The Love Project--finally painting with fabric

At last it's time to begin painting with the fabric I've been cutting. I will start with the upper left part of the cross-stitch pattern by Tiny Modernist. I number the rows across the top and down the side. The gridded mat is perfect because I'm using 1" squares and it has a 1" grid already marked!

I started by laying the red border pieces.

Next I put white in alternating spots.

Then the blue, green, red and light pink.

Filled in the dark pink and white squares to complete the background and then it's time to sew.

The grid mat is placed to the left of my machine.

I sew the squares together one at a time.

These are all chain pieced so when it's time to sew the horizontal rows it's a breeze since they are all closely connected. It's almost like they are pinned together.

This is what it looks like with the vertical seams sewn together.

Now I put the first sewn unit next to the mat and begin laying out the next section.

This way I get the rows correct and don't get the same fabrics next to each other.

Again I started with the border, white alternating, blue, green, red and light pink.

This is the 6' long table I'm using to hold the mat and "paint".

Now the 2nd unit is ready to sew.

Now the 3rd unit is ready to sew.

Let me say that although this step is FUN, FUN, FUN it is also physically exhausting.

My upper back gets fatigued and neck too. So I make myself take breaks and take Sasha for walks.

Here are a couple more quilts made using 1/2" squares.

This quilt is called "Only ONE Fabric". (2004)

The ENTIRE quilt is made from one fabric, including the binding!

I fussy cut the whole thing as a personal challenge.

This was the original fabric that I used. (8 yd)

I like palm trees and I think the waterline worked out nicely.

Can you see where each element was cut from the original fabric?

When I was done with this quilt the original fabric was serious swiss cheese!!!

And here is one more quilt I'm adding because today is my brother's birthday.

Happy Birthday big brother!

Linking up to Crazy Mom Quilts for Finish it Friday.

The Love Project--overview and special paint

Finished cutting the RED paint and the dark CRANBERRY pink paint! YAY. (Tedious.)

Red done. Some are 1" x 1 1/2" for the outer border.

Cranberry dark.

OK this is the plan. This is a cross stitch pattern with a grid.

This was designed by The Tiny Modernist. 

It was free on the Tiny Modernist FB page Feb. 14, 2015.

To piece it in fabric I need it in smaller sections. 

So I enlarged it and printed the pattern as a 16 page poster.

Each of these pages is 8 1/2 x 11.

Added to the regular colors are special pieces.

I cut numbers out of these bingo cards!

7-25-2015

Look how my fabric resembles swiss cheese!

I pulled out a bunch of heart/love fabric to go with the theme.

All these are special squares that will be "painted" into the quilt.

Now for another example of a 1/2" grid quilt:

This is "Quilt Show On The Beach". 2004

The 3 tiny quilts hanging on the line are actually miniature versions of quilts I've made before.

The patterns for "Lily Baskets", "Sister's Keepsake" and "Mended Hearts" are for sale in my Etsy shop HERE.

The little airplane is one that is used in scrapbooking.

The palm tree was added last.

When you lift up the Mended Hearts quilt you can see tiny squares of my "Justin" and "Digital JC" in the lowest row of sky. The crab is 2 squares wide so I had to fussy cut each side of it.

And I'll leave you with Calvin and Hobbes making silly faces. 

They are actually photos from a quilt I made for the Hoffman fabric challenge.

The Love Project--making paint

After choosing all the fabrics I make a paint pallet of 1" squares.

Start by cutting 1" strips of fabric.

Cut the strips into 1" squares.

Make stacks of squares. This is my light pink paint.

(Notice the fabric lower right? I used strips of that pink to tie onto our black suitcase handles to make it easier to identify our suitcases when we travel. You will see more of this pink below in a quilt.)

Light blue paint.

Dark blue paint.

Green paint.

White paint.

And I'm still working on cutting my red paint.

Meanwhile, I'll leave you with this:

I made this "RSIS" quilt in 2003 as a gift for the owner of RSIS.

My husband worked for them at the time and the company took all the senior staff to Bermuda for a meeting of some sort during the summer of 2003. I went along to soak up some sun. Bermuda has a bunch of pink houses so I used my favorite travel pink fabric to make the PINK house by the beach.  It is made entirely of 1/2" squares of fabric. To get the rounded shape of the logo I fussy cut squares that were red/white or red/blue.

If you look closely you might be able to see 7 fussy cut fish in the water.

And 7 smiling faces on the beach. I pieced my name into the lower corner.

Look closely here and you can see a tiny photo of my "Digital JC" quilt nestled between the large I and S near the top of the photo. It's 2 up and 2 left of the big red heart. I used photo transfer paper to print it onto fabric from my printer.

All the centers of these stars have the names and faces of the senior staff that went to Bermuda.

The lowest star says THANK YOU and RODNEY with a photo of the Bermuda beach and a photo of ME in a black bikini that was taken during that trip! 

This is the perfect example of the INTENSITY of making a quilt of 1/2" squares.

Oh, but the FUN! Adding all the tiny details was pure joy.

Now I must get back to cutting the red fabric...

The Love Project--choosing fabrics

I won't reveal what my final plan is for this quilt yet but it comes from a cross stitch pattern.

I feel like this almost cheating to just have it printed out how many of each color I need. 

But I still need to cut a plethora of 1" squares to make this quilt.

This is what we will call Baby Blue Dark.

Parrot Green medium.

Cranberry medium.

Cranberry light.

Navy Blue light.

Christmas Red.

Plus loads of white fabrics for the "background" since I'm not cross-stitching on a piece of whole cloth I've got to MAKE the background too.

QUESTION: WHY don't I just use ONE fabric of each color?

ANSWER: The quilt will be immensely, exponentially, infinitely more interesting with many fabrics!  

This is another example of what can be done with 1/2" squares.

See how many different blue fabrics are in the water?

The sky was made from one fabric that was a mottled blue and cloud white. 

It is more boring to look at so it lets the water and beach shine.

The next step in The Love Project is to make "paint" out of all these chosen fabrics.

The Love Project-- preparation

I am gearing up for a BIG and INTENSE quilt project. If I plan to blog about as it goes it will make me work harder so that's what I will do. This project will have more "fussy" cut squares. This will NOT be a portrait but to give you an example of the intensity here are some of my previous INTENSE projects.

This is "Digital JC" (2000). It is made with 1/2" squares of fabric---LOTS of them.

I left my shoes in the photo so you can see how big it is.

JC was the very first of my 1/2" SQ INTENSE projects.

It was SO MUCH FUN to make! I learned a lot.

Can you see the smiling girl faces in his face? I think there are 3 in this photo.

This is "Justin" (2001). He is also rendered in 1/2" squares of fabric.

Look for the girls again. (3 in this photo.)

Both quilts have all the band members names on the quilt.

"Justin" has rhinestone sparkles added to the background and I used a bandana type fabric for the border because he often wore bandanas when preforming.

This is my FAVORITE template ever. It is acrylic and measures 1" x 1".

I put 1/4" tape around the edge to mark where the seam allowance will be and that leaves me with a window to select some fussy cut squares.

This is one of my favorite go to fabrics for little faces.

This is what happens to my lovely fabric when I cut all the faces out of it!

Here we go again. With this template I can use my rotary cutter to cut quickly.

Now I have a sweet face to put into The Love Project.