I had the privilege of vacationing in Ashland, Oregon for a week of relaxation and five great plays at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. The only difficulty was that I mistakenly left this lovingly-packed basket of travel handwork projects on my dining room table. Nooooooooooooo!!! The error was noticed immediately, when I wanted to relax at the cottage we had rented.
I wonder if anyone else would feel lost without something to keep the creative fingers entertained.

One lonely basket
Soooooo, bright and early the next morning, I headed off to Sew Creative, an exciting quilt store on Main in Ashland. I found this cute kit for paper piecing, which included a handful of pre-cut papers, as well as heavy plastic templates for cutting the fabrics. I also bought a bundle of Marcia Derse fat quarters, needles, some thread, and a few pins——-PROBLEM SOLVED!!

Progress by Day Three, peacefully working on the screened porch—very relaxing.

paper piecing process
Now that I am back home I realize that I have created a monster.
Firstly, how did this project jump to the top of the To Do List? Others have been waiting patiently, some for years.
Secondly, having chosen these very dramatic fabrics, how do I get them to play with each other without fighting? I think these blocks look too crowded, although I really do like some of the triangle shapes that are created where the three hexagons meet. Squint to see these.

Crowded blocks
I think these blocks will need to be separated.

Separated blocks
Thus, thirdly, what can I possibly use to separate them that also does not fight with them? My current solution is to keep making more blocks and hoping that things will all work themselves out eventually. That’s about all the planning I can hope for right now.
Black and White All Over–foundation-pieced triangles
21 09 2018I have written about this piece while it was in progress in two prior posts, and it was finally finished in time to be shown at my guild’s exhibit, EBHQ’s Voices in Cloth, 2018.
During the process of making this quilt, I tried numerous times to include color of any kind, and did not succeed. Frankly, the result is super-pleasing, to me at least. Seems not to have impressed many others. But then we do what we do because we are following our own compass, not to please others.
Black and White All Over, 2017
Black and White All Over, detail
I started this in Ashland, Oregon, while on vacation at a great house, attending many plays at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. I wanted a portable project, requiring limited baggage, so I took only my Featherweight and black and white fabrics, just to get a new quilt started.
I made my own foundations on freezer paper using an unthreaded needle on my machine. I do not include a seam allowance on my foundations. I learned to love foundation-piecing a billion years ago in a class taught by Jane Hall and Dixie Haywood at Houston. I’m so grateful to them for sharing their expertise.
Freezer paper foundations
Progress started out slow, until I got into a good rhythm.
Day One
And then it got easy.
Day five
I even found a beautiful bowl for the fabric trimmings, which became its own fabric sculpture after a while.
And here is what most people commented on about this quilt, since this fabric was used often:
ANTS!!
Still love it.
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Tags: black and white quilts, Dixie Haywood, EBHQ, foundation piecing, Jane Hall, Voices in Cloth 2018
Categories : Observations and insights, Quilts and commentary