Hive #2--February Block Tutorial

Interview
What is your name? Abigail Cashelle

Where do you live? in the United States

Tell us about your family. I'm single 20-something girl. I grew up as the oldest of three girls in a fairly traditional evangelical Christian home.

Tell us about how you got interested in quilting. I've wanted to quilt for as long as I could remember. I remember going into my mother's crafting book stash and secretly reading pages on quilting that were in there. She had a Sunbonnet Sue book that I practically memorized. But I never actually started quilting until I started graduate school in 2011. By then, I had summoned up enough self-confidence to dare to learn to quilt without a teacher (or really knowing anyone who quilted.)

How do you organize your fabric stash? It's organized chaos really. I have a set of drawers with current works in progress, including projects that I have in my head but haven't even seen the light of day. I have a big box of fabric scraps that I've collected from various projects, from a sewing friend, and from remnant bins at various fabric stores. Then I have a box of stash fabric (not organized, just folded.) On top of all that, I collect vintage sheets, so I have a box of those, organized by color.

Who is/are your favorite fabric designers? For a while, I loved everything that Cosmo Cricket came out with. I love Sarah Jane's style and have used some of her prints here and there, primarily for baby quilts. Mostly I just love anything with a retro flair or that reminds me of someone that I'm quilting for.

What is one thing you have learned that you wish you knew when you first started quilting? I wish I realized how creative sewing is. I'm not an exact person (as you will come to find out), and so I always imagined that sewing would be impossible. To tell the truth, I am learning to be more exact, but I've also discovered that quilting has a tremendous amount of creativity and freedom to it. You don't have to follow a pattern to the hilt and there's no exact requirements for the length and width of a quilt. It helps if all your blocks are the same size, but if they're slightly off, people can't really tell once it's on a bed and definitely not when they're sleeping under it.

   

What is your favorite sewing/quilting tool and why should we all go out and buy it? It took me a while to hop on the washi tape craze, but it's come in really useful for quilting. I've used it to mark a 1/4" sew allowance on my sewing machine. I use it to tape my schematics to the wall or to tape the rest of a fat quarter package back together. It's super nice also to make those packages seem extra special when you're mailing a quilting gift to someone. Right now, I only have green washi tape, so it would be nice to have another color. But this girl quilts on a budget, so I tend to go for the basics. Plus I figure that if I'm frugal on the tools, I can spend more money on the actual materials!

Who is your favorite fictional character and why? I'm a huge Jane Austen fan. I've listened to Pride and Prejudice as an audiobook so many times that I have entire sections memorized. However, I still discover new things in it every day. To the high school English teacher who said that it was not a work of literary merit, I would have to say that that put it in a special category for me and made it one of the only books from high school that I still go back to all the time. I love all the movie/TV adaptations that I've seen, including the two BBC versions and the Kiera Knightley version. I think I like the Jennifer Ehlre/Colin Firth version. I'm a devoted fan of the Lizzie Bennet diaries; I love the way in which they've adapted the story to modern life and the ways in which they've interpreted the characters' personalities. I've read a ton of fan fiction but am not a fan of the zombie/vampire twists (simply because I avoid that genre altogether.)

A few other things to note about myself:
- I am a historian by trade. I specialized in the antebellum South (which means the era before the Civil War and the area where slavery was legal.) I'm fascinated by tradition and by modern adaptions of the traditional.
- I have a chronic illness which has had a fairly significant impact on my life. I'll be at a medical clinic undergoing more diagnostic evaluations for at least part of the month of February. Although I might be a little harder to get a hold of than usual, I'm really, really grateful for a distraction as preparing for the visit and even thinking about it has been kind of stressful (and scary). [My blog tells you much more about this journey.]

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The Quilt Tutorial
My first memory of a Polaroid camera is a Sunday School class when I was four years old. One of the teachers owned a Polaroid camera, and they would come up with crafts that involved taking a picture of each of the students. My four year old self loved the idea of instant photos and watching the photograph develop. In sixth grade, we spent at least one week in art class altering photos we took with a Polaroid camera. We discovered that if you used toothpicks or q-tips, you can draw rings of fire around your subject. The bride at the first wedding I attended as an adult used Polaroid cameras to take photos of the guests for her guest book. So lots of memories!! I'm excited about the possibility of a Polaroid quilt, one that can showcase some fun prints, can bust part of your stash, and can celebrate the past (and the present)!

 Keep in mind that Polaroids are not professional photos, so if your subjects are off to the side or partially cut off, it's part of the theme!! (I told you I wasn't exact.)

The final block will be 9.5" square (including seam allowances). Your block can showcase as many Polaroids as you like. I'm asking that your background fabric be at least 75% green or blue. Prints or solids both work; I just want to keep a color theme going.

All measurements are merely suggestions. If different sizes or ratios work better for your particular feature fabric or your 9.5" square block, be creative!!

1) Select a feature fabric. Find something that you can feature in your photograph. The broader the spectrum of choices, the more fun for me!! Cut out a square or a rectangle. My pears are about 3.5" by 4.5" plus seam allowances. The initial "A" is about 3 inches square plus seam allowances.

 

 2) Using a white or cream solid fabric, cut strips about 1" wide for three sides of your fussy cut piece. Sew the opposite sides to the piece and then sew the third side connecting them. 3) Cut another strip about 1.5" wide for the remaining side and sew that down.

   

4) Now you have a Polaroid (in fabric)! This is the perfect moment to square the edges if you want to. Decide at this point whether you would like to feature multiple Polaroids in your block. If you do, follow steps 1-3 for each Polaroid. (Keep in mind that if you're appliquing the second Polaroid on, you won't need as many seam allowances when you cut the strips of white/off-white fabric.)

5) Select a contrasting or complementary fabric for the background. It can be a print or a solid, but please make sure that at least 75% of the fabric is green or blue.

   

6) To add the background, add strips of fabric to two of the sides. Then add strips of fabric to the other two sides. I intend to cut these blocks at an angle with a final side of 9.5" square. If you make your blocks somewhat bigger (maybe 12" square-ish), that will give me enough room to manipulate my ruler.

   

7) To add a second Polaroid to your block, I would suggest appliquéing it to the block you completed in step 6. I used Steam-a-Seam to attach the "C" to my "A" block and then zigzag stitched it down with white thread. It could have been cool to use blue or orange thread although I didn't think about that until later.

   

 8) Please mail me your block without the final cut. Once I have everyone's block, I'll make the final decisions about angles and placement and then cut everything all at once.

   

Polaroids came in different sizes and shapes over the years, so draw your inspiration from your feature fabric. I've seen Polaroids taken with the thick edge off to the side. I've seen square and rectangular Polaroid prints. I've also seen mini Polaroids taken. Use this as an opportunity to celebrate the spontaneity of layman's art and don't be over concerned about the tiny details. Just make sure that I can actually fit my 9.5" square ruler over your whole block!! I'm so excited to see what you all come up with and I can't wait to put this whole quilt together. This is definitely a quilt design that makes more sense in a bee because it thrives on the diversity of stashes. Email me directly or post questions to Flickr if you run into trouble as you piece these blocks. Best wishes, Abigail P.S. Please be sure to use my name as it appears on the address list. It'll help the mailman get less confused!