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.

National Backwards Day!

Posted on January 31, 2018 by thenotsodramaticlifeadmin / Posted in Finished Quilts, Quilting, Works In Progress (WIP) / 3 Comments

Today, January 31 is National Backwards Day! I decided to celebrate by taking a closer look at the back of some quilts and quilt tops.

The backs of quilt tops hardly ever get the glory that they deserve. Here are some hand appliquéd circles . . .

And some machine pieced circles . . .

I love when the quilting transfers the design of the quilt to the back of the project.

Sometimes the design isn’t completely transferred to the back of the quilt, but you can get a general idea of the quilt front.

Occasionally I do simple, light quilting . . .

But more often it’s heavy quilting that shows on the back of my quilts . . . (these two mini quilts are the same design)

Recently I even tried out using doubled batting, which really made the quilting design pop on the back of the quilt (as well as the front).

I frequently love the backs of quilts as much as the front!

Central Ohio Modern Quilt Guild Charity Quilt

Posted on January 29, 2018 by thenotsodramaticlifeadmin / Posted in Finished Quilts, Quilting, Quilting Community / 1 Comment

Every year the Modern Quilt Guild issues a Charity Quilt Challenge and the results are displayed in the hallways of QuiltCon. The MQG gives a theme and color palette, and any guild or small group of members is invited to participate. This is the second year the Central Ohio MQG has participated in this challenge.

This year the theme was Modern Traditionalism and this is the palette.

When our guild does a group quilt, we gather design submissions and vote to determine which one we will make. The design for this quilt was a collaboration between Lissa of Lovingly Lissa and me. This project is a potholder style quilt, which was a popular method for charity quilts made in New England during the Civil War era. Each contributor would piece, quilt and bind a block. When the volunteers would gather, all they would have to do to finish the quilt is whip stitch the blocks together. (If you would like to see some other potholder quilts, check out these posts: Modern Log Cabin, Petals in the Wind, and In the Garden.)

For our updated version of a potholder quilt, we used Ohio Star blocks. This is the block that I contributed to the quilt.

Each block is constructed so that the pieced block is visible on either the front or the back of the quilt. This also creates a fully reversible quilt. The blocks are joined with a triple zigzag stitch done on my mechanical sewing machine.

The first side of the quilt incorporates the entire color palette and has more of a “daytime” feel.

The reverse side of the quilt is intended to appear more like the nighttime sky.

My favorite part of this quilt is that we have so many different people contributing their personal quilting style to the project. It has a mix of straight line and free motion quilting, several thread colors and weights, and various quilting densities. It really became a beautiful representation of our guild.

The quilt gets shipped off to QuiltCon this week! We are all very excited to have it displayed with all of the challenge quilts from around the world. We don’t have any members who are able to attend this year, so we are hoping to have some photos come our way!

Quilt Stats:

Title: Two Sides of the Same Star

Size: 71″ x 89″

Techniques: Potholder style, machine pieced, block machine zigzagged together

Quilting: Free motion and walking foot quilted

Fabric: Kona Cottons

Batting: Warm and White

Thread: Pieced and quilted with a variety of thread brands, colors, and weights

Binding: Blocks were individually bound with Kona cotton bias binding, cut 2″ wide, machine stitched to the front of each block, and hand stitched to the back.

Vinyl Front Tula Pouch

Posted on January 15, 2018 by thenotsodramaticlifeadmin / Posted in Bags and Pouches, Quilting Community / 1 Comment

For the second year, one of the sewing groups I belong to did a swap. This swap has a twist: Each person brings a fat quarter of a favorite fabric from their stash to put in a bag. Then, we all take turns pulling out a piece of fabric and guess who it belongs to. We are a small group, so we are typically pretty successful in guessing the owner of the fabric. We each take the fabric away and come back a couple meetings later with an item made from the fabric we pulled from the bag to give back to the original person.

I pulled this cute Tula Pink cat print from the bag of fat quarters. It happened to be a fabric that I love enough to own, too! The person who brought the fabric enjoys hand applique and embroidery, so I thought she may like a bag that will keep all of her pieces flat and visible until it is their turn to be secured to the block.

I used a fairly heavy, clear vinyl for the front of the pouch. The primary fabric is the cat print, and for the back of the pouch, I chose to make a nine patch from a charm pack from the same Tula Pink fabric line. I sandwiched and quilted the fabric layers with a piece of soft and stable to make sure the pouch would lay flat while maintaining flexibility.

The binding is also from that same line of prints. I machine stitched it to the front and folded it around to the back for hand stitching. This allowed for hand finishing on the fabric portion of the pouch. The bag finishes a bit over 13″ square, so a lot of quilt blocks could actually lay flat in the pouch. I wish I had made one for myself when I was in a couple of bees- it would have been perfect to transport blocks!