I'm super excited about this rebranding! Let me know what you think.
Tuesday, April 27, 2021
My New Website is Live!
Sunday, April 11, 2021
Riley's Birthday Quilt
I think temperature quilts are super fun! If you aren't familiar with temperature quilts, the concept is to record the temperatures for every day in fabric. Makers create their own rules beyond that. Some considerations include:
- Pattern/block design: pieced or appliqued
- Include high and low temps
- Precipitation- part of the block design or embroidered
- Month markers
- Special days
- Additional text: pieced, appliqued, embroidered, inked
Take a look at #tempquilt or #temperaturequilt on Instagram for a plethora of inspiration.
Riley's quilt is the third temp quilt I've made, but the first one I'm blogging about. The first two represented the high and low temperatures for every day in 2018 and 2019.
#tempquilt2018 - 96" X 96" - 10° color ranges |
#tempquilt2019 - 36" X 32" - 5° color ranges |
When we were waiting for our first grandchild to arrive in 2020, I decided to wait until he was born to start. Here are the choices I made:
- High temps only.
- Pattern: I think the block looks like those toys with the beads that slide around. It takes two days to make a bead.
- Each row equals a month. Riley was born on the 22nd, so there was a lot of negative space to fill with the pieced text.
- I did a half-drop to create the zig zag look of the rows.
- Used a tight palette of blues and greens. Color changes every 10° Fahrenheit.
I used the My First Alphabet pattern by From Blank Pages for the text.
When it came time for quilting, my beloved Bernina was in the shop for maintenance, so I had to use an unfamiliar machine. I couldn't get the stitch right for free motion, so I had to stick with straight lines with the walking foot. I had fun with some point-to-point work. I'm happy with the resulting texture.
The label had to include the temperature ranges so I used some extra units to piece a big block. I pieced the back with leftover fabric from the front and a big piece of leafy print that I thought I might add as a border. I'm glad I left it off. It's big enough for our little guy.
Without a border, the binding needed a little something extra, and I do love a flange!
Monday, March 8, 2021
Quilted Placemats
Friday, March 5, 2021
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.
Thursday, March 4, 2021
Celtic Shamrocks
I made a table runner and I'm blogging about it within 24 hours!
I love a flange binding! This runner was not particularly square or flat when I started quilting. It got a little better, but still isn't perfect. Done is better than perfect! I know I can make a perfect binding when I need to.
Saturday, January 2, 2021
Safari Tango
My last finished quilt of 2020 is called Safari Tango. It might be the first true double-sided quilt I've ever made. The front was started in an online (Zoom) workshop with Diane Harris, The Stash Bandit, hosted by Ninigret Quilters. She calls her pattern Twofer Tango because you could get two quilts from your effort. The half square triangle units are bonus blocks from the creation of the main X-blocks. I chose to add mine around the border instead of harboring yet another UFO!