Columbus Skyline for the Row by Row Experience

Posted on July 13, 2016 by thenotsodramaticlifeadmin / Posted in Finished Quilts, Quilting, Quilting Community / 7 Comments

This year Dabble and Stitch, a fantastic local quilt shop in Columbus, Ohio asked me to design their row for the Row by Row Experience. It was their first time participating in this event, and it was my first time designing for it. I am really excited by the results, and I hope lots of people get to make up this fun block. During the Row by Row Experience the patterns are available for free in their “home” shop, but can only be distributed by picking them up in person. Kits for this row are available for $20. Later this year the pattern will go up for sale and can be sent to you if you can’t make it to the shop.

The theme for this year is “Home Sweet Home,” and we thought it would be great to create a row featuring the Columbus skyline. This view of the city is taken from a bridge in Bicentennial Park.

I was standing right next to this guy as I snapped the photos!

Using the photos I took, I designed and rendered the skyline using AutoCad and Photoshop.

The block is constructed using needle turn appliqué, but you can also do raw edge appliqué using this pattern since I included lines on the templates that show the finished sizes of each piece. This is what the row looks like finished and ready to incorporate with other rows.

For the shop, I made the row into a mini quilt by adding borders. The quilting changes from building to building, and for added fun, I quilted the shop name and city into the borders. I think this looks great as a mini, and I am hoping to make one up as a long pillow for a sofa or bed.

I love mixing up my quilting thread colors to match the fabrics on the front of the quilt. I went with a white fabric on the back to show off all of that quilting.

If you are traveling through Columbus this summer, I hope you stop in to pick up a pattern!

Quilt Stats

Title: Columbus Skyline

Size: Row itself finishes at 9″x36″ With borders the mini finishes at approximately 14.5″x41.5″

Techniques: Needle-turn Appliqué, Pieced borders

Quilting: Free motion longarm machine quilted with an A-1 Elite

Fabric: Assorted 100% Cotton Prints

Batting: Hobbs 80/20

Thread: Appliquéd using Gutermann Mara 100, Quilted with eight colors of 50wt cotton Aurifil

Binding: Straight grain binding assembled to match the borders of the mini, cut 2″ wide, machine stitched to the front, hand stitched to the back.

Hills and Valleys: 2016 Riley Blake Challenge Quilt

Posted on July 6, 2016July 6, 2016 by thenotsodramaticlifeadmin / Posted in Finished Quilts, Quilt Shows, Quilting, Quilting Community / 6 Comments

This year’s Modern Quilt Guild / Riley Blake fabric challenge was one of the best challenges I have ever participated in, and I am very excited about the resulting quilt!

The print that was selected for the challenge fabric has almost endless possibilities since it contains so many different designs. I had the fabric draped around the studio for a long time before I decided what direction I wanted to go with it. I still wasn’t entirely certain what I was doing when I ordered the solids to coordinate. Emerald green has been very appealing to me lately, and I decided to draw my color scheme from it.

I enjoy taking linear prints and cutting / reassembling them into a star formation, and I started out thinking that was where this project would lead. In an effort to step out of my star-shaped box, I decided to consider other options that could produce a similar effect with the pattern of the print. I drew the fabric print to scale in AutoCad and started to experiment. Ultimately I landed on this design based on a traditional clamshell configuration. I thought that the greens I had selected would create the illusion of abstract rolling hills, and the black and white print would look like giant flowers bursting forth from the landscape.

I developed and printed templates for each shape using AutoCad. Since I had already planned the design with the fabric in mind, I was able to print the templates with guidelines that matched the print. Cutting was super easy this way!

The clamshells are machine pieced to one another. I used the templates to mark the start, center, and end of each seam which helped me to accurately position and pin each seam. The top row of clamshells is hand appliquéd to the light blue background fabric.

The quilting was the most fun part of the process. Solid fabrics give so much room for play, and I loved the idea of creating movement in this piece. Each “hill” has a different texture from those directly around it, and the quilting thread matches each section. This is also my first project to incorporate hand sashiko stitch quilting. The large stitches in contrasting thread helps to draw your eye around the quilt.

I was excited to submit this quilt to the challenge, and I was absolutely ecstatic to find out that it received second place! If you would like to see the other fantastic quilts that placed in this year’s challenge, you can find them on this Modern Quilt Guild blog post.

Quilt Stats

Title: Hills and Valleys

Size: 41″x43″

Techniques: Machine piecing, Hand Applique

Quilting: Freemotion and Ruler work on an A-1 Longarm machine, hand sashiko accent stitching

Fabric: Riley Blake black and white sashing print and Riley Blake solids

Batting: Hobbs 80/20 cotton blend

Thread: Pieced and appliquéd with coordinating Gutermann Mara 100 thread. Quilted with five colors of 50wt Aurifil cotton thread. Sashiko stitching done with dark grey Aurifil Floss.

Binding: Faced with Riley Blake fabric

Goal #3 is Finished!

Crystalized Citrus: A Hoffman Challenge Quilt

Posted on July 6, 2016 by thenotsodramaticlifeadmin / Posted in Finished Quilts, Quilting, Quilting Community / 11 Comments

Crystalized Citrus is my first Hoffman Challenge quilt, and I am thrilled with the result! I was cutting it really close time wise, so it was quite a relief when they extended the deadline by a week- it saved me a late night getting the binding on!

For many years I had seen the Hoffman Challenge quilts exhibited at the Rotary Quilt Show that coincided with the AQS show in Paducah. It was my first introduction to the concept of a challenge quilt, and I was intrigued. This year was the first time I was able to find the fabric in a local shop before it completely sold out, and it is the best fabric challenge print yet! The butterfly print on the right is the required challenge fabric and the print on the left was an optional coordinate that I really liked, but didn’t end up using in the finished design. Both of these fabrics are printed digitally so there is an almost infinite range of colors since the process isn’t limited by traditional printing processes.

When I’m designing with a specific print in mind, I like to alter it to see it in a new way. I had thought about creating a “Butterfly Garden” by turning the wings into flower petals, but as I was starting the idea of vibrant citrus came to mind. The butterfly wings turned into the flesh of the fruit and the neutral space of the print became the membranes. I pulled a variety of prints from my stash to create the skin of the fruits. My main goal was to keep the challenge fabric the star of the show.

I intentionally chose to balance the representational aspects of this design with the abstract. The pieces of fruit do not overlap and the improv piecing in the flesh of the citrus doesn’t create an ultra realistic image. These aspects of the design allowed for quilting that defies realism and creates a more abstract overall design.

The primary quilting design is matchstick quilting going both horizontally and vertically. Most of the horizontal quilting is done in white with guest appearances from purple and the local color of each fruit to create a grounding shadow. The color of each piece of citrus infuses the background above it with colorful vertical matchstick quilting. Free motion quilting further defines each piece of fruit in the composition.

Quilt Stats

Title: Crystalized Citrus

Size: 24″x21″

Techniques: Machine Improv Piecing, hand appliqué

Quilting: Matchstick and free motion quilting done on my A-1 Elite longarm

Fabric: Hoffman Crystalia digitally printed fabric in opal, assorted cotton prints and solids.

Batting: Hobbs 80/20 cotton blend

Thread: Pieced and appliquéd with Gutermann Mara 100 in coordinating colors, Quilted with six colors of 50wt Aurifil cotton thread

Binding: Facing done with the same white fabric used for the background and backing of the quilt

Goal #1 is Finished!

Travel Bag

Posted on February 16, 2016February 16, 2016 by thenotsodramaticlifeadmin / Posted in Bags and Pouches, Quilting, Quilting Community / 7 Comments

This week will be my first Quilt Con, and to mark the occasion I made a new carry on bag.

I drew up this pattern to work with a fat quarter bundle that I had of Tula Pink’s Elizabeth line along with some denim scraps that I had from another project. The effect is unified, yet scrappy. The front and back of the bag are identical with a zipper pocket and an open pocket behind it. Behind each zipper pocket is a section of coordinating fabric that was pieced in to help stretch the main bag fabric.

The bag is quilted in sections to allow all of the raw edges to be enclosed as the bag came together. The final construction seams attach the bag front and back to the side panel. These seams are stitched with the seam allowances toward the exterior of the bag which will help to give a bit of extra structure to this soft case. The raw edges are enclosed using a custom made bias tape from one of the striped fat quarters in the Tula Pink bundle.

I am excited to take this bag on its inaugural voyage this week so I will have a better idea of what adjustments I should make if I were to create this design again. If you are at QuiltCon, I hope to have a chance to meet you and perhaps exchange buttons!

Goal #8 is Complete!

Bionic Bag

Posted on January 5, 2016January 5, 2016 by thenotsodramaticlifeadmin / Posted in Bags and Pouches / 4 Comments

Last year I made myself a Bionic bag, then I made one for my Mom, and at that point I was having so much fun with them I started another. About 2/3 of the way through, I got distracted (that happens way too often!) and this bag ended up as a UFO for several months.

When it was time for the holiday party at my local quilt guild, I pulled the semi-finished bag out to finish for our gift exchange.

The pattern for the Bionic Bag is by RipStitcher and is available on Craftsy. The directions are extensive, but the construction of the bag is pretty staight-forward, and there are a lot of photographs included in the instructions. I love that this bag has room for practically every sewing notion you could ever need- it goes with me everywhere!

I chose the fabric for the bag exterior first and used that color scheme to select the interior fabrics. There are so many opportunities to play with color on this project, so I used a wide range of colors and prints.

My favorite wrapping paper came out for this gift, and I pulled out some scraps to make a flower decoration.

It was a very popular item in our variation of “Bad Santa!”

Goal #28 is finished!