Update on Kshreya's Quilt

Here's Kshreya on her quilt.  What a cutie she is!  At this point she has her dad's hair, but hopefully it will grow in.

I quilted it with one off-centred spiral each line about an inch apart.  I was thinking of doing two spirals that overlapped, but it felt the right amount of softness after just one, so I stopped. 

Kamya's quilt:

Here's the quilt I made for her sister, Kamya, about 5 years ago when she was this size.  It's very traditional and I used 30s reproduction fabrics and a white-on-white background.  I think what keeps it from being entirely traditional, is although I used sashing and borders, they are all the same background colour, which makes the pinwheels float on the quilt rather than being boxed in.

And here's the back.

 

Don't tell Kamya, but I was using up fabric that I didn't really like that much for the back.  Now, I probably would have used solids for a punch of colour.  I do like the off-set stripes and that the pin-wheels aren't in the centre.  And I notice they are spinning in the opposite direction and I got 5 rather than 4 across.  I wonder if these were planned or accidental.  The quilt has an all over stipple with curves about the size of a quarter.

Common Threads Indigo Quilt Project

Sheila and Elsie from the VMQG invited me to join their church group in creating quilted banners for their church's Parish Hall.  More about the project here: http://common-threads-125.tumblr.com/about/
A couple months ago I got in on two days of indigo dying that was fascinating.  I did some stitching on fabric, then pulling it tight to gather the fabric then putting it in the indigo pot.  I also did some clamping and some shibori where you wrap the cloth around a wide pipe, scrunch it down so it's all wrinkled, then put the pipe in the indigo pot.  You get a nice watery look.

Then after weeks of dying, I returned to collect my banner panel template.  That's the paper on the left.  You can see the red swoosh drawn in and the rules were dark on the bottom, light on the top.  I collected some light fabric and lots of dark and mediums.  There were lots of linens, some of them quite thin or very thick.  They were very hard to work with and I'm a bit worried that a seem or two might come apart over the years.  The hardest was a piece of velvet that would not stay still when you tried to sew a quarter inch seem.  Those 6 pieces are very puffed up and 3 dimensional, so I'll leave them un-quilted.

 I wanted to do something with my big wedge ruler, like the big wheel quilt I did earlier, but more inprovised and explosive looking.  I got the OK to make the red part pixelated, not smooth, and got the OK to make the centre of the circle red, so here's what I did.  It's sort of an explosion, or the sun, or creation.  This panel is one that's on the east wall of the hall, so maybe it's sunrise.

It was not easy getting it to lay flat.  I actually had to sew in some darts on the edges to reduce the ruffles.  There's still one that's bugging me, but I think I can fold it and quilt along the fold to hold it down.

The back has some wedges that are off-cuts that hung over the edges of the template when I squared it up.  The white wedge is for the label.

Hopefully I'll have it quilted by the end of the week.

Low Volume Quilt

I got the top of this quilt mostly put together at the sew-in in Surrey.  Amy arranged a sew-in with the Fraser Valley Modern Quilt Guild and the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild in Surrey, half way between the two guilds.  I made the blocks months ago.  I got Felicity to show me her technique for sewing blocks together once you have decided on the layout order.  You end up sewing blocks together and not cutting the joining threads.  Eventually you end up with the rows connected, but dangling below each other by the threads, then you iron the seams, then sew the rows together.

I used one fat quarter of the featured print, a matching blue, and 3 coordinating neutrals. It's a very low volume quilt except the blue.  Maybe I should have gone for a lighter blue.  I generally improvised each block, going with either blocks or strips, making each different.  Not all blocks have the featured print.

I have extra of most of the fabrics, so I may just make 3 giant blocks in the same style for the back.

It's a companion piece to this quilt that I blogged earlier.

I got off the waiting list and am now going to take a fabric dying workshop with Malka Dubrawski, the designer of the yellow print, at Quiltcon!  I'm so excited.  How am I going to travel with a cardboard box, a paring knife, a potato, a carrot, a green pepper and a stick of celery?  That's what's on the supply list for the workshop!

Finished my Gees Bend style Dirty Laundry Quilt

I actually made a back, then quilted and bound the jeans quilt.

Here's a look at the process.

I did a square overlapping stipple and tried to go over as many seems as I could to stabilize the fabric and hold those thick seams down.

The back is a warm flannel in a brown and cream hounds-tooth pattern.  I included a pieced strip of jeans off centered for a graphic punch.

It's really heavy with all those jeans.  The flannel back helps to soften it up and I think it's the perfect compliment to the front.

I'm giving a workshop on this technique this upcoming weekend to the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild.  I've made some demo squares in green, gold and black - trying out a circuit board look.  We'll see what it looks like when I cut the blocks in quarters and rearrange them.

So, what should I call this quilt?  The two name I've been trying out are:

• Dirty Laundry
• Dirty Hippies

What should I go with?

QuiltCon Charity Quilt

VMQG volunteered to put together a charity quilt for QuiltCon with challenge blocks supplied by Quiltcon.  Our blocks arrived and seemed to be very odd in that they were really hard to figure out a nice layout.  Here's my attempt at laying them out on my white duvet which is about the exact size that the finished quilt is supposed to be.  First, a blob

 A tee shape

 Horizontal stripes

 Vertical stripes

I tried some colour blocking for the background with 12 inch strips of solids

 Cross shape with colour blocking background

 Exploded layout.  I think I like this one the best

I really liked these two blocks with the thin strips of colour through them.  Especially the green and grey and orange strips.

 So I made some strips with green and orange and grey to include in the solids.

Here's the first quarter of the quilt coming together.

Karen supplied the fabric for the back of the quilt and had a block she made but didn't submit for the challenge, so I put it in and made one myself too to include.  That filled out the top much better.

Here's the whole quilt

 I think I ended up with such a busy background, that the blocks sort of blend in rather than stand out.  I purposefully made sure that the background colour blocks abutted a block that had that colour in it so that the blocks appear out of and disappear into the background.  I'm not sure that it works completely, but you can't deny it is a very colourful quilt.

It certainly isn't what we'd call a twin size quilt either.  This is most definitely a queen size quilt up here in Canada.  I actually made it the minimum size allowed!  But as they say everything is big in Texas, so I guess it's a twin size quilt down there.

I got it done 10 minutes before leaving for the VMQG meeting, so I didn't get the back done.  However, Karen did supply just about enough of the blue fabric for the back and I added in some extra grey in case more fabric was needed.

I handed it off to Joan to quilt on her long arm quilter.  She'll then get it off to Liz to put on the binding (bright orange) and Amy is doing the label.  It should be ready for our next guild meeting, then it's off to Texas for QuiltCon.

Here's the quilt top being shown off at the VMQG meeting.  I don't know who took the picture, but it's posted on Flickr by VMQG.  I'm pointing to Karen's block.  This is considered a twin size quilt in TEXAS.

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.

Quilts for my nieces

I don't think I've shown these two quilts yet.  They are quilts I made for my nieces several years ago.

For the pink quilt, I stacked 4 pink rectangles  on top of 4 white rectangles, then cut them randomly with wavy cuts - 7 cuts in all.  Then I sewed them together alternating the pink and white matching curves, and using one of each pattern in the block.  I then squared it up so each block was the same height, not worrying about the width.  I think each block was 10 inches high by 15 inches wide.


Libbie's Quilt Finished!, a photo by Quilt Circle on Flickr.

Here's a link to a tutorial I put on Flickr stepping you through the process with lots of pictures.

I played with appliqueing circles for the back using the fat quarters of the pink that didn't go as well with the ones I used on the front.  I embroidered the label on one of the circles on the back.

Libbie's Quilt back, a photo by Quilt Circle on Flickr.

My other niece requested blue and black.

I found this on flicker as a black and hot pink quilt, and adapted it for a bundle of black fat quarters I bought.  I worked out a size and layout where I could get 2 blocks from each fat quarter.  I bought 3 blue fabrics to use for the alternating blocks.

Katie's Quilt, front, a photo by Quilt Circle on Flickr.

Katie's Quilt, back, a photo by Quilt Circle on Flickr.

For the back of this quilt, I made an interlocking block type of back that turned out interesting.  I think I was sewing on the bindings of both of the quilts on the day before Christmas.


Both girls like their grown-up quilts.  Here they are with the first quilts I made for them ages ago.

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.