Tuesday 5 May 2009

Warning: it's only words!


Am I scaring you yet? I'm working on the word "boo" in different styles for Tonya, who is collecting a quiltful or two of Hallowe'en sounds from various bloggers for a future project. Usually I make weighted words about 2 to 2.5 inches (wider strip on side or bottom, sort of like the yellow boo at the left), but these are bigger and smaller than my usual font. The yellow one on white is about 5 inches high, using 2 inch and 3/4 inch strips. The black one on white uses only 3/4 inch strips.
The orange on black feature my biggest letters using 2 3/4 and 3/4 inch strips, and the "B" is five inches high. The two green ones (on white) are a bit crazy -- I cut the green and white 5/8, and the little white one is only an inch high for the "B". A nightmare of overlapping seam allowances from the back!
I also experimented with curved strip piecing, a technique pioneered by Winnipeg art quilter Marilyn Stewart Stothers (try her 1988 book by the same name on Amazon, but it's out of print. I've borrowed my mother's copy. Note: I just checked, and there's 15 used copies, starting at $5. Go and support a Canadian art quilter!) That same technique has since hit the ether and others have published on the technique, such as Debbie Bowles Cutting Curves from Straight Pieces, (2001). I'm happy with how it turned out, but it does take lots more fabric. I'm thinking about posting a tutorial, but I warn you, it's fussy and a bit tricky if you've never done any curved strip piecing before.


And just to show the contrast between the font styles above and wonky letters, here's my blog name in (you guessed it) scraps and strings. These letters are about 3 to 3.5 inches high, and I didn't put spacer strips between because of the contrast between the letters.
Here's everything on my wall. Which do you prefer?

20 comments:

laura said...

Now I remeber what it was like in penmanship in 3rd grade, there was always that one girl who's cursive writing was just perfect and made yours look like chicken scratch! Boo-tiful work!

Donna said...

I had great fun making curved letters during one of Tonya's classes, didn't get them very small, but loved the effect. I then found myslef personifying the letters -- adding eyes etc. Somehow the curvey letters have so much character in my mind...

YankeeQuilter said...

I'm with Quit Pixie...the curved Boo grabbed my eye right away! The little thin green one is great too...I hate making decisions!

Great job...you could just do a Boo quilt!

Clare said...

I like the little ones. How about a block made up with them?

Tonya Ricucci said...

wow, i love all of them. what a hoot. so much fun to see letters I'd never have thought of making. thank you so much!

Mary Johnson said...

I love the all -- the scrappy ones are great but the Boo ones look really fun too...I like that they're all different.

Quiltdivajulie said...

I like the variety ~ and the BOO words are GREAT!!

PrairiePeasant said...

I like the bolder closer spaced ones--they speak "boo" to me more! The gold caps and the orange lower case, and if you added little button pupils in the "o's" you'd have little eyeballs staring at you in the dark!

Tracey in CT said...

They all look great to me, and you are so quick! I'm glad to see you mention Debbie Bowles' book because I'm doing HISS and going to make the letters (or at least some of them) look like snakes...and I was figuring that I would use the curvy strip piecing like in Debbie's book, so now that you mention it, I feel like I am on the right track.

Joyce said...

I like the curved one. I must get back to letters soon and try the curves. I'd love a tutorial.

Sara said...

YES! The curvey green one. That really lloks like "BOO" to me.

Janet said...

I like the curvy green "boo"

Cher said...

are you kidding? they are all great and wonderful and such fun! thanks for the reference- curved piecing is on my soon to do list!

Bebesboutique said...

Thank you for sharing about the book on curve seams at Amazon I will be check that out. I like the curvey letters. So are you makeing a Boo quilt?

Rosalyn Manesse said...

Boo Hoo to you! so cute!

jovaliquilts said...

GREAT!! I had such fun looking at these and deconstructing them in my mind to figure them out. Do post a curved letter tutorial, what fun that would be.

Dionne said...

I really love them all! You've just gone to town with 'Boo' I LOVE it! Really the black, background is very stunning.
Cheers,
Dionne

Karen said...

I've been viewing words on lots of blogs the last few days. All very interesting!

Blogless me said...

I like the curvy ones. Recently I attended a workshop on doing patchwork with wavy lines, so letters would be something to try it out on.

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