The Selvage Quilt Continues—Slowly
I’ve pieced more of the low-volume selvage blocks since last time, but progress is moving slowly—just two or three blocks at a time, when the mood strikes me.
After I made the handful mentioned in the last blog post, it occurred to me that a lot of my selvages were just a bit too short to work for the dimensions I’d fairly randomly selected for the block size. I had a bunch of selvages I’d trimmed from a box of scraps I’d bought several years back, and it wasn’t easy to use them with the 6.5″ by 9.5″ rectangular blocks I’d settled on.
Because I had only done six or seven, at that point, I decided to change my plans. It didn’t take long to trim an inch off the finished blocks and resize my template paper (which I used when selecting selvage strips for each block and temporarily gluing them into place). Now each block will measure 5.5″ by 9.5″. A bit skinnier, but maybe that’s for the better. I’m sure either size would have worked.
I also needed to recalculate how many blocks required to make a decently sized couch quilt. I think 120 should do it.
Another choice to make had presented itself, in the meantime: Should all the blocks “slant” in the same direction, or should half be mirrored?
It may not be immediately obvious, but unlike the more common square corner-to-corner string or selvage blocks, which can be spun around to “lean” or “point” in any direction, these rectangular blocks will always lean the same way, because you have to turn them 180°. You can’t really rotate them just 90° to make they point the other way. (Well, you could, but then you’d be trying to fit a long side with a short side. It doesn’t work for the pattern I have in mind.)
An image that inspired the quilt had the selvage strips leaning in opposite directions, alternating to create a chevron effect. I think both versions could look nice, but finally decided to go for the chevron layout.
It’s easy enough to change the direction of the block—just start in either the upper lefthand corner or the upper righthand corner.
My plan is to make them in batches of ten. First 10 leaning one direction, then 10 leaning the other—and keep alternating until I reach my goal of 120 blocks (60 of each type).
Here are the two types of blocks side by side:
There’s still another choice to make, but at this point it’s not essential make a decision. The question is whether the orientation of the blocks in each row should be identical or alternating, row by row.
Here’s the first option, keeping all the rows the same:
And here’s the second option, alternating which block starts each row:
The second one is more like a traditional string block layout, so I think I’m leaning more toward the first option, but we’ll see.
I don’t even have the first 20 blocks done, yet, but every one finished is progress!
Trying Out Some Neon Watercolor
I wanted to doodle some more jack-o’-lanterns to use for testing neon watercolors—but I ran into some problems.
First I had trouble getting the fountain pen I wanted to use to get started. It’s been better since that time, but for some reason it occasionally is reluctant to flow. Maybe it had just been left a day or two too long without use.
Then I just wasn’t getting my best results. (Maybe it’s time to move on from the jack-o’-lanterns.) I decided to leave off the pumpkin texture lines on this doodle.
Next, I added the watercolor, starting with the neon paint. For some reason, the ink from the drawing started to run in a few spots. I don’t know if that’s because the ink hadn’t dried long enough (maybe it needs more like a full day?) or something to do with the neon watercolor paint. I’ll have to do more experiments to know for certain.
After letting the neon paint dry, I tinted the background with shadow green Boku-Undo e-sumi ink/paint, with a few darker splodges for extra visual texture.
Finally, I filled in the facial features of the jack-o’-lanterns with ink from the same fountain pen.
Eh, it’s okay, but this wasn’t as much fun as I’d hoped. Too many annoyances with the process.
Neon Watercolor, Take Two
I wanted to try the neon watercolor again, but with a different (more restrained) approach. A simple sketch, watercolor (including the neon yellow), and outlines in pen. (I see now that I forgot to add lines to one of the roofs. Oops! I can go back and do that next time.)
I liked this one a lot more. Better results, in my opinion, and more fun to make. I think maybe less is more with the neon paint.
Palette-Cleaning: Waste Not, Want Not
Starting with just what was already on my ceramic palette from the previous page, this is how far I got before it was time to stop. (And I wanted the paint to dry naturally before adding pen.)
It’s more mushrooms, as you can probably tell:
So that’s where I’ll be starting next time!
