Oranges and Lemons

I'm finally using some of the fabric I batiked and dyed!

I started dying several fabrics in the same colours to create a bunch of fabrics that go together.  I just made strips and put them together for this top.  I call this one Oranges and Lemons. 

I thought the background might have been a bad choice, so I made the back with white...

and I added in a steely blue.  Each rectangular block is improvised with strips, blocks or boxes.  This turned out different from the hard boiled eggs quilt as on that one I used only a fat quarter of the featured print.  This one has lots of all the batiks and just a little of the blue and gold.  I think this will be a quilt that both sides will be liked.

Workshop for the Sunshine Coast Quilter Guild Retreat 2013 - Part 2

More quilts from the workshop.

I love his one.  It's the colours and the retro feel to the printed fabrics that she used and all the solids.  The squares with the dark grey strips were added later because the quilt was looking very pale.

There are two more block to get added to the top or bottom to make it a bit longer.  By blocks, I mean sets of 4 quarter blocks. There's actually a wide strip of pieced "sashing" that winds through the quilt.  Can you find it?  She actually got this all sewn together by the end of the workshop.

Jennifer used a dark grey as her background colour.  The blocks were looking a little dark until she added in the orange and yellow.  Look at how wonky the angles turned out.  She used pointy "squares" to start out the bulls eye and got lots of motion in her blocks.  You can see a wide strip of pieced "sashing" going up and down.  Jennifer has more on the go to add in and she may make another block or two also.  I can't believe I didn't get more pics of this quilt while it was being made.

I didn't get a shot of this one while it was on the design wall.  We didn't have enough room once people got 4 or more bulls eye blocks cut up.  This one had a bit of a tailored look and there's thin piping along the seams of some of the blocks.  I like how the grey and yellow fabrics go together so well.  Great choices!  I hope she'll send me a picture of the finished quilt top.  I want to know how she'll put it together.  Will there be pieced sashing?

Here's another one without a white background.  I love the solid blocks that are scattered through the quilt.  They will be a great place to feature some fancy quilting. This quilt got done in half the time as she had to miss the first day of the workshop.

Notice there's some mini bulls eye blocks as well as the big quarter size blocks.  The mini ones have a cool folded centre square that adds a bit of 3D texture to the quilt.  I think she's going to make some more blocks to get this up to queen size.I got a quick lesson on how to do the fold to make that on-point square.  I just hope I can remember that special move after you do the first two centre folds.

Dale used a light batik for the background colour and a nice daisy print for the centre of each bulls eye.  This one turned out looking very restful and sweet, not the the angular grey and orange one sharing the design wall with her. She added background sashing to two sides of each block then got this up and down layout where the blocks are not all lined up in rows but sort of bounce around the quilt.  Most quilts made with this technique end up very angular and angry and a bit jarring, but here's one that looks pretty calm.

Carol's quilt blocks start out looking really west coast.  I love all the black and white prints she used and that red is perfect.  This layout isn't what she'll probably end up with.  We were just placing blocks and pieced sashing strips anywhere to get an idea of what could work. 

This one is another one with batiks and features a bright centre block

More blocks are being created to increase the size.  Looks like there will be orange centers mixed among the yellow centers.  I really like the mix of wide and narrow strips of  the colourful batiks.  The judicious use of bright red and dark blue scattered around all the similar greens really make this top interesting.  Note all the inclusions in the coloured strips and in some of the white background.  I think when the orange centered squares get mixed in it will look warmer perhaps.

This one turned out unexpectedly wonky.  The white fabric is a bit stretchy so some of the strips went a little wobbly, giving it a true Gees Bend look.  The centers of the bulls eye are a black and white fabric and that inspired adding narrow black and grey sashing between the blocks.  Look at all the little bits of colour in some of the black.

I am so amazed how different each quilt turned out.  We all used the save technique, but personalities start showing through the blocks.  I wonder as an exercize, what would happen if we all used the same fabric.  How different would each person's blocks end up?

I'm hoping to get pictures from the quilters as they get the top together.  I don't even need to see it quilted.  I'd love to see the final version of the top.  If it gets quilted, that would be a bonus!  We really didn't talk much about how to quilt the tops other than me suggesting an all-over boxy stipple would work, or half inch apart 'L' shapes in each block would work too.  Maybe something curvy would soften the quilt a bit, or maybe that would just look too out of place.

I think I talked everyone out of putting a border around their quilt.  My thought is a pieced sashing keeps the wonky improv look going.  Also no border makes it seem as if this may be a detail of a much larger piece of art.  The doesn't end at the edges, but keeps on going on and on.  A border would say, "This is it, there isn't any more."  The binding is all you need to edge this type of quilt.  The purple one on page 1 is probably the one that is closest to having a border, but since the internal sashing is just a wide, it's not really a border at all.

I came home on Sunday exhausted, but energized!  I may even finish of a couple of projects in the next couple weeks!

Thanks, Sunshine Coast Quilters for a wonderful retreat!

Workshop for the Sunshine Coast Quilter Guild Retreat 2013 - Part 1

Last weekend I headed up to Gibsons to give a two day workshop on the Gees Bend style quilt.  A year ago I drove up with all my quilts and quilt tops and did a trunk show about my journey from traditional to modern quilting.  There was enough interest so I got invited to do a workshop up there for their retreat.

It was so much fun.  I had 13 women in my workshop and below is a photo journal of what we accomplished over the 3 days of the 2 day workshop.  I don't know where that 3rd day came from!

I'm terrible with names, so I'll try to match up the names of the participants with their quilts.  Forgive me, ladies, if I get it wrong or if I really should have remembered your name and didn't. 

First, here's me working the room.

This one was all purple and green batiks to make the blocks.

And then with some really wide sashing, became a really Gees Bend looking quilt!  Those random pieces scattered in the sashing really give this one such a non-traditional look.  Sort of like naive outsider art.

 Just one more side to sash and it's done!

Here's the process that we used with the guild president Jeanette's blocks. Make a square bulls eye.

 Cut it into quarters and mix up the quarter blocks.

 Make more and scatter the quarters around. 

Notice the little "inclusions" in some of the strips.  The rule was if you have to sew two strips together to make it long enough, you had to cut in in the centre and add a contrasting fabric in the block, not at the end.  Of course, one extra bit is never enough, so you can see some strips have several inclusions.  Even some of the white background strips have inclusions.

Here's Kim's rust and green blocks.  She used the left-overs from another quilt that featured the leaf print that's in the centre of the blocks.  The little squares are 1/4 inch checkers she had pieced for the other quilt.  They made excellent inclusions scattered throughout the quilt.  Kim stayed up all night working on this "exploded block" layout.  She pretty much used up every scrap of black that she had.  She's actually hiding an area of white where there isn't enough black.

 This technique is harder to do with a coloured background for the blocks, but Kim was able to really make her's effective with the colours of the blocks, the black sashing and the layout.  I think she's almost exhausted her second wind in this shot.

Holly's blocks used a variegated green fabric.  The light end became the background and the dark end became one of the coloured strips.  I loved the coral fabric for the background, but I'm not sure what Holly has decided to use.  This is just the blocks laying on the yardage she brought.  I think she's making another block or two before she decides.

Part two coming up next.

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.

Kshreya's Quilt

I'm working on a quilt for my co-worker's new baby.  I made one for her sister, so now I need one for her.  She was born in the spring, so this isn't that late.

I saw a great quilt with the three diagonal stripes on each block and had to make my own version.  This one is very low-volume, and at first I thought it was too pale, but it's been growing on me.

 I swapped out some blocks that were just too low volume and chose these. It's about 32 inches by 42 inches.

 I waited a month or so for inspiration to strike for the back.  In the end I went back to making banners which I've done on three quilts now.  I put together strips to get a 7 inch wide strip and cut the triangles from that.  I ran out of the Kona Snow, so mixed in some slightly darker fabric to get this scrappy look.

Three cheers for 505 basting spray!!  I'll be quilting it in the next few days in two overlapping spirals.

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!

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.

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.