WIP Wednesday: Broken Engagement

Most of the time spent in my sewing room recently has been working on my double wedding ring quilt, aka "Broken Engagement." 

I sewed and sewed arcs--a total of 72, each with eight pieces. My color palette is inspired by an old quilt top that I've cut apart, and then decided those pieces would go on the back as they were way too busy for the front. 

For no apparent reason that I can identify, this is my most favorite arc--the one my eye keeps going back to.

Placing the arcs in some kind of random order.

Cutting out and placing the corner pieces.

Semi-final layout, subject to changes as I go along.

I was hoping to really make a dent in my solids scrap bin. But I cut most of the quilt top from fat quarters, so I probably ended up putting more back into the scrap bin than I took out. Go figure...

Putting everything on the design wall was the fun part. Now the work begins--all that curved sewing...
 

Also Known As...

 I know what you are thinking. Whaaaaat? Why so many blog posts lately? I told you--I'm trying to do more than just Really Random. :)

So, as promised, here is the latest WIP (work in progress) update. 

For the last two Monday afternoons, I have been taking a zoom class from the oh so fabulous Tara Faughnan. It is an updated version of the classic Double Wedding Ring quilt pattern. 

Before I launch into the update, along with the newly chosen name for this particular project, let me give you the back story. Hmmm. I seem to be big on "back stories" lately, as evidenced by my two recent posts about the Quilts and Classics calendar.

But I digress. 

Years ago (maybe over 15?), I took a class called Hidden Wells, a pattern written by Mary Ellen Hopkins. I chose a focus fabric by Paula Nadelstern and built the rest of the color story from there. 

My original thought was that the quilt top would be for my brother and sister-in-law. My sister-in-law is from Taiwan and for some reason I thought she would like a purple and red quilt. Who wouldn't, right??

The fabric choice went in a weird direction and the blocks ended up looking like this. Way different than I had originally visualized in my head, and because of that, I hated this quilt top. (Sorry for the poor quality photo--it's the only one I have.)

It sat in a drawer for years because I planned on making a braided border on all four sides. Have you ever made a braided border? They take forEVER. I made enough for one side and called it quits. But at this point, I'll still convinced that I can finish it.

I never got it out again except to shoot a cute picture of snapdragons.

After Victoria Findlay Wolfe published her book on double wedding ring quilts, I woke up one day with the brainiac idea of chopping the whole thing apart. It seemed like a fantastic idea at the time. I had long ago given up the idea of giving it to my brother and sister-in-law. I had never told them about it in the first place, so they didn't know what they were missing. Haha...

Chop, chop, chop...

(Please tell me your design wall is covered with random threads, too....)

Then came the Humpty Dumpty part of the process--putting it back together again. 

I tried multiple things.

Pinks and purples.

Nope.

Purple gradient.

Nope.

I called in creative help.

Gabe got this far, and then even he gave up.

Back in the bin it went.

I have come so close to tossing the whole thing every time I do a sewing room cleanup, but I've just never been able to give up on it, hoping that someday there would be a lightbulb moment. 

And then I signed up for the class with Tara. 

At first I got out my bin of solid fabrics and was going to mimic her phenomenal double wedding ring. But then a light did indeed go off in my head and I thought maybe I should pull out that bin of "parts" and see if they could be salvaged into something.

This was my inspiration, both in terms of design and colors. (Side note: I highly recommend following Tara, and also following this tag if you are interested in double wedding ring quilts based on her designs.)

I began cutting up fabric for the pieced "arcs."

My first idea was to use some of the chopped up fabric in the "melon" portion.

I soon realized that wasn't a good idea. For one thing, curved piecing, which is tricky enough. For another thing, the melons had seams going all different directions. So here I was, trying to sew curves together, working with bias edges, and then having the seams from the pieced fabric fighting me at every intersection. 

So where am I at this point?

The quilt top will be made using all solids. I love the colors I'm putting together so far.

These four intact blocks, which were left over when making the original quilt top, will go on the back.

I will square up some of these units and sew them together, and they will be part of the back as well.

So maybe, as they say, the third time's a charm. Tara has commended me for trying so hard to make this work, so there's that. :)

And in the midst of class the other day, I came up with the name for this double wedding ring quilt: Broken Engagement.

Quilts and Classics: Amish Charm/1965 Chevrolet C10

 

As I said in my previous post, this was a serendipitous encounter. By the time I photographed this quilt, in mid-June 2020, I had made a list of pairs of quilts and vehicles in my head. I pretty much knew which quilts I wanted in the calendar and was getting a handle of finding just the right car or truck to go with each quilt.

This truck was not on the initial list. However, on this particular evening in June, the sun was starting to set. I looked across the street at my neighbor's truck. I had looked at this truck every day for months. The grandkids all called it Mater because the rusted paint job reminded them of Mater in the movie Cars.

It was nearing the coveted "golden hour" that photographers love. So on a whim, I grabbed a quilt I thought might work, which turned out to be Amish Charm, and asked the owner, Dan, for permission to photograph it on his truck. As the sun sunk lower in the sky, I snapped a lot of photos quickly. About midway through, our neighborhood cat, Harley, sauntered over to see what I was doing. We all love Harley. She is friendly and nosy inquisitive. Mark and I have to be very careful if the our garage door is open, along with the door from the garage into the house. Because given any kind of chance, Harley will walk right into our house. I can't tell you how many times we have walked down a hallway and run into her wandering around. 

Harley just couldn't stay away. She had to check out both the front and the back of the quilt. Knowing how many quilters are also cat lovers, while this might not have been the best photo I took of either the truck or the quilt, it had to be the one in the calendar.

Here is Harley, just beginning to check out what is going on. I just noticed that she is color coordinated with the bumper. :)

The quilt, Amish Charm, is one of many versions made from my first published pattern, Charm Parade, which was published in 2008. I had just finished making a quilt using all the colors of Kona cotton, and almost immediately after I finished, Kona came out with another set of colors, so of course I had to make another quilt, and I did so using only the newest colors, a collection of 27 if I remember correctly. The result was Amish Charm. 

The next two photos are from a wonderful day we spent with Mark's brother, Pete, and his wife, Jane, in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, in 2018. Quilters should always travel with quilts because you just never know when you will find an interesting photo op, am I right? 

Albert Einstein is looking a little perplexed at being covered with a quilt...

I feel like the rusty beauty of Dan's truck was the perfect backdrop for the bright colors of Amish Charm.