linear quilting

Walkabout

Posted on by thenotsodramaticlifeadmin / Posted in Finished Quilts, Quilting / Leave a comment

Walkabout has been a work in progress for well over a year, and I finally decided that I just needed to get it finished and entered into some shows.  The first entry is into the American Quilter’s Society Spring Paducah Quilt Week.

The idea for this quilt came when I was walking through German Village, a historic neighborhood in Columbus, Ohio.  This pattern of embossed brick kept appearing in the sidewalks, and it just cried out to become a quilt design!

I wanted to maintain the feeling of an embossed design, so I knew that I wanted to work with two fabrics and focus on value and density of quilting to create the texture.  I designed the quilt on AutoCad, which helped me to create accurate templates for all of this very specific piecing.  The lighter fabric is a Moda Grunge print, and the darker areas are a Kona solid.

The design is entirely machine pieced, and each circular ring is cut as a single piece which is set into the adjoining circles.  Here is a back view of part of the quilt top:

For the quilting, I decided to keep it simple for the light blue-grey fabric, but do a more dense design in the dark blue areas.  I was very undecided on what to do for the denser quilting, but I ultimately landed on doing mixed motif organic quilting.  I liked the idea of exploring the juxtaposition of the geometric embossing of the brick with the leaves, moss, and pebbles that land on and surround the brick.

Quilt Stats

Title:  Walkabout

Size: 53″ x 68″

Techniques:  Machine Piecing

Quilting:  Free motion quilting and ruler work on an A-1 Longarm

Fabric:  Moda Grunge and Kona cotton

Batting:  Hobbs Tuscany Wool

Thread: Quilted with Aurifil 50wt in two colors matching each fabric

Binding:  Faced with the Moda grunge backing

Ebb and Flow

Posted on by thenotsodramaticlifeadmin / Posted in Aurifil, Finished Quilts, Quilting / Leave a comment

Each year The Modern Quilt Guild includes a style/technique challenge category in QuiltCon, and this year the challenge is a two color quilt.  I was excited to approach this project because I had been casually considering what it would take to make a dynamic quilt top that used the same amount of two fabrics.

For most quilts, I tend to create a set of parameters for the design.  I find that working with some constraints helps me to achieve a more cohesive result.  For this project the parameters are:

  • Two Colors
  • Use equal amounts of each of the colors
  • Use the colors in a way that does not equally distribute the colors in each section of the quilt
  • Make the graphic quality of the design the star (let the quilting take a back seat on this design)

I went through lots of designs before I finally landed on this one.  I liked how the visual weight of each color shifts from one end of the quilt to the other.  The strips are cut in incremental widths with the narrowest strip finishing at just 1/8″ wide.

Many of my show quilts evolve organically, and take a fairly long time to construct, so it was a lot of fun to be able to cut and sew a quilt top in a day!

Ebb and Flow was quilted on my domestic sewing machine, but I did the basting on the longarm using a water soluble thread.  I also tried using a large scale stippling technique for the basting.

The quilting is simple lines, spaced about 1/4″ apart.  I was able to get this quilted while I was a quilting retreat with a group of friends, which was a great way to break up the monotony that comes with stitching hundreds of straight lines.

Once the quilting was finished, I soaked the quilt to remove the basting stitches and blocked the quilt on a frame.  

By the time it dried, it was perfectly flat and ready to be trimmed and finished.  I decided that a facing would work better with this design than a binding because I wanted to to allow the lines of the piecing to extend all the way across the quilt without the frame that a binding creates.

Quilt Stats

Title:  Ebb and Flow

Size: 51″ x 64″

Techniques:  Machine Piecing

Quilting:  Linear machine quilting using a walking foot on a Bernina 1008 domestic

Fabric:  Kona Cotton in black and white with a Moda wide back print

Batting:  Hobbs Tuscany Wool

Thread: Quilted with Aurifil 50wt in white and black

Binding:  Faced with black Kona Cotton

Quilts Accepted into AQS Daytona Beach!

Posted on by thenotsodramaticlifeadmin / Posted in Quilt Shows, Quilting Community / 2 Comments

I have definitely caught the quilt show bug!  When I first started entering, I would enter a show here and there, mostly if I thought I might be able to attend.  But once my quilts started getting accepted, I couldn’t help entering more too!  And after I received my first ribbon at a national show, there was no going back.

Quilt shows have their own cycles and rhythms, and your quilts have to be available for each show for a lot longer than the week the show takes place.  You also have to enter well before the show takes place.  The entry deadline is often 2-4 months before the show week.  Submitting entries, receiving jury notifications, shipping the quilts, and (if you’re lucky) attending some shows can quickly become a year-round event.  It can make for some fun days if, like last Friday, you are submitting to one show while receiving notifications for another!

The Daytona Beach American Quilter’s Society show is the first notification of the 2019 shows, and I am ecstatic to have four quilts that were juried into the contest.

Lateral Ascension is in Large Quilts: Stationary Machine Quilted

Taking Flight is in Large Quilts: Movable Machine Quilted

Zenith is in Wall Quilts: Stationary Machine Quilted

Raise the Roof is in Wall Quilts: Movable Machine Quilted

I have never been to the Daytona Beach show, but I hope my quilts have a wonderful time there!

 

Entries for QuiltCon 2019

Posted on by thenotsodramaticlifeadmin / Posted in 100 Day Project, Finished Quilts, Quilt Shows, Quilting Community / 2 Comments

I love to enter quilt shows!  It is so much fun to have the opportunity to share what I make with other quilters from around the world, and I am hopeful that I may be able to share a quilt (or more!) with all of the wonderful and talented quilters attending QuiltCon in February.  Here are the four quilts I have entered.

Complementary Convergence is my largest matchstick quilted piece, coming in at a bit under 6’x7′.  This one is entered in the Use of Negative Space category.

Ebb and Flow was created for the two color challenge.  I set out to create a design that uses equal amounts of the two colors, and this is what I came up with!

Synthesized Slivers is a small quilt that I used to experiment with the use of non-quilting-cotton substrates.  It also has lots of 1/8″ wide pieces!

Resonance was my 100 day project this year, and I had a blast using all of that colorful thread to quilt it!  I entered it in the Appliqué category.

My fingers are crossed that at least one of these will be included in the show- now I just have to wait for the jurying results to come in the next few weeks!

 

Back to the Bionic Bag

Posted on by thenotsodramaticlifeadmin / Posted in Bags and Pouches, Classes / 1 Comment

Most of my go-to sewing supplies and notions live in a Bionic Bag that I made several years ago.  It travels around the house from sewing machine to sofa or patio for hand stitching, and it goes with me to guild, sew-ins, and shops when I teach.  This bag is frequently admired, and following several recent requests, I will be teaching this pattern next January at Dabble and Stitch in Columbus, Ohio.

It was so much fun to choose new fabrics for the shop sample!  I love to mix and match fabrics from different designers and lines, and this project was no exception.  The main outer fabric is from Carrie Bloomston’s new Wonder line, and the other fabrics are a mix of designers including Alison Glass and Tula Pink.  I used a walking foot to do some linear quilting on the bag exterior.  I like the look and texture of the quilted bag, but you can also choose to use an iron on interfacing and skip the quilting step.

One of the things I love about the design of this bag is the way the front folds creates a tray when the bag is open.  In this section, I like to add magnetic snaps to hold the dumpling pouch and a small pin cushion.  I use the dumpling pouch for wonder clips, and the pin cushion is stuffed with scraps of wool batting and keeps pins and needles within easy reach.

Between the four zippered pockets and the pouches formed between them, you can fit almost every supply you need for a day or more of sewing.  Once you have made one of these bags, they go together very quickly and make great gifts for sewists and non-sewists  alike.  I have made several over the years, and you can check one out in this Bionic Bag post from a couple years ago.  The Bionic Gear Bag pattern is available for download on Craftsy.

If you would like to join me for the class, it will be held at Dabble and Stitch on Saturday, January 12, 2019 from 10am-4pm. During the day, you will construct most of your Bionic Bag, and you may or may not have time to to work on the optional dumpling pouch.  I hope to see you there!