group (which is a true Color Grid quilt) , and then a party? And I thought I could do this is a day. HA!
So for each Color Grid I created there would actually be three full quilts (a mini, a solo, and a group) and one party, which is when a Color Grid sketch or solo joins a group of other sketches or solos.
Here is how that worked for Habenaro. I had to change very little about the proportion to get the Mini-Habenaro to work.
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- Here is the 12″ by 12″ version. Very little had to be changed. It looks almost exactly like the solo.
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- Solo-Habenaro has a wider final border. Having a plain center block as opposed to using a print really allowed me to shrink the design easily.
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- Here is the group version aka a Color Grid.
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- Here are all three Habaneros together.
Next I worked out the details on TRANCE. This one was a bit more difficult. I was running out of fabric, and I needed to make some hard decisions about proportion to get it to read right.
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- I radically changed the grid to get this to work.
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- I make two solos–one stays a solo and one joins a party.
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- My new favorite quilt.
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- I love how these look. it makes me think about the SAQA Sight lines exhibition.
And finally Jimi Makes a Quilt. This was a nightmare, and made me realize that Habenaro was beginner’s luck. I had to dramatically change the mini, but that is okay. A part of the lessons learned.
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- I actually start with the solo not the mini.
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- This is the first version, but it was not 12′ by 12″ it was much larger. Dang it.
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- Here is the final version. I am not crazy about it, but I did learn some good lessons from making it.
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- I do like the full version.
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- These are kind of like family portraits.
Now for the really exciting part of this adventure–all the solos get to join a party. Here is what that looks like.
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- Kato enjoys watching the quilts develop. He also likes sleeping on sweaters.
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- Here is a party in development. There are some solo’s that are also in progress.
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- I removed the ones in progress to see if I could get a better read on what colors I need to create balance in the composition.
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- And then of course I thought about what a duet might look like.
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- I am usually working on a color Grid while I am also audition solos to be part of a party.
This was a great lesson for me in adapting my work to different size formats and seeing what happens. It also gave me about a bazillion new ideas of things I can do with these Color Grid quilts.
It’s sweater time. Really.
If you find this subject interesting, here are several other blog posts I have written about making these quilts.
Wall of Sound Is about the final quilt which features nine different solos.
Progress Report Is more talk about minis, solos, and groups.
Sew Many Minis Is all about the minis.
Love these little guys – they seem to have the same impact as the larger ones. You are the bomb!
Wow, they look fabulous together!
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