Process Pledge

Something I  learned from doing these give aways was a lot of you asked for more photos and more information on my process. I guess I never really thought that other people wanted to know that kind of stuff. But hey, I'm happy to share that too. :) 

So...I've seen a lot of other bloggers take the Process Pledge and I've also jumped in too. I will definitely try harder to share my thought process in designing and quilting in general. 

I'll even start right now! LOL! How is that for fast? ;)

I love wonky stars. I don't care for wonky in itself, but wonky stars, I love those. Try and figure that out.  Anyways, I signed up for the pillow talk swap again and this was a little bit for practice and a little bit for a gift. (***psst...actually it was totally for the gift, but shhhh... :)***) So let's begin with that. 

I would say 99% of my designs begin on my favourite graph paper.  This particular one is 4 squares per inch. I like to use each square in 2" increments. I also have other paper that is 10 squares per inch. Sometimes that is easier for bigger projects, but those squares are tiny!

I am almost embarrassed to show you the inside of this notebook.  Mostly because there are pages that look like this.... 

Scribbled on. Math written out. A lot of gobeldeegook...lol. I have to do this though, to keep in all in one place. If I do it on scratch paper it will get thrown away and I will end up having to do it all over again. 

However, ALSO in this book are my designs. Such as my very first one for Moda Bake Shop, Random Reflections. This is how that began....

I made an angel pillow for the last round of of the pillow talk swap and the only amount of design that I did for that was this....

Notice the page on the right with more chicken scratching? Heh!

This is how it turned out afterwards...

There's not a lot of high tech stuff going on there is there? Nope. This just goes to show you that you can do it too! Just grab some graph paper and a pencil and a good eraser and start drawing. Heck, I don't even use a ruler to draw straight lines. I just get the idea on the paper with the measurements and go with it. It doesn't matter if you "can't draw". What matters is that YOU can interpret your own work to put it into your project.  Go ahead...try it. :)

I mentioned the wonky star pillow.....let me show you how it came to be. 

First. I needed a gift. A good one. One that I loved just as much as I think the recipient would. Personally, I feel that if I don't love a project that I did, how can I expect the person it is going to, to love it?

I started drawing, knowing that I wanted it to be a wonky star pillow. 

See? I don't even worry so much about straight lines. :)

Next, comes choosing the fabrics. This varies from project to project. Sometimes I will stay with in the boundaries of one single line, sometimes I will venture and grab some from different lines. Just depends on the mood I am in. :)  For this project, I decided on Riley Blake! Mmmm!

It's a bit blurry. Sorry about that.

After I had my sketch, I figured out what I needed to cut for the entire pillow. I don't want to have to stop sewing when I get in a good groove to cut more pieces. I usually do this for each project. Cut everything, then sew.

Then of course, piecing the blocks and sewing them together according to my sketches. 

Isn't it pretty??!! Oh how I love this! :)

Then I layer the backing, the batting, and the "quilt" top together. Then I stare at it aimlessly until a quilting design jumps out at me. No really! Sometimes I will even get my daughter and ask her how I should quilt something. She's 12. :) 

For this one, I thought, hm...it's wonky. Let's quilt it wonky too. So I took my blue painters tape and created a straight line from the left edge to the right edge at an angle. Stitched my line next to the tape, removed it and did the same thing going from top to bottom. This created 4 quadrants. When I straight line quilt, this is how I work. Quadrants seem to make it much easier to handle.

This is one quadrant completed.

Part of the process is also showing what NOT to do. Uh. Anyone who has read my blog for some time now, knows that I'm not afraid to show my mistakes. Well guess what? I did it again. I sewed the batting to the backing because it flipped over on me while quilting. Doh! 

However, I didn't fret. This was a pillow after all so the back of it really wasn't ever going to be showcased because I still had to add the casement part so I made a funny out of it and left it like this. :)

I think the new owner of this pillow will get a kick out of me leaving that there. Mistakes remind us that we are all human. No one is perfect, even those really famous quilty people that if we ever met we'd probably stand there and go "ga ga ga"..haha! They make mistakes too so don't worry about them. Use it to your advantage and learn from them. Me, well this was my THIRD time making this same mistake....perhaps the third time is a charm. :)

After all of that....this is how it turned out. Had it not been going to a very special person, I may have kept it for myself because I adore it that much. However, I will share that I plan to make this design into a quilt. :)

 

Dear recipient...I hope you love it!! :D

I hope you enjoyed my process and if you have any questions, please feel free to leave a comment, leaving your email address in the box provided, and I will happily get back to you. :)

Much Love!!!