Wednesday, October 2, 2019

Perfect esses

Hi everyone, and greetings from the hot zone. I think someone forgot to tell the weather that it's October, because it's going to be 95 today and I am so done with it. I want to pack away the summer clothes but I don't dare. As soon as I do, you know it will hit 100, right?

Down in my nice cool sewing room (which is still an absolute mess, though I did get new light bulbs so now I can see the mess) I've been working on making some letters. Yes, including some esses, though I'll bet that some of you thought I misspelled that word in the headline. (This is not a political blog!) Here are my fun letters:


I can definitely read that word! And look-- the esses, which have been the worst letters ever for me to make, turned out great! I might go back and "clip" the other corners in them just to soften them a little more, but they definitely look like they should. I am so pleased.


You can see that I also remade one of the Ns. It just didn't look right, so I pulled it out and made another. I saved the first one, though, and I might use it somewhere else.


I struggled with some of these letters quite a bit, and then I finally gave in and bought Lynne Tyler's Liberated Letters tutorial. It helped so much. It was like taking a class, and then it just clicked. And look at that S!  (You can get the tutorial HERE. Totally worth the price.)

Now that I put it all together into a banner, I'm not sure that I want to keep it that way or if I want to break it up or otherwise arrange the letters differently. I know that I'm going to hang this in my office with the little Joy quilt and the banner is awfully long. I'm too lazy to go get the actual measurement, but it's more than 18 inches. I have this idea that I'll hang several of these mini words together, so a long one could go at the top, but maybe I'd rather have it be more square. Not sure. Requires more thought!


These letters are really fun to make, and they do go together pretty quick. I pulled out the string jar and used those, but it does take a *lot* of the background fabric. And it makes a fun mess, too. I was in such a great mood after those successful esses that I started another word in a different "font." Hey, if you're going to play, play! Anyone want to guess what the next word is?

Hope you're all having a great week so far and haven't melted away. Seriously, a cool breeze would feel great right now, wouldn't it?

11 comments:

Jo said...

I love making baby ABC quilts. They are so much fun.

KaHolly said...

You did a great job! Smitten with the look of improv letters, I jumped right in, but after making a few, I realized it wasn’t my thing. Sometime, I should make another attempt because they are pretty cool!

Millie said...

Good job! Nice esses! You did a great job keeping them the same size too! Thanks for the shout-out! I put a lot of work into that tutorial and I am glad you found it useful and worthy. I made the word TURQUOISE once, and then next I made VERMILION and then AUBERGINE. I thought it was funny I made three long words and then counted the letters. Each word had 9 letters so I decided to keep going. My words were each about 34" long! And yes, you do use a lot of background fabric. That's why I use WOWs (white on whites) interchangeably, and at random. Makes the quilt fun.

Could your next word could be HOPE?

Hugs,
Lynne

(Millie is the cat)

Laura said...

What a fun project! The office is a great place to display encouraging words! :)

Home Sewn By Us said...

Hi Mari! I can see why you remade that "N". It seems like the first one would have been too short, with that strip at the top. Anyway, I love your esses for the day - I knew right away what you meant! ~smile~ Roseanne

piecefulwendy said...

Fun seeing this take shape! We had a hot day here on Monday, followed by cool, crisp air, and rain. I love the cooler temps. The rain? Not so much!

MissPat said...

We set a new record high of 88 degrees yesterday, here in Rochester, NY, but frost is forecast this weekend in the higher elevations south of the city. I haven't done any letter blocks since I made one of my early quilts, an alphabet quilt, for my nephew 25 years ago.
Pat

Kate said...

I'm with you on the desire to see some lower temps. That's supposed to happen today, with highs in the 60s on Friday. Love your word projects, those are going to make nice wall hangings for your office.

Rose said...

I'm so glad you're back in blog land more frequently.

QuiltGranma said...

next word... Home, Hope, Hop-to-it...?

JanineMarie said...

Oh, my, that tiny purple block on the mums! Perfect! I love mums, but I’m a terrible mum keeper. So this year, I stuck with pumpkins. No need to water. So I will enjoy any mums you care to show us. You have really hit your stride with the improv letters. Your office is going to be really inspirational.