Mod Mosaic Workshop

I've been asked by other Lower Mainland quilt guilds to give workshops.  Actually, I've been asked to give trunk shows to 4 quilt guilds around Vancouver, and out of them was asked to do two workshops.  The Ridge Meadows Quilt Guild asked me to do a Mod Mosaic workshop on a Saturday.

Here's the blocks they created.

 

Then we tried some layout and background colour ideas.

 

These blocks were really bright and kid-like so the bright background works well.

 

These blocks were made from a fabric-by-the-pound sale.  How come I never find find good scraps like this?

 

These blocks are made from some really high quality flannel.  I don't think we actually decided on a background fabric.  On the lower left of the big block you can see where the grout fabric was one of the flannels, but didn't really stand out enough, so she switched to the cream.

 

This red and turquoise conbo really looks good against a tomato red.

 

Although these blocks are red and gray, they really popped on this orangy red fabric.

 

These brown and blue blocks will become a bag with the medium blue filling in between.

Elizabeth Hartman's Mod Mosaic technique can be found on her blog (Oh Fransson) by following the link.  I find that most people don't use scraps, so start by cutting one strip from each fabric you will be using.  I cut strips 3 inches wide, 3.5 inches wide, 4 inches, 4.5 inches and 5 inches.  So each fabric's strip is a different width.  These strips are wide enough so you can cut across it to produce blocks from 2 inch to 8 inch to use.  As soon as you use up a strip, cut another one, but at a different width from the one you just finished.

This was a really fun workshop to do and the process is surprisingly complicated.  I had no idea how many blocks each person would be able to make in a day, so was relieved that everyone ended up with 4 or more.  The biggest challenge was for the "planners" who tried to design each block.  I kept trying to get them to loosen up and just grab any strip to add to the block.

The other trick to this technique, is remembering to sew the grout strip between each piece.  And once you sew a grout strip on to a piece, you are committed to sewing onto the other side of the grout before adding elsewhere to the block.  If you don't you end up with 2 grout lines together...

... or a piece with no grout.

Vancouver Modern Quilt Challenge - Mod Mosaic

First of all, most of the pictures in this post are from the amazing Sonja at artisania.

At the January meeting of the VMQG, I showed off the two pillows I made for Hisayo.  She's been waiting patiently for months for me to finally get these done.

DSC_0260, a photo by sonjaartisania on Flickr.

The first one was really fiddly to make as I cut 2 inch strips, put one inch strips of yellow on either side, then lopped the top and bottom at an angle, sewed yellow strips on the bottom, then squared them up at an angle so they were all tippy.  The end product sort of looked like bamboo as there were lots of joints and sections.
The matching pillow - but different pattern -  is from Oh Fransson!'s tutorial for the Mod Mosaic Floor Pillow. 

DSC_0104, a photo by sonjaartisania on Flickr.

It's a great technique for loosening up and improvising, so I worked it up as the challenge for the VMQG. Our VP Louise had donated a huge bag of fabric she had cut for a quilt that she hadn't put together, so I thought it was a perfect use for all her great red and black fabric.

Here's what came back over the next 2 months!  Wow!

DSC_0540, a photo by sonjaartisania on Flickr.

I took them all home and have put them together.  It reminds me of what might be the street plan for the old town of Zanzibar.  I recall wondering around for ever trying to find the guest house and feeling really lucky each time I did find it. 

These are my pictures now (you can tell by the abysmal quality I'm not in the same league as Sonja).

 

It's all sandwiched and pin based and ready to quilt.  I've got two weeks till the next guild meeting so there's not much time to decide how to quilt it.

 

The back was inspired by a couple extra blocks that were much different from the rest.  I made a bunch more blocks once I had a plan.  The bottom area is for the members of the VMQG to sign in so we have a roster of members for the year 2011.  Not everyone did a block, but I think everyone should sign it.

Here's a last picture to show how I put the back together.  I laid it out so it looked good, then I shifted the blocks a bit so I could get some big blocks with straight lines across the quilt.  That's the yellow lines.  The green dashed lines show the segments in each of the big blocks.

My stack of UFOs

I'm the type of quilter that loves piecing, but hates quilting.  This means my stack of UFOs just keeps getting bigger and bigger.  Out of the 10 quilt tops that are laying around, I've got a stack of 8 that I'm determined to - I don't want to say finish so how about - crack, attack, make a stab at.  Here are 4 of them.

New Wave
This one is a "New Wave" quilt from Oh, Fransson!  I went literal and made it from Hawaiian prints I got in Hilo several years ago.  It's a poly blend so it sort of feels icky, which means I lost interest once I got it to this stage.  It's near the top of the stack to get done so I can post it in Oh Fransson!s flicker pool.

Crazy Nine Patch Lattice
The next on is also an Oh, Fransson! pattern too, the Crazy Nine Patch Lattice Quilt.  This one's in the greens that my big half square triangle quilt is done in. 

I sort of regret the light green squares in between the lattice.  I may end up replacing them with a darker colour or maybe a crisp white.  That pale green is a "lost opportunity".  I got that phrase from the "Modern Quilt Workshop" book by Ringle and Kerr.  They use that phrase about choosing your binding.  A safe or boring binding is a lost opportunity to make the quilt spectacular.

Sock Monkey Gallery
This one features some sock monkey print that I really like.   I framed the little fussy-cut monkeys in white, then added a wide floral mat then a blue or gray frame to make this quilt a gallery of finely framed monkeys.  Classy and silly.

VMQG Challenge 1

Challenge 1 from the VMQG
The last one for today is a challenge quilt from the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild.   The guild has been meeting for 2 months now and I volunteered to come up with a challenge for the first meeting.  I had bought other colours of the sock monkey fabric, so I fussy cut 40 monkeys and supplied a strip of white to frame it.

The challenge was to improv piece from your own stash around the monkey fabric to come up with a 12.5 inch wonky block.  We got 28 blocks back at the next monthly meeting with a promise of another 10 for the upcoming meeting.  We laid out all the blocks and tried to figure out how to divide them into sets that would go together.  We sent 12 ones that had a polka dot fabric theme with a guild member to put together.  I took the rest home and put this one together.  Since there was really no rhyme or reason to try to match the blocks, I ended up pulling out the 4 lightest coloured blocks and was left with all the darker ones.  I had used a drop shadow effect on a baby quilt and tried it out again.  I think it works well on the blocks that have a solid colour frame around it (bottom 2 rows), but sort of gets lost on the ones that have busy edges (top 2 rows).

photo by Sonja Callaghan

Once the rest of the blocks come in, I may put some on the back of this one if there's extras.

Here's the blocks and their creators from the August meeting of the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild.  I'm at the back left with two blocks.

My Personal Quilt Challenge

Here's my challenge. I'm going to finish one quilt a month until all the tops I've got stacked up are quilted.

This blog is where I'm going to monitor my progress.

I think I have about 15 quilt tops stored in various boxes and in various piles just waiting to be quilted. Some have been there for 12 years now. The oldest is probably a pinwheel one I made from all my dress shirts that I cut up when I quit my job at the Royal Bank. The newest is from yesterday when I tried to figure out how to do Oh, Fransson!'s chopped vegetables block.

I took my friends Ross and Lawanda to the Ladner Quilt and Car Show (you know something for the ladies and something for their husbands). Nothing spectacular there quilt-wise, but I ran into Paula from the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild, and she mentioned that another guild she was in did a UFO (un-finished objects) challenge. It goes something like this. Everyone takes a photo of an unfinished object and "registers" it with the guild for 5 dollars. You register as many UFOs as you want. Then you have a date about 3-6 months down the road to get all your UFOs finished. For each UFO one you finish, you qualify for a prize or are put in a draw for fabulous prizes.

Here's the first big UFO that I have finished since joining the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild.
My inspiration came from buying a great bundle of half yards in green on Etsy. While on vacation, I added more greens and ended up with about 10 different fabrics. I added in three solids - two greens and one orange, since 5 of the fabrics had a bit of orange in them.

I really like the regimented repeating triangles in this layout. I think it makes the quilt look very graphic and modern.

I like making the backs inter-esting, so I do some piecing there too. Usually it's a lot more free form, but this one I drew out and had to keep calculating how many hst I would need for each diamond. I spaced them out and made several sizes of diamonds for the back and am very pleased with how it turned out.

I call the quilt Half Square Triangle Variations 2010.