Beautiful Ohio Row by Row

Posted on June 20, 2018 by thenotsodramaticlifeadmin / Posted in Finished Quilts, Quilting, Quilting Community / 1 Comment

The international shop hop, Row by Row, starts tomorrow! This is the third year I have designed the row for one of my local quilt shops, Dabble and Stitch, which is located in Columbus, Ohio. The patterns for all blocks in the Row by Row are available for free at participating shops, and kits are for sale if you would like to use the same fabrics as the sample blocks. This year’s theme is “Sew Musical.”

The official state song for Ohio is “Beautiful Ohio,” and this song is the starting point for the row. I located the sheet music for the song, and placed a circle over each note for the signature phrase. When these notes are connected they formed the shape of the rolling hills of central Ohio.

Simple foundation paper piecing is used to construct the main portion of the block, and the circles and wording are added with applique. I chose to use needle turn applique, but I included additional lines on the templates for raw edge applique, so each person can choose which process to use.

“Sew Musical” was a particularly challenging theme since music is experienced mostly through your sense of hearing and quilting is a visual and tactile medium. The quilting stitches provided an opportunity to add much needed movement to the block. A spiral of quilting emanates from each circle, and once the spirals intersect, echo stitching completes the machine quilting. To add a different rhythmic feel to the piece, large stitch hand quilting is added between lines of machine stitching. Several colors of thread in 12wt and 28wt were used to complete the project.

Facings finish the edges of the sample block. Since this block captures just a single phrase of the song, I wanted to allow the lines of the design to continue without a visual frame.

Quilt Stats

Title: Beautiful Ohio

Size: 9″ x 36″

Techniques: Foundation Paper Piecing, Needle Turn Applique

Quilting: Machine echo quilting using a walking foot on a Bernina 1008 domestic and large stitch hand quilting

Fabric: Assorted cotton prints and solids

Batting: Hobbs Tuscany Wool

Thread: Quilted with 50wt, 28wt, and 12wt cotton Aurifil in multiple colors

Binding: Faced with print matching the quilt backing

Bonus!

Here are the blocks I have designed in previous in previous years. Both patterns are still available through Dabble and Stitch.

2016 Theme: Home Sweet Home

Columbus Skyline

2017 Theme: On the Go!

Lane Avenue Bridge

Give and Take

Posted on June 15, 2018 by thenotsodramaticlifeadmin / Posted in Finished Quilts, Quilting / 1 Comment

Curated Quilts magazine issues a mini quilt challenge for each issue, and I love to see all of the amazing submissions. Until now I have never contributed an entry, but I enjoyed making Synthesized Slivers so much, I was eager to participate in another challenge.

Curated quilts provided a theme of Connections/Improv and a color palette which included cream, yellow, mustard yellow, navy, moss green, and grey. We could use as many or as few of these colors as we liked, and I ended up using all of the colors except for cream. Navy, grey, and mustard yellow are represented in the fabrics, and the quilting done in navy, grey, moss green, and yellow.

With the theme of connections in mind, I wanted to use roughly equal amounts of grey and navy fabrics with gear-like wedges intersecting where they meet. When cogs come together, they set off a series of reactions that is greater than either component on its own.

The quilting is dense matchstick stitching that both echos the pieced designs and integrates additional curves. The majority of the navy and grey sections are quilted in coordinating 50wt thread. For areas that needed extra emphasis I used 12wt green and 40wt yellow thread.

Quilt Stats

Title: Give and Take

Size: 12″ x 12″

Techniques: Machine Piecing, Improvisational Piecing

Quilting: Matchstick echo quilting using a walking foot on a Bernina 1008 domestic

Fabric: Assorted solids and one print by Carolyn Friedlander

Batting: Hobbs Tuscany Wool

Thread: Quilted with 50wt, 40wt, and 12wt cotton Aurifil in four colors

Binding: Faced with navy solid matching the quilt backing

Synthesized Slivers

Posted on May 26, 2018 by thenotsodramaticlifeadmin / Posted in Fabric, Finished Quilts, Quilt Shows, Quilting, Quilting Community / 6 Comments

A few weeks ago, I came across a call for entries for the Modern Mini Quilt Challenge hosted by Quilt Expo. It has been awhile since I have done a mini quilt, and I was feeling the need for a relatively quick finish, so I jumped in. One of my friends has been giving me a hard time about my extreme dislike of brown fabric, so I decided this would be a good challenge to incorporate my least favorite color.

My initial fabric pull centered around a stack of quilter’s denim made by Art Gallery Fabrics. I had received the fat quarter bundle during QuiltCon 2017, and I had been waiting for the perfect project to come up. I love the utilitarian texture the fabric has and the value shifts between fabrics were seamless. I did add a few other fabrics in to serve as accent pieces. These included a bright green solid, metallic linen, and a silk/cotton blend.

I started the quilt by constructing small blocks in a variety of sizes using background fabrics in a range of colors and values. The slivers of accent fabrics finish at 1/8″ wide. I used a ruler to cut the slits in straight lines, but only actually measured to square up each block after the slivers were added.

At this point, my friend saw the progress and informed me that tan is most definitely NOT Brown, even though I still insist that it is ;). In keeping with the challenge, I went out and purchased a small cut of chocolate brown Kona. There wasn’t a speck of true brown in any of my stash!

After constructing a few more blocks, I started putting everything together. I think this is the most challenging part of the process, but this top came together, and only required a couple partial seams.

Monty is my cat that ~~demands~~ likes to be held constantly. I was taking photos right after he had woken up from his first afternoon nap, and he really wanted my attention! If you manage to look past the cat, you can see the back of the quilt top. I made sure to press all of the sliver seam allowances toward the background to make the slivers recede a bit.

This is a small quilt so I quickly pin basted it and selected six colors of Aurifil to match the background fabrics.

I wanted to accentuate the angles that are incorporated into the design, so I used echo quilting to highlight the design of each block.

The back is the same bright green accent color used on the front of the quilt. I like how the different thread colors add value shifts to the back of the quilt. I didn’t want to frame the quilt in with a binding, so the edges are finished with facings to match the backing fabric.

I am so glad that I made this quilt, and even I think the brown actually works in it!

Quilt Stats

Title: Synthesized Slivers

Size: 22″ x 19″

Techniques: Machine Piecing, Improvisational Piecing

Quilting: Echo quilting using a walking foot on a Bernina 1008 domestic

Fabric: Art Gallery Quilter’s Denim, Kona Cotton, Metallic Blend, Silk/Cotton Blend

Batting: Hobbs Tuscany Wool

Thread: Quilted with 50wt cotton Aurifil in six colors

Binding: Faced with Kona Cotton matching the quilt backing

Zenith

Posted on May 11, 2018May 11, 2018 by thenotsodramaticlifeadmin / Posted in Art, Finished Quilts, Quilting / 10 Comments

Each year the Central Ohio Modern Quilt Guild issues a color challenge. For the past two years the challenge has been the same: Combine the Pantone and Kona colors of the year into a single sewn object. My project for last year’s challenge was an improv quilt inspired by the Franklin Park Conservatory. The quilt I made for this year’s color challenge is also improv, but it is more structured this time around.

In 2018 the Pantone color of the year is Ultraviolet and the Kona color is Tiger Lily. Among our group this combination had both lovers and haters.

I could definitely see the potential, and wanted to embrace the violets while pushing the piece toward warmer tones. The beginning of my fabric pull looked like this.

Around the time this challenge was issued, the Columbus Museum of Art was hosting a special exhibit which included this oil painting, The Bay of Saint-Jean-de-Luz, by Georges Lacombe which was painted around 1902-1904. The color range in this painting was exactly what I had imagined when I saw the challenge colors.

The quilt top was constructed using structured improv- I measured and used rulers, but the placement of each piece of fabric was determined on the fly. About 2/3 of the quilt went together quickly, but the lower left corner was problematic.

After over a month of struggling with it, I finally came to terms with the fact that I just didn’t have the right pink fabrics to complete the top. (How could I possibly be lacking pink of all colors!) Once I added more pink solids to the palette, the top was easy to finish.

Since the quilting is done on a 120 degree angle, and the piece isn’t particularly large, I decided it would be easier to do the quilting with a walking foot on my domestic machine. It is almost matchstick quilted. The machine stitching is randomly spaced from 1/8″ to 1/2.” Once the machine quilting was finished, I added large stitch hand quilting in the larger gaps between the machine stitching. It was important to me that the quilting stitches add personality to the quilt, so I used a range of thread colors and weights. By the time the quilting was finished I had incorporated 50wt, 40wt, 28wt, and 12wt thread into the quilt.

The majority of the fabrics used in the quilt are solids, but there are a few prints worked into the design. One of those prints, a Tula Pink stripe, was perfect for a bias binding. I combined this print with some yellow solids to finish off the quilt.

Quilt Stats

Title: Zenith

Size: 53″ x 69″

Techniques: Machine Piecing, Structured Improvisational Piecing

Quilting: Almost-Matchstick machine quilting on a Bernina 1008 domestic, large stitch hand quilting

Fabric: Assorted quilt shop quality, 100% cotton solid and print fabrics, and backing of wide-back Tula Pink Print

Batting: Hobbs Tuscany Wool

Thread: Quilted with 50wt, 40wt, 28wt, and 12wt cotton Aurifil

Binding: Tula Pink stripes and yellow solids, cut on the bias at 2″ wide, machine stitched to the front, hand finished

This quilt is entered in the Pantone Color of the Year Challenge at Bryan House Quilts and No Hats in the House. Click the links to check out all of the fabulous entries! My country of residence in the United States.