For my Orlando Pulse quilt, the intention is to have a heart
for each of the 49 victims of the tragedy.
The front of the quilt will be 6 columns of 8 blocks each, which adds up
to 48 (and magically, it takes 6 colors to make a rainbow, another major element
needed in this quilt, so there are 8 blocks of each of the 6 colors). But I need another block. And
don’t want to favor any one color over any other. I’ve been interested in selvage quilting for
a while, and this seems a good opportunity to do it.
Photo of plain colored heart next to selvage heart:
I considered the possibility of positioning the selvages in
a way so that it would appear they were curving around the edges of the heart,
but to start with, the hearts called for by the initial Orlando Modern Quilt
Guild request were squared off, no curving pieces required. But on top of that, because there are 6
colors of selvages (and 6 colors in the rainbow), to try to turn it into a
curved piece where one color was at the center and the others radiated out from
it, would necessarily mean much less of the color in the center and more of the
color around the perimeter. I decided to
do it as if I were simply replacing one of my rainbow single-color fabrics, and
using the selvages to create a pieced stripe fabric.
I cut two 5 & ½ inch x 10 & ½ inch strips of one of
my white-on-white fabrics to use as a base, and lined my 6 selvages up in order
of rainbow color. Because they are
selvages, there is a large portion of each selvage strip that’s taken up with brand
name, color dots, and other information that identifies the type of fabric, the
designer, the store it came from, and the colors used. One would think this would be good
information to use to match and find the same fabric in the future if I ever
need it again, but my favorite fabric store owner, whose “colors in quilting”
class I took last week, assures me that these days the designs of the fabrics
are changing so rapidly that it would be near impossible to find additional
sources of a fabric just by keeping the selvages. Still... I’m sure the manufacturers have a
reason for putting all this information on the selvages, probably something
involving identifying it in their own inventory, and customers who use fabric
have spent centuries slicing off the selvages before sewing (because either the
thicker weave of the selvage or the interruption of the pattern and color would
ruin our projects).
Quilters have a tradition of trying to be frugal about
fabrics, so it makes sense that modern quilters would look at the selvages as
we tossed them in the wastebasket and wonder if they couldn’t find a way to
make use of them in a modern pattern… Selvage projects are becoming en vogue,
so of course I had to try it.
But the odd coloring of the edge of the selvage means that
my rainbow will be oddly mottled… Still, rather than abandon the idea, I carry
on. I take 22 inch strips of selvage from
each color, and sew them onto my base fabric, one at a time, approximately a
quarter inch from the cut edge. The
un-cut edge will not fray, so I need now sew it just yet. I intend for it to show and I don’t need a
line of stitching showing down every strip of the stripe… so for now, I’m just
sewing each piece down by it’s cut edge, lapping the selvage edge over far
enough that IF I choose to tack it down later, it will cover the stitching from
the previously placed selvage. I finish
attaching each of the 6 selvages (in rainbow order… ROYGBV) to the base fabric,
and slice the two bases apart, cutting through the 22 inches of selvage at the
halfway point. This makes strips that
are a half inch bigger than necessary, but that’s not really a problem. THIS heart does not need to fit in a row or
column of similarly sized hearts. It is
EASIER to complete the task if I cut if back by another half inch to make my
selvage pieced “fabric” just the same 10 & ½ inches that all the other
heart halves are… but it’s not a problem if I choose not to do it that
way.
Before I go further, I have to decide, which part of the
heart will be the middle? I audition the
blocks by putting them together each possible way, just laying the white
background down on top in a way that approximates the final heart, and I take a
photo with my cellphone. Then I switch
the blocks around and re-position the background pieces, and take another
photo. Looking at a photo often
clarifies an issue. You no longer see
the waves and threads and strips wehre it’s not quite sewn perfectly, you see
it closer to the way it will look when it’s finished. Before access to easy photos, quilters would
put their fabric on a wall and step back, or maybe squint at the different
options, to see which they liked better.
With cameras in all of our cellphones these days, it’s easier… we can
snap photos and put the photos next to each other to make the choice.
PHOTOS of selvage heart auditions:
Look at my options.
In one photo, I’ve put the Violet part of the rainbow in the center, in
the other, I’ve put the red part in the center.
My informal survey of the people sewing around me at my Friday afternoon
quilting gathering, was a tie vote. And
I could not decide which I liked better.
But I ended up choosing to put the red in the center, as this is the
color of the blood spilled from the hearts of the 49 people who died in Orlando
at Pulse.
Slicing off the triangles:
My intention has always been to piece the back of this
quilt. We’ll see what I come up with.
My choices are starting to expand as I move forward in
creating these hearts. You see as I finished
putting together each heart half, I piled them up, choosing to do all the cutting
& sewing at once, and then trim the excess threads (so they don’t show
through the white side of the fabric on top of the batting once it’s quilted), trimming
off the excess part of the squares (since the heart form only needs the
triangle to remain and leaving all that excess fabric inside the quilt is
unnecessary and would make it lumpy), and press the hearts so that I can take
the next step of sewing the halves together, all at the same time. Pressing is a job I don’t enjoy, but the
results are so wonderful that I don’t skimp on it.
Photo of ruler ready to slice off some triangles:
Still, I don’t enjoy it, so I delay it as long as
possible. I spent a few HOURS trimming
off triangles. This seems a good moment
to show how easy it is to line a good ruler up with the stitches and trim off
the excess on a project like this. My
ruler has little quarter inch lines at each edge, and you just put that line on
the seam, with the open edge hanging in the direction of the stuff you’re
cutting off, then run the rotary cutter up the edge. Easy peasy… If you’ve done a better job than
I have, and managed to attach the little squares with perfect diagonal seams,
you can even accomplish the slicing of all 3 little triangles off of every
heart half, without spending much time on the repositioning of the ruler. But if you’re like me, and your seams aren’t
all perfectly straight, just match up the top & bottom of each seam, and
make sure the middle doesn’t bow out for you to slice through (you need the
stitching to actually still be there once you’re finished taking off the
triangles) and then slice.
We end up with a BUNCH of little triangles. Some that are about 5 -5 & ¼ inches on
the legs (right angle isosceles triangles, if you remember your high school
geometry, we’ve basically cut a 5 & ½ square diagonally down the middle,
leaving ¼ inch for the seam). Others are
about 1 & 1/4 inches to the legs, also isosceles, also right angles.
It occurs to me that I might have little triangles of colors
to pop into the backing of this quilt.
It could be a wonderfully symbolic idea… the pieces from the hearts on
the front of the quilt, shattering and creating entirely new designs on the
back. Hopefully beautiful designs. We’ll see.
It’s an idea. The smaller
triangles even seem a little too small to use, but sometimes a very small pop
of color inserted into an otherwise white or beige background can be more
powerful than large splashes of color, more pleasing to the eye… and I can’t
resist the opportunity to use the little pieces of the hearts from the front of
the quilt.
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