Colouring In - what a wonderful pastime

I was talking with Chris who is just about to begin her Raconteur journey....nothing in particular and lots about this and that. You all know how conversations have a tendency to wander. Keeps ones interest, or checks if they are paying attention :0

Anyway whilst typing up a response I had a thought.... perhaps Chris can quilt. I know that is a skill I'm lacking in and it does affect my designs at times. Well I picked up the idea that perhaps Chris could do more than a mean walking foot and so decided to try out an alternative border plan.

Rather than framing each collection in the same colour/fabric if the separate bands took in both sides of the outer border strip it would allow someone with some quilting skills a wider strip to work with. I did a quick colouring of the layout sketch for king size layout and the theory looks good. Wonder what it would be like in real life. Ah so many ideas and so little time.

Layouts- How Many Blocks? Post 2

What is a layout? 

Ok firstly a quick summary here is terminology that I regularly use when talking about 
Raconteur - The Storyteller's Collection (aka RSC)  This is the original quilt with 363 blocks joined together into 59 collections
A block is a single miniature hexagon
A collection is a set of seven miniature hexagons joined together and framed to make a larger hexagon.
A half collection is a pair of two elongated miniature hexagons joined together and then two fillers are added. This is then all framed to make a larger half hexagon that is used along the edge.
A corner collection is a single elongated miniature hexagons joined together and then two fillers are added. This is then all framed to complete the corner blocks.
A layout is a bed size quilt. Layouts are available for lap quilts, single, double, queen and king size quilt.
Raconteur 141 is the enlarged version of RSC. No one has yet finished this quilt so I can't honestly tell you how many blocks or collections there are in this quilt, but I will tell you what my computer tells me.

Now to the follow-up post...how many collections do you need?

First let's revise calculations for the original Raconteur quilt. If you look here you can see my photoshop efforts to show you the wallhanging, lap quilt, single bed quilt and double bed quilt
The individual blocks have a side length of 2 1/4in, while the large collection is 7 1/8in.
By my calculations, and Photoshop/Illustrator's help the number of collections and blocks that you would need are

• wallhanging - seven collections which is 49 blocks
• lap quilt - 17 collections which is 99 blocks
• single bed quilt - 27 collections equalling 157 blocks
• double bed quilt - 33 collections which is 199 blocks
• queen size quilt - 45 collections which is 271 blocks. There are two different layouts offered for this size
• king size quilt - 59 collections which is 363 blocks.
  Personally I would change the king size layout and make it with 61 collections, one row longer but one row narrower. To do this you could make extra blocks of those you enjoy or simply hang around long enough for me to make a few more blocks and then I will send these out to you.
  Carol has made three of her own original blocks and I have made another collection so she is only four blocks short on the better number for king size.

By the way all of the layouts include instructions for putting your quilt together along with the quilting designs which I used on the original quilt. There are line drawings showing you different layout options and allowing you to work out your own colour layout so you don't end up with the wrong size and colour arrangement (like I did). Colouring pencils are a simple to use tool which when used with a line drawing of the layouts allows you to decide the colour frames if you intend to do a design such as say Grandmother's Flower Garden.
Once I am organised the different layout options will contain all of the options up to and including the one that you are making, so it is easy to make a smaller one :)

Next we talk specifically about the Raconteur 141 Collections.
When joined the seven collections should have a theoretical height of 20in and width of 17.5in, note these figures came out of a computer drawing and through real life sewing I have found they could be out by up to 1/2in which I figure isn't enough to worry about. For some reason, when I sew things the size is never exactly what the computer tells me it should be but it has always been such a minuscule amount I haven't worried about it.

141 Single Bed Layout	141 Double/Queen Layouts
141 King Layout - option 1	141 King Layout - option 2

I haven't actually made up these quilts and you may find that when you lay out the blocks it is better to make more blocks and go either one block wider or one block longer. Nothing beats actually looking at the blocks laid out together to decide what is the best way to go.

By my calculations, and Illustrator's help... no help available this time from Photoshop:( the number of collections and blocks that you would need are

• wallhanging - seven collections which is 49 blocks
• lap quilt - I couldn't get this to look right, or to something I was happy with so it will need to be a trial and experiment affair if you are making this size.
• single bed quilt - 12 full collections and four half collections equalling 92 blocks. This gives a design area or approximately 52in x 80in and then you would need to add borders.
• double and queen size bed quilts - 18 full collections and 4 half collections which is 134 blocks. This gives a design area or approximately 70in x 80in and then you would need to add borders.
• king size quilt (option 1) -  although this one should be the best by calculations it doesn't 'look right' and so I worked out option 2
• King size quilt (option 2) - 27 full collections, four half collections and two corner collections, which is 199 blocks. This gives a design area or approximately 86in x 95in and then you would need to add borders. To balance the appearance for this size an extra row had to be added longer than the bare mattress length.

Sorry about this being such a long post but there was a lot t0 say....and I like to talk.

Layouts - How Many Blocks? Post 1

As this is becoming such a long post I have decided to split it into two. This first post discusses things that need to be decided upon when making any quilt, not just Raconteur 141, or even Raconteur - the Storyteller's Collection.

C6 Crystal Dreams

Some things that effect the number of blocks can be

1. colour arrangement - my original Raconteur quilt should have had one extra row but because of how the frame colours were laid out it meant I had to change too many of those for the colour pattern to lie as I wished. I had had enough of the quilt and so I left it. I could have planned the colour arrangement well before the five year mark..talk about leaving things for the last minute. Planning could have been done with just pen and paper.
2. the amount of overhang you like - mattress heights vary not only in different countries but also throughout one country. Now in Australia there are three different mattress heights. I have one quilt which now fits perfectly on our bed since our new mattress has a greater height than the previous one. Previously the quilt touched the floor. There are also available different height castors to raise or lower a bed height.
3. still to do with the amount of overhand is whether you want some of your design to go over the sides or if you only want it on the top of the bed. I like my design to go over the sides so I don't have to spend forever getting the quilt to lie just right so that the design is centred.
4. the number of blocks you want to make - there are seven blocks in each collection and sometimes you just reach  the limit of how many blocks you want to make. I had about thirty blocks leftover when I called it a day on my layout so I only needed to make another 12 blocks and I could have had the row I needed...such is life
5. the size of the borders -  I don't have a preference for border size. My method is to finish the quilt and then try different size borders until I find what suits the quilt. This does have a major downside in that some of my quilts turn out decidedly bigger than I originally wanted but such is life at least it looks balanced, in my opinion that is.

I will write up the next post later today if I get the chance, or else tomorrow and then post it with the calculations etc.

Design Layout Thoughts - colour & quilting

Well here you have an uncropped collection. Along the top of the photo you can see the fillers that I used to level off the top and bottom sides of the quilt. These were left overs from another quilt and when I had run out of ideas as to what to do for Raconteur,  I remembered these. I actually have over two hundred of these triangles as the original quilt turned out to be a real flop...even though the triangles, (well diamonds in truth as I was making a lone star quilt) looked great.

The collections are set out in the Grandmother's Flower Garden setting with each subsequent circle of petals having a different frame (outer) colour. Red, green, red, blue and red again. There should have been a red outer border but I couldn't find one to suit when I reached that stage. The green border that I chose unfortunately doesn't focus your eyes on the colour plan, which is a shame considering that I had to redo several of the frames when I made the quilt to get the colour sequence that I wanted. Oh well we love and learn.

The quilting in the collections isn't obvious since it is merely ditch stitching around the feature fabric in each individual block and then on both sides of the small borders. This was all completed before the collections were joined together. I had no quilting in the dark outer borders (called frames so as to avoid confusion in the notes, between the little block borders and the collection borders:)
Every collection was completed and quilted and then they were all joined together. It would have been impossible to quilt the whole quilt any other way...particularly with my skill level..or lack thereof.