Intriguing Interleaves

What a fun workshop this was! Mel Beach taught Intriguing Interleaves to Ninigret Quilters via Zoom in February. It is a quilt-as-you-go method, which means when the piecing is done, so is the quilting! How satisfying to have a completed project so soon after taking a class, and not another UFO for the pile!

 

Mel is an outstanding teacher who utilizes all the technology at her disposal to maximize student engagement in the virtual environment. She's the best we've seen since we started Zooming in April 2020.

I'm not going to get into the process here, but here are a couple of process pics. Above, you can see the six fabrics I started with. One strip set was blue-purple-orange and the other was green-yellow-raspberry. I used a mirrored sine wave to cut my curves. Below, you can see the interleaves starting to form. You can take a look at Lorrie Cranor's tutorial.

 The binding went on after the second class session. I added corner pockets for hanging so I can hang it any which way. The label is handwritten on the bottom corner. I had just enough of that gorgeous lotus print for the back.

For now, it's hanging in my hallway gallery.

 

I thought the mottled sunlight was pretty this morning. 

 

My daughter's dog needs to test out every quilt, no matter how small. He refuses to look at a camera!

This is my favorite shot!

 Intriguing Interleaves

by Tina Craig

16" X 17"

Started 2/13/2021

Completed 2/27/2021

Workshop with Mel Beach and Ninigret Quilters

 

Blue Star Mom

 For my modern quilting lecture that debuted last week, I needed an example of alternative grid work. Since my son left for his first overseas deployment, I felt ready to hang a red star banner. This quilt killed two birds with one stone!

"The Service flag is an official banner authorized by the Department of Defense for display by families who have members serving in the Armed Forces during any period of war or hostilities the United States may be engaged in for the duration of such hostilities." You can read more about the Blue Star banner at Blue Star Mothers. Pete is in a relatively safe place, but I do miss him more than when he is in his office in North Carolina. I try really hard not to worry.

I started piecing when I was on retreat in January. My first attempts at wonky 5-pointed stars were horrible!

I turned to a crazy piecing technique that worked much better for me. It creates a positive and negative block at the same time, so I have a stack of white stars on a blue field that might become a flag someday. Only a few of the blue stars were bordered in red. I used some Kona solids and some prints.

The blocks were laid out on Peggy's bed since we didn't have a design wall.

After making a couple more stars, I had to figure out how to fill in the negative space around the blocks. I couldn't just start cutting white fabric and wing it. My brain doesn't work like that. So I drew it all out in my graph paper notebook and came up with a piecing plan. The numbers are finished sizes without seam allowances.

It didn't take long to complete the top.

The quilting was done at home a few days later. I selected a star to echo quilt around. In the photo below, the red lines indicate the sections that are already done. The blue tape marks the line I'm getting ready to quilt. 

This style of straight line machine quilting with a walking foot is really tedious! I was ready to quit after three sides, but I knew I had to see it through and complete all five directions.

Oh, the texture!

I had a Marine Corps print in my stash that I had to use on the back. 

When I showed this quilt to the Clamshell Quilters, a lovely woman presented me with this star to send to Pete. I had read about this project before, and I wanted to cry when she gave this to me. Now I remember why I was saving my worn out flag and didn't give it to the scouts to burn.

Rather than putting his stuff in storage in NC, he brought it all home! I found his gloves in his car and the cover was on his desk. Yes, his dress blues are hanging in the closet.

Modern Blue Star Mom

28" X 39"

Started 1/30/16

Completed 2/3/16

interface

My first new project finish for 2016 is interface. When we quilters think of that word, fusible interfacing comes to mind. This is a much different interface.

My husband has worked in a Navy lab for 25 years and has become an expert in the air-water interface. It is his job to find or develop new technologies to help submarines communicate through that interface- no small task!

On our way home from the Gathering and a wonderful exhibit of the Seacoast Modern Quilt Guild, I asked Bill how we could represent his work in a minimalist quilt design. This is what we came up with. The blue is the water, gray sky, a sliver of red represents the interface. The yellow thing could be a UUV or a buoy.

The quilting tells the story of a signal coming from a submarine and being relayed by the UUV. Bill assured me that when this quilt is hanging in his office his colleagues will immediately recognize its significance. For us quilters, I hope it is just a cool design.

It was quick to piece, with just two seams. Granted, it is not easy to piece an accurate 1/8" seam, and this one is not perfectly perfect. It looks good from a distance, though. The yellow UUV is appliqued.

I quilted along the red first, then started the echo quilting from the red line each time. That was a lot of tails to bury, but I think the effect was worth the effort.

Bill purchased the print on the back many years ago on one of his working trips to Hawaii.

Even though we designed this quilt in November, I didn't start stitching until a few days before the RI Modern Quilt Guild solids challenge deadline. You know how much I love a deadline! I brought it for show and tell to Ninigret last night, too. Thanks to Catherine for holding and Pat for taking the picture.

interface

24" X 36"

Designed 11/8/15

Pieced & appliqued 1/6/16

Quilted 1/7-8/16

Bound 1/8/16

Kona solids: silver, navy, tomato, grillow and black

Aurifil 50 wt: 2600 Dove and 2784 Dark Navy

collaboration1

I was very lucky to have the opportunity to take a class with Jacqui Gering last week. (Much more on that later!) Although this quilt is not the class project, spending the day with the president of the Modern Quilt Guild inspired me to expand my modern repertoire. I've been struggling with the concept of minimalism. More is more in my quilt world! So, I enlisted the help of my nephew, an industrial designer by day and very cool guy.

On Thursday night, I texted Eric for design ideas. Later that night, he sent me nine designs! A few looked too much like quilts that are already out there. This was my favorite of the bunch. I was so excited, I pieced and quilted it on Friday.

I knew it would be a challenge to get those vertical lines to match up. My first attempt had to be unstitched! As the quilt grew, my technique improved.

I took a break mid-day to take mom grocery shopping, but the top was finished soon after.

The quilting plan was in my head from the start, so I was eager to get to it. The sections with white backgrounds were quilted with 1/2" parallel lines with white thread. The gray section was stitched at 1/4" intervals with gray thread.

I do love the texture of parallel lines, but wish they were more accurately spaced. (I blame my off-center needle. My Bernina needs a trip to the spa.)

I didn't think a binding would work for this piece, so I used a facing instead.

I used Susan Brubaker Knapp's instructions for the facing. It worked perfectly and was quite simple.

I'm thrilled with this piece! I might be calling Eric again soon!

collaboration1

October 22-24, 2015

Designed by Eric Mott

24" X 38"

Cool Side of the Rainbow

 Yes, another finished project! All this snow is making me super productive.

  

This little quilt started with improv blocks made from the cool- (not warm) colored modern scrap bin. I found the perfect pale yellow print for the border on sale at Joann's on Monday. I'm trying to not be such a fabric snob. I become more frugal at tax time!

Would you call these blocks improv, made fabric, or mile-a-minute? I guess it depends on how long you've been quilting. Whatever you call it, it works. I really did make a dent in this bin.

 

 Since I had this half-rainbow idea in my head, I quilted concentric quarter circles across the whole quilt. I "marked" one line with a hera marker and then just echoed that with the edge of my walking foot. I think you can see that I also moved the needle over to the right to make the spacing as wide as possible.

I used four colors of thread: turquoise, green, purple and yellow. I wanted to use a purple binding, but my stash is seriously lacking in purple. I think the stripe is fun and picks up all the colors. I bought the fabric for the back and the sleeve at Lorraine's yesterday. The green backing was only $2.99 a yard. Score! The owl print was just too cute to pass up. I could have used fabrics from my stash for the backing and sleeve, but these were too handy.

 

I do love the texture of parallel quilting lines. 

The Cool Side of the Rainbow

42" X 42"

Started February 8, 2015 (?)

Completed February 18, 2015

Bee Blocks

After driving Pete to the airport this morning at zero dark thirty, and then a quick nap, I worked on some bee blocks. The RI Modern Quilt Guild just started our first bee. For the first month, Suzanne chose these adorable Sunshine Star blocks from 42 Quilts. 

When I started clicking around the 42 Quilts blog, I was excited to see all 64 blocks that Jennifer designed for her Modern Monday series. I think I might make a bunch of these to replace the Farmer's Wife blocks I'm really not crazy about. I'm such a rebel!

I'm off to an EQ7 class. Have a great day!

Challenge Progress

I was happy to get this top pieced yesterday for the Modern Quilt Guild challenge using these fun Michael Miller prints. It's only 24 X 28".

The Rhode Island MQG gave us a fat eighth of 5 prints plus one solid. What was left over from piecing the front was pieced into the back, slice and insert style. I bought the coordinating green print last week on a quilty road trip with Julia.

Julia has been taking crafty breaks from cleaning her room and playing with fun charm squares. She's debating whether to piece them into 1/2 rectangle squares or 4-patches.

This time of year, I succumb to Peony Envy! Driving around town, I've been known to yell and point out all the peonies. I lucked out this year and have a few gorgeous blooms of my own. The biggest one was growing out from under a pine tree. Maybe I should sprinkle pine needles around my other plants.

Have a beautiful, colorful weekend!