Help Wanted: Hope is a Four-Letter Word

The other day I had such a good conversation with Brenda of Scraps and Strings. We've been e-friends for a couple of years and it was wonderful to finally put a voice to the words. She really helped me think about my whole book plan and how I need to simplify. Completely right about that. Not that Brenda herself is sticking to simple - look at these fantastic BOOs she made for Slither Eek Boo (aka Halloween Noises).

Talking about a simpler project... I was hoping a few of you would help me by making blocks for a much easier quilt. If you haven't make letters before then the Halloween font sampler is incredibly intimidating. I understand that. So here is a much easier project. I'm hoping that a few of you who've never made words before will dive in and play. I'm looking at you, Ms Jan - this is a very doable block. 

Here's the deal. For this quilt we're sticking to the Brick format. All the words that get sent have to be finished off into a block that is sized 6.5" x 12.5" unfinished. (If yours is too small or a bit too big, no worries, I'll play with it.) I've used the Brick setting before to make this quilt, but that time I wasn't making the blocks all the same size like I want to this time.

Using the free-pieced letters, make a happy, positive, wonderful four-letter word such as hope, home, live, love, life...  Fabric should be bright and happy. If you're using repros then think double-pink, poison green, cheddar, red, chrome yellow... The fabric doesn't have to be bright bright, see?

I'm hoping I'll get 13 blocks from ya'all though I can certainly play with more or less. Since folks like a deadline, how about June 15th. And if you signed up for Halloween Noises and would rather do this instead, that's a-okay. you can do both too. This one isn't a fancy font sampler though, it's a bit more rustic and straightforward.

Just jump in and start making letters or get out the graph paper. I played around with Hope yesterday.

For making the word this size, I discovered that I'd cut the letter fabric 1" and 1.5" wide. The background fabric would be cut 1", 1.5" and 2"  

That 2" cut would only be used to make letters in that big area of the P. When you know that you have a limited amount of space to make a word, then you want to use your skinny strips in the middle of the letter. That gives you lots of room to cut down the sides (or the top) if you need to. So make your H more like the top figure in this illustration, not the bottom one.

In my drawing, I placed the letters half an inch apart (when finished) although when I work I usually make the space half that size. Additionally, if you make each letter in a different, contrasting fabric you can butt them up against one another.

Okay, this is your chance to play with letters. Don't figure you'll get the letters exactly how you want them on the first go. You might have to experiment a little. Remember, I like letters wonky and imperfect - these letters aren't for you, so they don't have to be as perfect as you might want them for yourself.

If you get into a jam, or just have a question, please ask away.

To sum up, unfinished block 6.5" x 12.5"  four-letter word in happy fabric due on June 15th.

Please, please, please, I hope someone will do this. Oh, and I'd love to hear if you had any problems along the way, any kind of advice you'd give to others. 

I was thinking about doing a Lily brick quilt before I changed to this one. Had to get a pic of Lily with her name.

ya'all take care....

Julie's Quilts

I love hearing from ya'all. Recently, Julie Post sent me a couple of photos of quilts she'd made using the free-pieced letters and kindly gave me permission to share them with you.

Julie made this Scrappy Trips Around the World for her in-laws. It has the names of all the grandkids. Isn't it fabulous? Those stars are a wonderful touch as well.

The next quilt contains the names of the tractors that Julie's family or their friends have owned. The words started out as a border for a different quilt but were too wavy for Julie to use. So she took the borders apart and reworked them to make this fabulous quilt.

Julie says: "I followed your advice of... Add if it's too short and cut it off if too long. There was no plan except to lay out the blocks and start adding things."

Julie did such a great job. Congrats on making these wonderful quilts full of memories.

In other news, Pokey is doing really well. She can jump up on countertops again. We just finished playing fetch - I threw a rolled-up sock and she brought it back. At least for a few times - eventually she just looked at me as if to say "why did you take my toy away?"

Boo

My husband questioned whether the photos I took last week of Pokey on the flag quilt were staged. Nope, that's hardly ever needed. Case in point, on Sunday I pieced a little quilt. 

Got the word done, how much background does it need around it?

Now with the border fabric

This is a good indication that I'm not as worried about Pokey as I was a short time ago. Last week as soon as she gave me the signal for belly I'd have dropped the camera to give her some loving.

Now I'm letting her do the Belly Love Wiggle while I take photos. Not to worry, she gots lots of loving not soon after.

As you can see I was thinking about centering Boo in the middle of the quilt...

In the end I decided I liked the boo off-center. 

I bet you can't tell that I'm having a real longing already for Halloween. There's definitely a reason (okay, more than one) that I love the JaMPatch in Stuart - they love Halloween too and already have some fun fabric rolling in. That's where I got the great spider web fabric. I was thinking about using it for the letters but went with this option instead.

I think I've decided how I'm going to quilt it, but am not sure. There's a big part of me that wants to do spider webs and spiders, but maybe that's too expected. I keep going back and forth on options. Don't think the skeleton chorus line is going to work... I did start quilting the letters in red quilting thread but it wasn't bold enough - I need to use perle.

I've got a new blog for ya'all to check out. Laura's Cloth and Mind. She just free-pieced her very first word and it's fabulous AND she's been making wonky houses that are amazing. She's really gotten into the multi-stories and complicated roofs. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. Please give her some encouragement and a welcome to blogland.

That first word that Laura made? It was rattle (plus a surprise) for the Halloween Noises quilt. That's not so much the name of the quilt as the description. I'm already thinking of it as Slither Eek Boo. Anyway, here's what we've got so far. If you don't see your name here send me an email. Any additions, corrections, adjustments?

argh                                   big leaning                                                        Cher

bang                                  BIG                                                                     honeybee
boo                                    maybe big and skinny                                     Patti
boo                                                                                                                Brenda
clank                                                                                                             Sarah
eek                                     wide/narrow maybe getting smaller           Marge
groan                               short and fat                                                    Siobhan
grr                                      tall, skinny, leaning                                        ChrisQuilts
gurgle                                rounded and flat                                              Lynda
hiss                                    snake-like SS                                                    Tracey in CT

hiss                                    fat, uppercase                                                   Natima

hoot                                   rounded                                                             Valerie
howl                                  thin and growing                                              Dionne
moan                                 mix of big and small                                        Beena

mu ha ha ha                                                                                                  Mimi

mwa ha ha ha                                                                                               Kim

rattle        Laura
screeeech                          spiky                                                                  Clare
slither                                low and wide                                                    Lynne
slither                                possibly leaning                                               Rondi
snarl                                   straight up and down                                      ForestJane
slurp                                   rounded and curvy                                           Rachael
squeeeak                                                                                                        Kathy
thump                                wide/narrow letters                                        Cheri
trick or treat                     overlapped                                                        Katie
wooooo                                                                                                          Sharon

I'm not much of a planner when I'm making words. I have a tendency to just chop and go. To see a completely different way to work, check out Lynne's planning for slither. Lynne plots, plans, and does a lot of work with paper. She's on the opposite of the spectrum. Both ways work, you just have to play around until you find what works best for you.

Clare meanwhile has plotted and schemed and hatched an idea making spiky letters for screeech.

If you aren't sure how you'd like to do your word or would like suggestions, just ask. As far as fonts goes, hmmm, looks like we could do with something angular.

We now have a SHRIEK up for grabs if anyone would like to take it. Which is not to say we can't have dupes... Cuz we can, just let me know.

Halloween Noises so Far

Right after I published that last post a thought occurred to me.  You know, this Halloween Noises quilt is going to be a blast to hand quilt. There are so many really cool things I can do with it. If you guys use some solids or mostly solids - and leave the backgrounds large for me to cut down as needed - I'll have some great places for quilting. These are details from my Dear Mummy quilt to give you an idea of what I'm talking about. This quilting wouldn't have worked on top of novelty prints.

The background doesn't have to be light colored - I have a large array of colors to choose from in the perle cotton and embroidery floss. I hope you guys can come up with quilting ideas too, so I don't just do my usual spiderwebs...

This is what I have so far. Let me know changes or additions.

argh big leaning Cher

bang  BIG Honeybee

boo maybe big and skinny Patti

boo Brenda

clank extra angular Carol E.

eek wide/narrow maybe getting smaller Marge

groan short and fat Siobhan

grr tall, skinny, leaning ChrisQuilts

gurgle rounded and flat Lynda

hiss snake-like SS Tracey in CT

howl thin and growing Dionne

moan mix of big and small Beena

screeeech Clare

shriek really tall and skinny Lynne

slither low and wide Lynne

slither possibly leaning Rondi

snarl straight up and down ForestJane

slurp rounded and curvy Rachael

squeeeak Kathy

thump wide/narrow letters Cheri

trick or treat overlapped Katie

wooooo Sharon

The deadline to make the blocks is end of May. In the mail on 1 June, right?

Honeybee, I wasn't sure from your comment (and you're no-reply) if you just wanted to do bang or also wanted grunt rattle and howl. which would be really fun. All depends on how ambitious you're feeling. Send me an email if you want to chat about it, otherwise responding in the comments here works too.

I am so enjoying reading about the thinking that is going into some of these words, forming the letters by how they sound or by what creature it is that makes them. So very cool. Ya'all are wonderful.

I am happy to have more people play along, believe me. It might be one large quilt or a pair, who knows, I don't. It's just fun to play and explore.  It's so marvelous to see ideas that I never would have come up with on my own.

Anyone want to be the evil mastermind plotting to take over the world and do a mwa ha ha ha? Or an alternate spelling thereof. 

If you're new to making the letters please don't think that you have to make it complicated. Those O's don't have to be rounded (unless that's the font you've chosen). And every letter or word, no matter how misshappen you think it might be, can find a home in one of my quilts. Seriously. Maybe not quickly, because I am sloooow, but eventually.

One thing I forgot to mention in the last post is that I rarely use the graph paper to make an exact copy of what I've drawn. In fact, I don't think I've ever done that. But I use it as a guidepost. Cut fabric strips this wide, this bit will need to be at least this much long...

Okay, gotta run. Ya'all take care.

Super Thin Letters

It's been so much fun thinking of fonts. It makes me excited to see all of your plans for making cool words for the Halloween Noises quilt. Awesome. How about end of May for the deadline? Not to worry if you're late - I can ALWAYS find a project for really cool Halloween words.

I decided to show you some options of playing with super skinny letters. I've used them before in my quilt America with Flag. I got it out this morning to take a close up of the letters and voila, instant kitty.

I made those letters with 3/4" strips (finishing at a quarter inch). It's fiddly but comes up with a great result. The background strips were cut 3/4" and 1", except for the background of the M, which was 1.25" wide. These letters finish at 4" high. 

Sometimes it's fun to play with graph paper to work out how you'd make letters. It's quicker than piecing. I thought, what would happen if I made these super skinny letters really tall? How about 9"?

 

That looks cool, but boy it's hard to read. How about another two? First is 6" and the second is 3". Now it's easier to read what it says.

You'll notice I played a bit with the K each time, trying out different options to make things work. Those letters with slants really throw a curveball in when you're trying to make your letters this narrow. There are always ways to make them though.

With those first few I kept the letters all the same height. What about varying them?

How about making the letter fabric super skinny but making the letters themselves wider?

There are all sorts of options and they can look dramatically different.

Was it fun to see these or just not that helpful? If you'd like me to play around with some other types of fonts, just give a holler. But even better, try it yourself first.

I didn't realize I was going to have a pic of Pokey in this post, so I'd included one down here. Just hope you all don't get tired of seeing her.

Pokey is doing great, leaping around and pouncing. Not all the time of course, but often enough to make me happy. I finally figured out how to get the capsules in her. I threw a can of tuna packed in water (not the can, just the tuna and tuna water) into a blender along with some additional water and zuzzed it up. It's a disgusting sludge but miraculously Pokey loves it even with the contents of the capsule stirred in. That is sooo much easier than the wrestling sessions we were having. Just have to keep other cats away, which is a tad bit harder.

Unfortunately my bad knee blew up some last night and is swollen this morning. This is what I get for putting off calling an orthopedist.