Charming Hexagons from Morris & Company

I had an unopened Charm pack (5" squares) of the Morris & Company prints and I was thinking about making a Charm quilt ----no two pieces alike, featuring all the prints.

 

First I sorted them into lights, darks and mediums---the packs actually come pre-sorted, which is handy.

I thought about hexagons. Big hexagons. I calculated the largest hexagon I could fit in a 5" square and still have enough for the seam allowance. People tend to measure hexagons by the length of one side and these are 2-1/4". I found a pattern in EQ with a hexagon and fooled around until I got a hexagon that size. I printed a lot of them on freezer paper (I cut 8-1/4" x 10" sheets of freezer paper and backed them with regular paper so they could go through my photocopy machine.)

Then I ironed the freezer paper to the Charm squares

I used a glue stick and folded the fabric over the paper. I didn't trim it.

I used a clamp rather than pins (a trick I learned from Ann Kimble in a recent class on paper piecing) and whip stitched them together by hand.

I started off with the lights around a dark---6 for the first ring.

And then I added a ring of medium shades---12 for the second ring.

Where's that Dottie dog for scale?

These are big.

And then a ring of dark -18.

As I surrounded each piece I trimmed the extra fabric and removed the freezer paper. I didn't have to wet it as I used the glue sparingly. With a little tug it pops right out and you can re-use it several times.

Everybody who is addicted to hexagons has their favorite method. You might want to baste. You might want to buy pre-cut paper hexagons (they come with 2" sides or 2-1/2" sides---I'd go for 2".) You might want to machine stitch these together.

It's growing.

Uh,oh. At this point I noticed I had duplicates. I forgot that a charm pack often has duplicates. It's not a true charm quilt now, but what the heck.

Now I am thinking I will do a (sorta) Charm quilt with every piece of Morris reproduction fabric we've ever done at Moda. (And then there's a big box of Morris reproductions that WE didn't do.) This could be a king-sized quilt. They go together fast. There's a lot of basketball to watch so I need a lot of hand work.

Tomato Pincushions from Morris Prints

Here's how to make a tomato pincushion from William Morris reprints, a curious combination of high and low culture that will amuse you and your friends.

You will need:

William Morris reprint fabric---one 10" x 10" square or larger.

Thread and needles for hand sewing.

About a yard of a thick thread like Perle cotton or yarn with a tapestry needle that fits.

Stuffing---cotton, wool roving, rice, sand, etc.

Scraps of felt for decoration.

Buttons, beads for decoration.White glue.

I started with 10" squares, a stack of Layer Cakes from Morris & Company, my latest line from Moda. You need a rectangle of bias so I cut across the square. The rectangle needs to be the perfect rectangle with a length twice as long as the width---the most I could get from a 10" square was a rectangle 4-1/2" x 9". I don't think a perfectly true bias (true diagonal) is too important.

I saved the triangles for other projects.

I also had some yardage of other lines. I cut 6" x 12" rectangles too. The larger the rectangle the bigger the pincushion.

Fold the rectangle in half to make a square with the wrong side out. Stitch a seam 1/4" from the open end. 

Turn it right side out.

You've made a tube.

Gather one end of the tube with a running stitch about 1/8" from the edge.

Stuff it with fiber or other pincushion material. I like wool roving.

Then gather the other edge and make a ball by pulling the thread.

Flatten the ball into a tomato shape by threading a needle with a heavy thread like a Perle cotton. Put a knot in the top (leave the thread tail hanging) and draw the thread through the middle. Add a knot at the other end when you like the shape. Don't clip the thread yet. Make loops around the outside of the tomato to define the lobes. This one has 8 threads creating 8 lobes. You can do 6 or 5 too.

Tie off the thread and clip. You will have some gathering showing top and bottom. For the top I cut leaves of felt and added something decorative to cover the knots and gathers. I like the felt leaves for needle storage.

I cut some felt circles and flowers and glued or stitched them on a few.

I looked through the button box and found a covered button just the right shade of green. Beads work well too.

It's fun to personalize them. They make great gifts for your Arts & Crafts-loving friends.

I found another crafts project that Willy might approve of. It has birds. Click here:

http://simmy.typepad.com/echoesofadream/2007/05/more_owls.html 

Marianne Lettieri has made a flag out of antique tomato pincushions
http://www.mariannelettieri.com/Site/Works-1.html 

Would Willy B Pleased?

Around here we are always asking, "What Would Willy Do?" in regard to the William Morris reproductions. You know, he wasn't big on patchwork quilts. He wasn't even big on printed cottons---thought woven tapestries the way to go.

But the fabrics are so pretty that it's silly to be snobbish. It's tempting to make decorative items for the home and wardrobe: the Arts & Crafts Home and the aesthetic wardrobe.

Recently I spent a week in a room with eight fellow seamstresses and a Layer Cake package of Morris & Company prints. As the week wore on the ideas got better.

Annette Chavez Fountain brought her hot glue gun and made quite a few pins using the Kafflower pattern by Julie Creus of LaTodera.  Note the tiny tomato pincushion in the center---not of Morris fabric but a nice contrast to the medium and dark prints. See the pattern here:

http://www.latodera.com/ 

Helen Hodak surprised me with a Scottie pillow from  2-1/2" cut squares. Willy probably would have preferred dark brown rick-rack for the collar but we were miles from a notions store.

It looks good in the Arts & Crafts Home, here dropped into an Original Morris Chair in Photoshop.

And I figured out how to make tomato pincushions, which I will explain with pattern in the next post.

Morning Star

Georgann Eglinski, 2009

Made from A Morris Garden reproduction collection.

And I have created a Pinterest Board with quilts made from William Morris reproduction prints, like the quilt above. Check it out here:
http://pinterest.com/materialculture/quilt-william-morris/

One chair: Two dogs

Pink & Rose for Morris & Company

Pink and Rose was an 1891 wallpaper pattern designed by William Morris himself in his later years.

For the print in Morris & Company we did it as a monochrome print, a good foil for the multicolored, more dramatic prints like Wandle or Anemone. (But none of it is pink or rose-colored.)

Anemone..........Honeysuckle........Pink & Rose...Anemone

The pink---a carnation

Pink is an old-fashioned name for carnation (Dianthus),  a flower with pinked edges. Over the generations the word came to mean the pale red color of a popular carnation, so now we have pink pinks.

Pink carnation with pinked petals

Pinking shears

  

The rose in the print---a wild rose

See a piece of the original Pink & Rose wallpaper in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art by clicking here:

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/23.163.4a  

The print would make a good background for applique in the Morris style, adding another layer of pattern,as in this mockup I made of the intricate center block Michele Hill designed for her Friends quilt.

Or this motif from the My Renaissance sampler. Her two books William Morris in Applique and More William Morris in Applique offer much inspration.

See more about Michele's designs at an earlier post.
http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2011/01/michele-hills-more-william-morris.html 

Charm Pack Tree

I had a Charm pack of Morris & Company squares and a styrofoam cone so I decided to add a little William Morris to the otherwise tacky decoration scheme I am so fond of. I don't think Morris & Company decorated with polka-dot brandy snifters full of mini-disco balls, but the combination is pretty good.

The Charm Pack has 42 squares cut to 5". I sorted them into lightish and darkish (the pack actually comes pre-sorted in a way.) I folded each into a triangle and then again into a triangle so there is one raw edge. I pinned each to the cone with two pins. I started at the bottom and let them overlap the bottom of the cone so it wouldn't show.

I alternated rows of lights and darks and didn't do much in the way of math. Just layered. I wish now I'd had a cone with a pointy top.

Dot did not think much of the whole idea. She might be channeling for William Morris. I think that's exactly how he'd look at it.

When I got to the top I folded one square into a strip and pinned it around the top. I had a glittery pick (left over from a bouquet of pure tackiness) so I cut some wires there and stuck them in the top in frivolous fashion. I propped it up on a small antique saucer turned over and secured it with a little tacky stuff (the other kind of tacky.) But you could also burrow out a little hole in the base of the cone and stick a spool in there as a base too.

It's a gift idea for a quilter as she can unpin the pins and use the Charm squares and the pins.

You need

A Charm pack (42 squares 5" x 5") I had a few left over.

84 pins (2 for each square)

1 styrofoam cone about 13" tall

Some glitter for the top and a wire cutter

A base of a spool of thread (could be part of the gift) and some kind of removeable adhesive

GIVEAWAY

I have an extra charm pack and I will send it to someone who comments in the next 24 hours.

THE GIVEAWAY IS OVER.

TERR WON.

I DECIDED I WOULD USE A NUMBER FROM THE NEWSPAPER FOR MY RANDOM NUMBER---(I KNOW IT'S NOT REALLY RANDOM)

On the sports page the combined score in the Kansas City Chiefs upset of the Green Bay Packers yesterday was 33.

Congratulations to her and thanks for the comments. Dot loves to be called cute.