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.

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.

Striped Hexies

I always have wanted to make a striped hexie quilt and I finally found the perfect striped fabric.  It has colourful stripes of varying widths on a white background.  I bought 2 yards then calculated the size of triangle that maximized the number of hexies I'd get out of each yard.  I realized I wouldn't have quite enough, so I pieced together some stripes to add to each strip so that I could get a few more rows of triangles.  Most triangles have at least a colour and a white strip added.  Some are mostly added strips with only an inch or two of the original fabric.

I had problems deciding how to edge the quilt.  I didn't want to cut off the side hexies to straighten out the quilt, and I didn't want a pointy edge either, cause how do you pull that up to your neck?  I finally decided to edge it all with a light grey, so now the hexies are laying on top of a grey field.  I think it actually looks really good.

I'm thinking about the back now.  Maybe a giant hexie coming up from a bottom corner that takes up about a third of the back?  Maybe I'll make the stripes out of solids.

I got to show this off at the guild anniversary meeting in the park.  We had our meeting outside and brought a picnic  to eat during the meeting.  There were 4 bands that showed up while we were there that set up under trees and jammed all evening long.  I didn't know that was a thing here in Vancouver.  I guess they just get together and jam in the park.  A friend of mine wandered by looking for her ukelele group, so that was even another group somewhere jamming in the park.

Bits and Pieces that I'm working on

After all the dying activity abated, I've got back to working on several projects.

Dog Mat

I made a little quilt for the bottom of a doggy kennel for a friend from the band who plays sax.

 I thought the text strips would be like training a puppy with newspaper on the floor.  I did some quilting from Angela Walters book. (A signed copy, thank you very much)

I used the Mod Mosaic technique for one side, and the pick-up sticks technique for the other side.

Scrap Slabs

I made three slabs for the Calgary flood relief that Cheryl Arkinson is organizing.  She is here giving workshops and I was able to catch her trunkshow where she showed off her quilts from the Sunday Morning Quilts book.  I bought the book there and she signed it too.  The book is all about using your scraps.

She also debuted her new book, A Month of Sundays.  That book contains quilts, clothes, recipes and essays and it looks really good too.

I made a couple of fabric boxes to tame my scrap heap from her book, "Sunday Morning Quilts."  (A signed copy, too!)

 Here's one of my new cupboards with mainly solids - and the two fabric boxes for scraps - a blue one and a grey one.

Lake Winnipeg Beach Baby Quilts

I am making three suns to go on three baby quilts using a New York Beauty style block for the sun.  I drew out one that's really big, then tried using Illustrator to do one on the computer.  Something happened to my version of Illustrator, so I finally did it using FireWorks - a stripped down image editor that's really for web graphics and images.  I didn't like the 4 points per quadrant, so I made a 5 points per quadrant one that looks sunnier.

 The big one is the one we are going with, so now I gotta make 2 more.  The Kaffe Fassett fabric works great for these suns. There's also a clam and a bird for the front, then a bunch of fossils for the back. All times 3!

Single Girl Block

I also tried out a Single Girl block using my own home made templates.  I made an arc template and am improv piecing the arc, then cutting it to size using the template.  I'm too lazy to make a bunch that I can paper piece onto, which would probably work out easier.  Maybe I'll draw one up and photocopy it a bunch of times.

Disappearing 9 Patch Challenge

This month's challenge in the VMQG is the modernized disappearing 9 patch.  For every block we make, we get a ticket and at the end of the meeting a winner or 2 is drawn and you can collect enough blocks to put together a quilt top.

My problem is I like making the blocks, but don't like putting the quilt together, so I usually just hand my blocks in and don't take any tickets.  Last month I handed in 10 blocks and only took 2 tickets.  There were enough blocks to have divide among 3 winners.

Most quilts with this pattern are very regular like this one I made for a nephew several years ago.  You get a bow tie effect that's on the diagonal.  For this quilt, the centre block was dark blue and the corner blocks for half the blocks were red and the other half were yellow.  The other 4 blocks were light blue.

Here's Lawanda's version with the same fabrics.

Here's Kenzie's version.

 

However, if you add lots of negative space in random places, you get a much more modern look to your quilt.  First make your 9 patches with your negative space blocks randomly placed in each block.  Here's 4 blocks that I made using my home batiks (the ones that turned out a bit dark or muddy).

 Then cut each 9 patch in quarters exactly through the centre.

 Mix them around, rotate them then put them back together and see what you end up with.

I've got some more 5 inch squares ready to put together to make some more, but will save them for Maker Fair next weekend.  I can demo the technique during the day to show people what modern quilting is like.

Another colour way

Yellow and Orange

I just boiled the wax out of another colour way. 

This one is really bright and citrusy.  I think the check worked out very nice in this colour scheme. 
Does the one on top look like those bugs you find in the garden in rotting posts and under pavers?  Do I need to add legs to them?

More Dyeing

Here's a light blue and green colour way being created.  The darker blue areas and the white areas have wax on them.  It's ready for the yellow dye bath.

 I started with white pfd fabric and made 5 different patterns.  I did two different potato mashers, a madras stripe and an argyle looking diamond one.  I dyed them a very light blue - hardly 1/8 tsp of dark blue dye for a gallon of water.  It came out a very nice pale blue, sort of robins egg blue.  A quilt  guild friend is making butterflies so I'm creating some butterfly wing looking fabric for her to use.  This strip will be blue and green.  I have more of this blue fabric ready to dye in red for a purple version and maybe a grey for a dark version.

Then I died them all a strong bright yellow.  Yellow in the dye bath turns orange when you add the soda ash, but it doesn't seem to turn the dye that's in the fabric orange.

Next step is to boil out the wax and see what I got.  I've got a bit of a green/blue vision issue so I may have to ask if this colour way is working or not.

After they have had the wax boiled out and are ironed, here's what they look like.  The one on the bottom still has the wax on it.  The pot was too small for all 4 pieces at once.

Here's the other two colour ways I did.  I think I like the red and grey the best so far.

Big Hexies for the May VMQG Challenge

I got my Hexies ready for the VMQG May challenge.  We were to make 5 1/2 inch Hexies in black and white and sew them into strips with one Kona bright.  Easy, peasy. 


I found some really old leftovers from a black and white quilt top and added in random bright Kona that I had had in a heap on the floor.  Quilt design decisions made by whatever I find close at hand.

These are so easy to make as strips of 3, but a real pain sewing them all together, even with the technique that was taught in a workshop at QuiltCon.  Who ever wins them at the guild meeting is going to have a lot of work ahead.

I play the Euphonium in a local community band.  We did a concert of movie tunes at a retirement complex on Saturday.  Our drummer lives there and his two arrangements of Latin melodies was well appreciated by his friends.  I was practicing for the concert and snapped this shot.

To Boston with Love

I got my banners for Boston done!

Here's a little about the project from the VMQG site:

When tragedies occur, quilters and crafters rally together and use creativity to comfort and heal those in need. There have been Quilts for Japan, Pillowcases for Newtown, and many other examples of the love and generosity of our community. Now as we watch the events in Boston unfold, again we are putting our hands together to do something for those affected. “To Boston With Love” is a collaborative effort of makers to bring peace and love from far and wide. What we’re planning is a public exhibition of flags strung into banners that will be displayed in Boston in early June 2013

Quilt guilds and individuals around the world are participating and the deadline for submitting your banner is May 21.  There is a Flickr group and tutorials with patterns if you want to participate.  Check out the VMQG site for links and instructions.  http://vancouvermodernquiltguild.ca/blog/

I made two more to send off.

I'm not sure if I want to write something on the back or not.  What can you say to a city and nation that has this happen to them?

To Boston with Love