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!

VMQG Workshop - Gees Bend Style Blocks

I gave a day long workshop on Feb 3 for the VMQG where we all made some Gees Bend style blocks.  The group of 12 was great, everyone brought very unique fabric with very unique colours and patterns.

We started out looking at three quilts done in this technique and I put 2 blocks up on the wall showing examples of how to make the square bulls-eye and what level of wonkyness and strip width to try, then we all got started.

Most people brought several options for fabrics so I went around consulting on what could be used as background and what could be used as the colour strips.

Here's what the first block for each person turned out once they were cut in quarters and put back together.

 

Then we all started making the blocks 3 or four at a time.  Here's what they looked like once another block or two had been made.

Elsie's blocks

Victoria's blocks (Jo)

Heather's blocks

Gaye's blocks

Loretta's Gees Bend blocks

Arita's blocks

Terri's blocks

Anna's blocks

Michelle's blocks

Nikki's blocks

Michelle's blocks

I love how everything comes together so nicely with this technique.  Each block that is made and cut up ends up very different from the previous.  As you mix and match the blocks throughout the quilt, you get a very graphic effect.  Depending on the background and contrast of the coloured fabrics, you can end up with a very calming effect like Heather, Arita and Gaye or a more jarring excitable effect like the rest of them. 

Thanks so much, Terri and Arita for taking these pics throughout the day.  Just because we're only showing 1 block for some people, doesn't mean they are slackers.  We just didn't get a shot of their entire production.

If I have some mis-identified, let me know and I'll fix the names.

UPDATE:  Arita finished her top!

Trunk Show Part 4 - First Steps into Modern

Wonky Squares Quilts

I'm in a community band.  When I mentioned that I quilt, three of my band mates said they always wanted to make a quilt, so, we started a little quilt group and met at my place when ever we could and each made two quilts.  We started with a Wonky Square quilt and each made blocks in our own colour palate, and level of wonkiness.

Here's mine

I was thinking about avocado and harvest gold appliances when I chose the fabrics.  Each block started with a slightly skew rectangle and was then built out in rings with different widths of the same colour.  At the end I squared up the blocks with white and used my 12.5 inch square ruler to cut it to size.  When I laid it out, the blocks were too close together, so I added in a 2 inch sashing of the background colour and got a nice overall wonky feel.  I quilted it in small overlapping rectangles on my oldest sewing machine - the one mom and dad got just after they were married.

Kenzie's quilt was all yellow-orange and purple-blue.

Her blocks ended up more square and she "engaged the edge" by cutting some blocks in half and putting them around the quilt as if her quilt is just a small part of a larger pattern.  She used batics as well as prints.  She didn't use any sashing, and with these blocks, you really didn't need to get the intersections to match up, since it's all white around each block.  This is a really good beginner quilt since there's really no corners and seems to match up.

Lawanda's quilt is jagged blue, green and brown.

These blocks were trickier to square up since there's big areas of white triangles around most of the blocks.

Hisayo's quilt is pink and light green

Half of her centres are black and half are maroon and two are green.  It took her forever to figure out how to lay it out such that she was happy with it.  Some people just can't embrace wonkiness! 

Here's all of the quilts together

Before we quilted them, we made a kids sized disappearing 9 patch quilt and practiced our quilting skills on them, then went back to the big ones.

Lawanda and I gave our quilts away to friends with babies.  Kenzie kept hers for her own baby boy who was born soon after the quilt was made.  We all used the same red sailors and yellow puppies and light blue boats fabrics.  I did 3 stacked coins strips across the back of mine and appliqued a P for Preston.

Gees Bend style Workshop

I did a Workshop for the Blue Mountain Quilt Guild on a Gees Bend style quilt.

Here's the technique in images:

build a block

cut in quarters

shuffle/rotate and sew back together

add improv pieced sashing between blocks.

Here's some of the amazing blocks the participants came up with:

What I find most amazing, is that even the fabric choices that I didn't think would work well produced interesting effects and really came together well.

I have made 4 of this style of quilt tops and have always used white or beige as the "background".  When I saw the fabrics that each participant had brought, I was sure we'd end up with some muddy, indistinguishable blocks.  I was surprised (and relieved) that everyone's blocks looked great when they were laid out.

I had everyone make 2 or more blocks at a time.  I under estimated how much time each block would take to make.  This being an improvised type of block and a room full of traditional quilters, I was surprised at how having too many choices slowed down the process.  A Bento Box block with every strip being 2.5 inches wide goes together really quick.  A wonky block where each strip is a different width, and each ring didn't have to be the same fabric and the fun of inserting little fabric inclusions in the middle of a strip all added up to the day being almost over, before everyone had 4 blocks to use for the second step.

Fortunately, everything still works with 3 blocks.  You can see form the layouts above, some have 3 blocks (12 quarter blocks) and some have 4 blocks (16 quarter blocks).  Most people had a couple more blocks on the go that they could finish at home to add to what we got done during the day.

The bottom image shows blocks made from thrifted material.  The gray is a duvet cover, the leopard and green are from sheets and the black is from a pinstriped shirt.

Alannah and Aaron's Wedding Quilt

Alannah and Aaron's Wedding Quilt

On a quick local vacation at the end of summer, I found some a great bird fabric in Mount Vernon.  Then I got some coordinating fabric in Annacortes and lots of great coordinating fabrics in Coopville.

I fussy cut the birds, framed them in some muddied down solids, then improv pieced log cabin-ish strips around to get the blocks up to 12.5 inch squares.

The blocks were looking a little heavy, so I made more with less of the coordinating fabrics and more of the background.


I played around with the layout.  I didn't want the blocks to line up, so I sashed them on two sides.  The top or bottom got 3 inches of sashing, and the left or right got 4 inches of sashing.  The sashing was pieced with bits of the coordinating fabric to keep it from looking too empty.

I'm so happy with the way it ended up.

 

The back started with the strips of left over solids, then I scattered the left-over blocks, then I sewed together strips of the coordinating fabric and worked them between the solids.  The blocks weren't showing up so I framed them in what little solids I had left.

Here's some details.

I'm off to Hamilton for the wedding next weekend.  Alannah and Aaron should get years of use out of this quilt from "Uncle" Paul.

I also made a quilt for the bride's mother who fosters baby boys till their adoption.

 The back is Ikea fabric with a little applique for colour.