Yellow Rays: Mini Quilt #23

This mini quilt, the second in my color series, has been a long time in the making. I started this baby in the midst of a crazy work schedule, and eventually had to ask myself what I wanted from this piece. Was it to be done? Or was I going for awesome? Neither of these answers would necessarily be wrong, but I had to aim for the latter on this project.

Since I’ve been patterning and sewing like a crazy person to get through this summer theatre season at work, I have been doing a lot of projects where “finished” is the major goal- opening night comes whether or not we are completely ready. (This isn’t to say that things aren’t well made- we just can’t expect “perfect” when we are moving at this kind of pace) It was kind of nice to cut myself a little slack on deadlines for this project and make something that is really well thought out and constructed.

The segments of yellow were strip pieced first and then slashed diagonally and spaced with a piece of white Kona cotton between them and to the side. I am trying to use this series of quilts to explore various methods of activating negative space in the quilt composition.

Green Grass, the first quilt in this color series, was quilted using free motion quilting with a mix of green and white thread. For this quilt, I thought it would be interesting to move away from organic quilting and try some different linear patterns with my walking foot.

Quilt Stats

Title: Yellow Rays

Size: 20″x20″

Techniques: Machine piecing

Quilting: Linear quilting with a walking foot on a Bernina 1008

Fabric: Assorted yellow prints and white Kona Cotton

Batting: Warm and White cotton batting

Thread: Pieced using white Gutermann Mara 100, Quilted with white machine quilting thread and 50 wt cotton Aurifil in yellow

Binding: Scrappy yellow prints also used in the quilt top, cut on the bias in 2″ wide strips, machine stitched to the front, hand stitched to the back

What was new?

Exploration of linear quilting designs to activate negative space using a walking foot

Quilt 23 / 50

Goal #9 is Finished!

Green: Mini Quilt #22

Posted on June 5, 2015 by thenotsodramaticlifeadmin / Posted in Finished Quilts, Mini Quilt Mania 2015, Quilting / 12 Comments

Since I completed Graffiti Feathers a few weeks ago, I have been thinking about creating a series of very simply pieced modern mini quilts based on a single color and white. I like the idea of the simplicity of the quilt top allowing the quilting to really shine. I am planning six of these quilts, one for each of the primary and secondary colors (red, yellow, blue, orange, green, violet) of the color wheel. The first I am going to share with you is Green.

I was inspired by the thin vertical lines of grass for this design. Where I am this time of year, the grass is extremely vibrant and growing from all of the rain, so I wanted to incorporate green strips of various lengths across the bottom of the quilt.

For the quilting, I decided that I would take another stab at graffiti quilting, this time being inspired by a wild, grassy field. The bottom of the quilt is done in variegated green Wonderfil thread. Since I wanted the top of the quilt to recede a bit to mimic the sky, I switched to white cotton machine quilting thread, but continued to use similar quilted imagery. I like to think of it as looking for shapes in the clouds!

The change in thread color really makes the back look interesting too. The binding for this one is two pieces of the green fabrics used on the front alternated around the edge.

Quilt Stats:

Title: Green

Size: 20″x20″

Techniques: Machine piecing

Quilting: Freemotion Graffiti quilting on a domestic Bernina 1008

Fabric: Assorted green cotton prints and white Kona Cotton

Batting: Warm and White cotton batting

Thread: Pieced using white Gutermann Mara 100, quilted with white cotton machine quilting thread and 50wt Wonderfil Tutti cotton thread in variegated green (color TU30)

Binding: Green cotton prints, cut on the bias in 2″ wide strips, machine stitched to the front, hand stitched to the back

What was new?

Working in a short series of similarly themed mini quilts

Using a color combination of only green and white

Mixing graffiti quilting with a graphically pieced design

Quilt 22 / 50

Goal #8 is Finished!

May Flower: Mini Quilt #21

Posted on May 28, 2015June 2, 2015 by thenotsodramaticlifeadmin / Posted in Finished Quilts, Mini Quilt Mania 2015, Quilting / 10 Comments

This mini quilt is one of the most fun I have ever done! May Flower is my first attempt at a quilt which is pieced entirely using bias improvisation. The light teal center of each petal was cut free hand with the intention that they would each be different. Then strips of bias were added around the shape until it became large enough to cut a 45 degree wedge from each segment. When assembled, this also created my first quilt that finishes as an octagon.

For the quilting of this piece, I used a walking foot to echo quilt each petal in teal Wonderfil thread. Then I free motion quilted the center of each petal with a feather motif, and switched to a variegated thread for the pebble quilting surrounding the design.

For the center of the flower I made yellow and yellow-orange yo-yos with glass beads in the center to catch the light. Since the petals of the flower are placed in a somewhat random manner, I also placed the center pieces randomly.

I had not yet attempted binding corners that are not 90 degree angles, so this was a first. I was pleasantly surprised that it was not as difficult to do as I feared. As I approached each corner, I would check that if I were to pivot at that point the edge of my piecing foot would line up properly with the next edge. If it did, I would lock in the stitching and turn the bias just like I would on a corner with a right angle.

Quilt Stats

Title: May Flower

Size: 15″x15″

Techniques: Bias Improvisational Piecing, fabric yo-yos with beading

Quilting: Echo quilting using a walking foot on a Bernina 1008, Free motion quilting feathers and pebbles.

Fabric: Assorted cotton low volume, teal and yellow prints

Batting: Warm and White cotton batting

Thread: Wonderfil 50wt cotton quilting thread in teal and variegated yellow-orange

Binding: Teal cotton matching the exterior petal color, cut on the bias in 2″ wide strips, machine stitched to the front of the quilt, hand stitched to the back

What was new?

Octagonal quilt shape

An entire quilt using bias improvisational piecing

Quilt 21 / 50

Goal #7 is Finished!

I am linking this post up with Mini Quilt Monday at Modern Cozy and Sew Cute Tuesday at Blossom Heart Quilts. Please stop in to see all of the wonderful quilts being made!

End of Our Rope (uh- fabric)- A Selvage Mug Rug: Mini Quilt #20

Posted on May 17, 2015 by thenotsodramaticlifeadmin / Posted in Fabric, Finished Quilts, Mini Quilt Mania 2015, Quilting / 4 Comments

This is my travel week for my summer job, and I’m sure you all know how stressful packing, moving, and traveling can be. I have arrived in Connecticut and spent almost all day cleaning- yuck. Now I need to unpack. I feel like packing for two months can (almost) be worse than a full move because it is difficult to anticipate exactly what will be needed during that time. This year the preparation for leaving also involved planning and/or prepping tops for my Mini Quilt Mania series. In all of the shuffle, I nearly forgot about this week’s quilt! So I decided to stick with something simple, cute, and quickly executed- enter the Cotton and Steel selvage mug rug!

I really like the selvage quilts that so many people have been making recently, but I tend to use every last bit of printed fabric in my projects without thinking about saving the printed edge first. The one exception to this is Cotton and Steel fabrics. I love the selvage designs on these prints. The graphics are great, the fonts are varied and interesting, the colors reflect the print, and the text even tells a bit of a story. I can’t through these selvages away!

For this mini, I topstitched several selvage strips together overlapping the raw edges with a finished ones. Then I cut 45 degree triangle pieces from the larger strip, similar to how I made last week’s Topsy Turvy Mini Quilt. I turned them together to form a square, and here we are!

I kept the quilting simple with a half inch diagonal grid, and the binding is mostly red with a bit of the scrap selvage strips included.

This little quilt is going to be on my work table this summer- I can have water bottle condensation dripping on all that pretty garment fabric! This was my first attempt at a selvage quilt, and I like it even more than I thought I would. Now I might need to start saving all of the selvages. . .

Thank you so much to everyone who has been visiting and commenting on my posts! I have been reading all of your wonderful comments, and I will be catching up on responses in the next few days now that I will be back in a routine. I really appreciate your thoughts and feedback!

Quilt Stats

Title: End of Our Rope (uh-fabric): A Cotton and Steel Selvage Mug Rug

Size: 7″x7″

Techniques: Topstitched construction with finished edges overlapping raw edges

Quilting: 1/2″ diagonal grid in red, done with a walking foot on a Bernina 1008

Fabric: Cotton and Steel fabrics from assorted designers

Batting: Warm and White cotton batting

Thread: Pieced using white Gutermann Mara 100, Quilted with Mettler cotton quilting thread in red

Binding: Cotton and Steel Essentials fabric and scraps of selvage, cut on the bias, machine stitched to the front and hand stitched to the back

What was new?

Using Selvages!

Quilt 20 / 50

Goal #6 is Finished!

Topsy Turvy: Mini Quilt #19

Posted on May 8, 2015May 11, 2015 by thenotsodramaticlifeadmin / Posted in Finished Quilts, Mini Quilt Mania 2015, Quilting / 11 Comments

This week, I looked back over the mini quilts I have made so far for Mini Quilt Mania, and I realized that one thing I haven’t done yet is a block based mini quilt.

Earlier this year I was lucky to win the Citrus Tattersall fabrics featured in this quilt from Judy at Quilt Paradigm. The colors in the fabric are bold, but softened by the amount of white surrounding them. I liked the idea of using these fabrics in a diagonal spectrum to create a quiet rainbow of color across the piece.

I started out creating these simple little blocks by sewing a strip of Citrus fabric to a strip of white Kona cotton. I then cut the strip at 45 degree angles resulting in triangles, half of which have the larger piece white, and the other half have the larger portion Citrus.

When turned together, these triangles create a block with alternating colors. I’m sure that someone, somewhere, has made this block before, but I couldn’t find it referenced, so I’m going to call it a Topsy Turvy block.

Edge to edge quilting is not something I have much experience with, but I tend to like it when I see it used on other peoples quilts. I thought that this project would be a good time to try out an all over clam shell quilting pattern. I am so glad I gave it a try because I love it! I received a set of batting samples from Hobbs batting at a quilt show and this mini was the first chance I had to try out one of the battings. Since this quilt is mostly white, I knew I needed to go with one of the bleached battings. I decided to try out the 80/20 batting, and I was quite pleased with the result. When I first touched the batting, I thought that it felt sort of rough (I’m assuming that is the 20% polyester), but it quilted up beautifully and the quilt has just the right amount of poof! I think I will be buying more of this batting to use on bigger projects.