For Dave

Blogiversary post 3 of 10

Here's another quilt you haven't seen here yet.

My husband's brother is in a nursing home, so I made him a quilt. Anita's Arrowhead block is always the right choice! You can find it in Anita Grossman Solomon's book Rotary Cutting Revolution, available through her Craftsy class.

Dave's Quilt

Made in November 2016

Red IS a Neutral

Blogiversary post 2 of 10

In the Fall of 2016, Barb Vedder hosted a block swap: broken dishes blocks made with solids- any red plus one other color. 

I chose to use a pale yellow and pale blue for my blocks.

Barb mixed them up and returned an assorted pile of blocks to us.

I pieced my top on November 1, 2016 and started quilting on the 3rd.

I had just taken a Craftsy class with Christina Camelli, so I had a blast quilting in red thread. It is the neutral in this quilt, after all!

Do you see the star shaped area below with less quilting? That was a design choice that quilt judges don't like. I did it anyway!

The binding was stitched on November 5th!

The purple binding was the best choice and it looks good with the Jane Sassaman print on the back.

 Freddy Moran says every color looks better next to red!

Red IS a Neutral

32" X 32"

Started 9/21/16

Finished 11/5/16

Best Use of Color, Ninigret Quilters 2017

Ombre Pyramids

 In this episode of Way-Back Wednesday, I present Ombre Pyramids. This is one of my favorite finishes ever, so I'm not sure why it has taken me over a year to blog about it.

After taking a workshop with Vanessa Christenson, I was excited to play with a hoarded jelly roll of her ombre fabrics. I had to supplement the jelly roll with a few extra strips from yardage I had handy.

I had seen Nancy Rink's Prism Quilt design and thought it would be a great fit for the ombres. The top came together really quickly over a couple of days in July. I happened to have a 60 degree ruler in my stash. Where do I get these things?

The project didn't make it to the top of the "quilt it" list until November. Four months is a fairly short ripening time in my world. 

I had fun playing with the idea of combining straight line (walking foot) quilting with free motion.

I'd call this a successful binding estimation. I'd rather have only 1/2" left over than be short by 1/2". 

(We realized I am literally 1/2" too short for the zip-line excursion we want to go on in Alaska this summer. Maybe if I wear my hiking boots and stretch a little, no one will notice!)

To celebrate my new phone, I had a custom cell phone case made by Skinit. I still love it!

(They didn't pay me to say that.)

Ombre Pyramids

35" X 45"

Started: July 1, 2016

Completed: November 19, 2016

Exhibited at the Summer Celebration of Quilts at the New England Quilt Museum, August 2017, representing Narragansett Bay Quilters Association.

Exhibited at Ninigret Quilters show, Westerly, RI, October 13-15, 2017.

Citrus Swap

It's a new year and I'm full of motivation! Don't you love new year mojo?

I'm going to try to get back to blogging about my finished projects. Ive been spending a lot of time posting about process on Instagram, but I miss blogging about the finish! She here goes. Let's try to get caught up.

I'm calling this quilt Citrus, but the colors remind me of Fruit Stripe gum, too. The blocks were made during several rounds of 4X5 block swaps in 2011. The blocks had been in a project box for years, waiting for setting inspiration to strike. I wanted it to have a modern feel. I saw a similar setting on Instagram one day and immediately got to work.

Once I had a plan, the top went together quickly. Then I went a little overboard with the domestic machine quilting. It was good practice to custom quilt each block.

I went overboard when it came to quilting the setting columns. I did a lot of work in those green parts that got completely lost in the print. Below, you can see a split screen of front and back, so you can see what I did. Well, it was good practice!

Citrus

62" X 74"

Block Swap Started: 2011

Quilt Completed: September 2016

Whisper

 A few weeks ago, I decided to make a lap quilt for my sister. She was in the midst of a kitchen renovation. With her open floor plan, that meant new family room furniture, too. I texted her daughter-in-law to get a picture of the new sofa and chair. So sneaky! Anita is a neutral girl. No crazy colors like in my house.

I had a pile of low volume prints still out from the trivet project. I added a few grays and solids and started cutting. In no time, the scrappy trip around the world blocks were done and ready to assemble. Wow, are they fun! 

It was super hot that week, so I needed to carefully move everything from the design floor in the living room to my air conditioned bedroom.

 I knew I wanted to quilt a spiral from the center of the "trip" and go around and around. I put on the walking foot, drew a starting circle and got started. I knew the center would be the toughest part, but I was really struggling moving the quilt along. Guess what? I forgot to re-engage the feed dogs after the free motion class the day before. How embarrassing! It's a little wobbly in the center, but not bad enough to rip out for a quilt that I know will be used and loved and washed often.

 

I tried not to post much of this project to Instagram, because I wanted to keep it a surprise. She did comment on a tight pic of the center quilting that the grays and yellows matched her new chair. Is that so? What a coincidence!

The next lesson I learned was that my needle was too small. I usually use a size 80 with 50 wt thread, but I was all out. I put in a 70 and my thread kept breaking. I was finally good to go after changing to a 90. With the feed dogs engaged!

 

I found the binding in my deep stash. I hope the little sparkle will compliment the mica flecks in her new granite counter tops. The backing should bring together her gray and beige paisley chair and brown leather sofa. Everything came from stash except the backing and batting.

 

Whisper

60" X 72"

Started: July 11, 2016

Top Done July 17, 2016

Quilted: July 23-24, 2016

Bound: July 25, 2016

Little Lucy

 Oh, happy day! My little Lucy Boston, Patchwork of the Crosses wall hanging is finished and hanging on the wall! I swear, every quilt I make looks fantastic on my golden yellow walls.

 This piece started in December 2014 as a traveling project to take on our trip to Tanzania. It was such a long flight, I knew I'd have lots of time to stitch. I met a lovely Brit in the JFK airport who wished she had brought her hand stitching with her, too. 

The fussy cut centers were fun to work on and were done by May of 2015. I won the Union Jack needle case from Helen/Archie the wonder dog a few years ago. How appropriate for this very English project! I'm so glad I decided to purchase the papers (1" honeycombs and squares) and a fussy cutting template from Paper Pieces.

When it came time to fill in the sashing, motivation was hard to come by. I pieced together small groupings of cream and blue, but there are other ways to assemble this top. This worked for me because it kept the project portable. I used 50 wt Aurifil for most of the piecing and all of the quilting.

 

I finally finished the top in early July 2016.

Bear with me while I document each block...

 If you click on one, you will see the free motion machine quilting.

 Clearly, I had fun fussy cutting! All the fabric is Kate Spain's Fandango line except the Kona solids in snow and aqua.

 Compare the yellow pieces above and below. I started out making little feathers in these pieces, but I wasn't sure if it was worth it in the busier prints. So every other block has the simpler design below.

The center block is my favorite.

Many thanks to Angela Walters for the confidence to tackle this quilting!

I fussy cut the binding to take advantage of the scallop print.

Free motion machine quilting was done on my Bernina 153. I used a light mint green Auriful #2800 in the colorful parts and creamy #2311 in the background.

No, maybe this one is my favorite block!

The ribbon candy quilting in the negative space wasn't my first choice. I tried an overlapping figure 8, which was just not working out. (I need more practice.) After working my way around two blocks, I realized it had to go. Have you ever noticed that 10 minutes of machine quilting takes over an hour to rip out?!! In the end, I think it was worth it.

Since this was all hand pieced, I considered hand quilting, too. That would have taken me another two years to finish instead of just two days! I'm so happy she's done!

Little Lucy

35" X 35"

Started: December 2014

Top done: July 1, 2016

Quilted: July 27-28, 2016

Bound: July 29, 2016

Exhibited at Ninigret Quilters Show
Westerly, RI, October 13-15, 2017
Best Pieced, Small Quilt, Master Division
Best of Master Division
Best of Show

Exhibited at Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival
Hampton, VA,  February 22-25, 2018

Exhibited at MQX- New England
Manchester, NH, April 11-14, 2018

Exhibited at Narragansett Bay Quilters Association
North Kingstown, RI, April 21-22, 2018

Ombre Mini Geese

 Oh, this ombre mini makes me so happy!

Way back in March (?) a new swap got under way on Instagram. @nydiak, @the_tattooed_quilter and @modernhandcraft started a V&Co ombre mini swap. The stress-free twist was that you wouldn't be assigned a partner unless you finished by April 30. Unfortunately, I didn't even have the top finished by then. Check out the swap hashtag for all the ombre love!

I had a small stash of ombres from a workshop with Vanessa. I found the paper piecing block in EQ7. It is similar to Bonnie Hunter's Wild & Goosey block with more geese. I was off to a promising start. Then life and other projects got in the way.

I finally got around to finishing the top at the end of June. Then it waited a little longer until after a workshop with Angela Walters. I was excited to pick up some new quilting tips and design ideas to use on this little piece.

 The machine quilting was done on my Bernina 153 with 50 wt Aurifil in three different shades of gray. I had so much fun choosing designs! Ribbon candy is a new design for me.

 

 I was even brave enough to try a little half-feather in the corners. Perfectly acceptable!

Oooooh. Look at the yummy backing! That teal ombre is just delicious.

 Since I used the ombre for the binding, too, I needed three shades of Aurifil for the hand stitching. Two of them came from a designer collection I picked up from Angela!

In case you were wondering, the grays in the background are also from V&Co. It's a wide stripe of the gray gradation.

Ombre Mini Geese

16" X 16"

Cutting 4/5/16

Piecing completed 6/30/16

Quilted and Bound 7/25/16