Mini Bento Boxes

I started sewing up these little quarter log cabin squares.  This idea is from Modern Quilts Illustrated issue 2, a mini magazine with patterns, design ideas, quilty information all from Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr.  They are amazing designers and have great ideas to share.

The blocks end up at 3.5 inches square.

I sewed a 3/4 inch white strip to the sides and made an 8 x 8 square

Then I made more and added them along two sides with a white inclusion running through.

I think I'll make a whole bunch more and keep growing it bigger.  Perhaps as the "back" for this quilt. Curvy on one side, blocky on the other.

Lots of new quilt tops

Over the last month I've made lots of quilt tops, but haven't really got backs ready for them.  Here's a mostly picture post of what I've been working on.

Eggs

This egg quilt was inspired by a quilt on flicker that was inspired by a rug in a home decor catalogue.  I made rectangular blocks using one fat quarter of the Malka Dubrawsky print and some matching Kona yellow  and grey linen look print.

Low Volume

Then I tried a low volume version with a pastel lilac feature print and some linen and textured woven cotton and a coordinating Kona blue.  I'm not as pleased with it as the egg one, but once I sew the blocks together, I might like it more.   The egg blocks are 8 x 13 and the low volume are 12.5 x 9.5.  I think the long narrow ones are more dynamic than the more square ones.

 

Gees Bend Jeans

I finished off* my Gees Bend inspired jeans quilt.  I found my old black jeans and used them to make the last two blocks.  Over all, the complexity looks nice, but somehow it seems like a lot of unwashed jeans.  I used a rough cream coloured linen as the light fabric and that seems to add to the dingy dirty look.  I think I'll call this one "dirty hippies".

* by finished of, I mean I got the top done and have now lost interest.

Water

I selected a group of Japanese water prints for this Ringle and Kerr pattern called Stacks.  The prints are very watery with Koy fish, reeds, clouds and ginko leaves.  However when I cut them up, the prints lost their oomph.  I added the large squares of fabric along one side and set them off with wide background strips and I really love the asymmetry of the layout.  Now what to do for the back?

Sunny Side

 With my Gem 5 and Gem 10 rulers I made a huge sun for the back of the wonky star quilt

The rulers make it easy for everything to fit together easily.  The only tricky part was getting the sky blue cut so that it fit in easily.  The only Y seam was putting together the pentagon shape of the 5 identical triangles.  You can see them between each of the outside points.  Everything else, even the background blue was all straight seams.

 Here's the wonky star top that will be on the other side of the big sun.

Mustard and Blue

And here's a simple 7x7 grid of 2 inch squares with a few missing.  I'll make the back identical but will make the background colour Kona curry.  It's a lovely mustard colour that goes with everything.  I'll use the same civil war reproduction fabrics for the squares.  Maybe I'll set the little squares closer together and off set them on the quilt - like in a corner.  I hope the blue fabric doesn't look so two toned once I get it quilted.  I guess the direction of the weave is affecting the picture.

Gear

We did a "baggie of scraps" exchange/challenge at the last guild meeting.  I ended up with two baggies, so I started with the "extra" bag and had enough to make a big gear.  The gear is 17 inches across, so I think I'll make it into a cushion cover and piece together a striped binding for it.  Now that the piecing is done, I'm ready to move on.  ... must...finish...projects....

 My second bag of scraps is all muted oranges browns yellows and some greens.  No big ideas yet.

Trunk Show Part 5 - Small Quilts

Here's some odds and ends - small quilts that were tests of techniques or trial runs.

Face Quilts

I made a couple face quilts.  I had seen some like this on the internet and loved the simplicity and the big bold slabs of colour.

 I pieced in the lettering and love the "pokerface" expression.

This blue guy was without a back for a long time.  I made the back when we had a challenge to make a quilt that represents you - so I did my current hairstyle.

30's reproduction boxes

I love Kona solids.   Here I paired them up with 30's reproductions to make really simple blocks.  I like how the drop shadows give a great dimension to these ordinary blocks.  I made about 50 of these blocks, some with the solid on the outside, some with the solid on the inside.

 

Here's one for Katherine and a pillow for her sister Mollie.  They were next door neighbours.

And here one for Marissa, my Cousin's little girl

Notice I was still using tone on tone backgrounds here.  I hadn't fully embraced solids yet.

These are mini versions of a design by Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr

I tried it in orange on white, all blues and this one, blue on yellow.  When the next niece or nephew comes along, I'll put a back on it and give it away.  The blues are all Kaffe Fassett prints and so are all but one of the orange fabrics.

 

I was working with my colour wheel trying out complementary, analogous and triads for the bars between the orange fabrics.  It turns out there are no rules - everything works.   I had fun with the backs, using up the rest of the Kaffe Fassett prints.

 Japanese Quilt

This is a little test I made with some Japanese prints.  My friend Hisayo told me I shouldn't have mixed the seasons - there are plum and cherry blossoms, which are fine, but I shouldn't have included the chrysanthemums.  They are from a different season.  I'm finding out that the mustard-gold colour goes great with everything.  The colour is Curry from the Kona solids line.  Terry Ashe from the VMQG has used it in several quilts she has shown at the guild meetings, I have to thank her for introducing me to it.

Beach Ball Quilt

 I decided I was going to master insetting circles, so I made some circles and tried several tutorials and found out you just have to cut accurately and sew an accurate 1/4 inch seem and it works fine.  Most wrinkles can get ironed out and quilted out.

I put together wedges, then cut them into an off centered circle.  Then cut a hole in the background fabric exactly 1in. in diameter less than the circle.  When you sew it together with a 1/4 in. seam it will fit.  Since the circles looked like beach balls, I made the back like a towel we had that we used at the beach.  The "wrinkles" are on purpose.  If there's ever a niece or nephew needing a quilt, I'll finish this one.

Music of the Planets quilt

This little quilt is inspired by one of Dan of the Bay Area Modern Quilt Guild. A friend of mine found recordings made by the Voyager Space Craft as it passed by the planets.  It's not just static, there's chords, sustained tones, pops, booms, cool rhythms and unexpected changes.  I quilted vibrating lines between the planet's paths on this quilt.  One day I'll figure out what colour to bind it in and will get it finished.  One day...

The blue planets are made of squares from my box of left-overs from other quilts.  The big circle was too big for the front, so I put half on front and half on the back.  I inset the blue circles into the orange circles, then inset those into the background.  I still haven't decided how to quilt the blue areas. 

Two variations on a Ringle and Kerr design

Western Washington Quilt Shop Hop
I went down to the Western Washington Quilt Shop Hop In June with two friends, Lawanda and Ross.  Lawanda won a prize in one of the 4 stores we got to, and picked a magazine, Spring 2010 Quilts and More from Better Homes and Gardens, because she liked the quilt on the cover.  Later when I was going through the magazine, I realized that the quilt on the cover is designed by Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr, the authors of my favourite quilt book, the Modern Quilt Workshop.

Orange Variation
The quilt instructions are for a big queen size quilt, and I can never get ones that big quilted, so I halved all the dimensions and put together a quarter size quilt.  The quilt is designed to use big size prints, so even if each of my blocks was quarter sized, I used big Kaffe Fasset prints anyway.  I only used 4 patterned fabrics, 3 Kaffe Fasset, and the circle/dotted one that was actually designed for the Western Washington Quilt Shop Hop.  I was "auditioning" solids for the narrow separators and started with the orange in the middle rows (analogous).  Then I tried the green (triad), then the blue (complement).  I actually like them all, so I used them all.

Blue Variation
Then I found the quilt sore on Saltspring Island when I was there for a weekend visiting, and bought a stack of blue Kaffe Fasset fat quarters.  There was a bright pink Kona solid in the stack so I used that as the separator colour.  I had 7 different prints so there's one of each in each row.

I really like white as the background, so trying a blue is a stretch for me.

I have another stack of 12 rows with white separators that I thought I'd try on a yellow background.  I really like a blue and yellow combination - sort of French Provincial.  I used a little bit of the yellow for the binding on the orange quilt.

Backs
I just can't leave the back of my quilts unpieced, so here's what I did on these two.

The blue back is another Ringle and Kerr design.  The quilt on their site has 14 inch blocks, but I sized mine down to 8 inch blocks.  I cut most of the left over fabric into 2 inch strips then sewed them together into a long strip.  I sewed 4 inch white strips on both sides of the 2 inch strip, then cut it across into 8.5 inch squares. Fast and easy and not much planning, just let the coloured strips randomize themselves!

For the orange back, I used the left over fabric from the front.  I added white to the selvage edges to make the fabric the width of the front.  Then I sewed them  together with a strip of colour between each.  That looked too blah, so I sliced it vertically twice, rotated the centre piece 180 degrees, then sewed it back together with strips of colour between them again.