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

 

HOPE

Here's a small quilt I made this week that I absolutely love. The pattern is one block of the Tattoo Quilt by Berene Campbell at Happy Sew Lucky. You can purchase patterns for the whole quilt or individual blocks in her Etsy shop.

I immediately fell in love with this block because the Rhode Island state motto is Hope. And I love tattoo art. And barn swallows are cool.

I downloaded the pattern and started piecing on Tuesday. I thought a scrappy green background would be fun. It. Was. Not. The completed block went in the trash!

Restarted on Wednesday. I wanted to use the same deep blue for the birds, but I wasn't sure if there was enough. I traced the pattern shapes, added generous seam allowances, and cut out the pieces. Joost-a-joost, as my grandmother would say!

My favorite bit of piecing is the life light in the eye.

The quilting texture in the background makes me happy.

My goal with this binding was to match up the flange at the join more accurately than past attempts. Nailed it! I used the tutorial by Sew Fresh Quilts, but made my binding a bit narrower. (I cut my strips 1.25" and 1.5" wide.)

Glamour shot. Julia bought these lunchboxes on a high school trip to NYC. They haven't moved from this spot since!

HOPE

15" X 20.5"

Pattern by Berene Campbell

Started 4/29/2020

Pieced on 4/30-5/1

Quilted and bound 5/3/2020

These are two of the five neighborhood deer that snack in our yard almost every day. I wish they'd stay away from the lilacs!

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

Color Challenge

Another mini is complete. This one was made in response to a quilt shop color challenge. 

At the beginning of February, Julia and I visited a quilt shop near Albany, NY. I had been a fan of Amelia's Garden since I met Tara and her mom vending at quilt shows. Next to the register, they had set out a basket of fat eighths with a printout of a design seeds color palette. I'm sure no one is surprised that I chose an orange one! The challenge was to make a mini quilt using as many of the colors in the palette as possible. I already had most of this fabric in my hands, ready to check out!

Before I sat down with EQ7, I scrolled through my Pinterest boards for inspiration. I'm always attracted to kaleidoscopes and periwinkles. My block is like a bordered kaleidoscope. Since I wanted to use all six colors, the background color changes behind the stars. I numbered my blocks and colored them in with crayons so I could keep it all straight. I still had to rip out a couple of pieces.

I usually use paper clips to hold blocks together, but the wonder clips were closer. They work, but I prefer vinyl coated paper clips.

 

To make thinks interesting for me, I used a different free motion quilting design in each color. I definitely need more practice with these lazy 8's.

 

 

  

This was such a fun challenge, I'd like to bring it to my guilds or retreat.

Texture. Oh, yeah!

 

All ready for Julia to take back to the shop next week for judging. Rhode Island peeps, Amelia's Garden will be vending at the NBQA show on April 23-24. 

Amelia's Color

Started 3/25/16

Completed 4/2/16

20" X 20"

Springtime in Kansas

 It's been mini season here at Seaside Stitches. This is the largest of my recent mini finishes. I'm calling it Springtime in Kansas. The pattern is Kansas Dugout, and I think the scraps give a pretty springtime look. I've never been to Kansas, but my father was stationed there during World War II.

It started out innocently enough with a single ring of English Paper Piecing. I was excited that it uses the same papers as Patchwork of the Crosses.  

I added rings and rows until it reached a decent size. All the fabric came from my scrap bags, and no fabric is repeated except the Kona Snow squares.

 I didn't want to piece in tiny triangles to square it up, so I set it on point and appliqued it to a big square of Kona Snow. That provided large corners of negative space for fun machine quilting.

During the quilting, I had two "are you kidding me?" moments. Thankfully, I don't have this fold over problem very often. I was able to trim around the stitching and pull out the offending fibers.

I was literally 1/2" from finishing when the bobbin ran out. Really?!

I like the look of combining straight line and free motion quilting. It took me some time to decide on a quilting design for the piecing. I'm not completely happy with what I did, but it's done.

 I do really like the quilting in the corners. I took Christina Cameli's Craftsy class "Wild Quilting" last weekend to get some new ideas. I drew out a bunch of options and chose this divide and conquer symmetrical plan.

Oh, baby, I love this texture!

 

This little quilt will be donated to the Narragansett Bay Quilters Association auction to benefit the New England Quilt Museum. Do you think I can convince my husband to buy it back?

Springtime in Kansas

Started March 1, 2016

Completed March 21, 2016

Hand Pieced with Aurifil 50 wt

Machine Quilted with Superior So Fine 50wt

18" square
Purchased at auction by Maria Lage

Bits and Pieces

As I was pulling photos for today, I realized I hadn't shown you my mini challenge from the Ninigret Quilters show. We were provided with a fat eighth of the brown print with polka dots. Since I had taken a class with Vanessa Christenson, I was eager to play with her ombre fabrics. I used Karen Kay Buckley's Perfect Circles to prepare the applique. After a few days of hand work, I went to town with some tiny machine quilting. I used up a full bobbin of 50 wt Aurifil on this 12" square! I added the yellow ric rac under the binding since that was the only color from the print that hadn't been used yet. 

Now on to the random projects...

I'm putting together an English Paper Piecing kit for a friend who had surgery last week. When She's ready for visitors, I'll give her the kit and a lesson.

 

When I was browsing for EPP stuff, I stumbled upon this hexagon starburst block on Stitchery Dickory Dock.  I couldn't resist giving it a try and I absolutely loved the first one (on left). I do not need another EPP project with two others waiting to be finished, but I can't help myself!

I printed and cut enough paper pieces for 22 blocks. They are all laid out on the piano bench until I dig out my tiny baggies. I'm not planning ahead with fabrics. I'll pull scraps for one block at a time and we'll see what happens!

Last weekend I taught a fabric box class for my co-workers and/or their families. It's a small office, but it's a very crafty group! We had a fun morning and everyone did a great job with their boxes.

This ticker tape birthday card was really fun to make! With crazy mom quilts celebrating her 9th Blogversary, Ticker Tape was fresh in my mind. I tacked down the pieces with glue stick and then stitched around in a square spiral.

Why do scrap projects make such a big mess?! Here you can see the stitches on the inside. I kind of like the wonky lines and texture of the perforations. Now I just need to write a message and sign the card.

I've been teaching private lessons to my friend's mom, Sandy. She is making her first quilt from her granddaughter's t-shirts. Yesterday, we laid out all the blocks and she learned how to piece the rows. It was a fun puzzle to put together, and I think we were successful in distributing the colors and sizes.

 

Last one. I quilted an outreach quilt from Ninigret that will be delivered on the 14th. Now I have 6 labels to make and attach before then. I'll print them on my ink jet printer, so it will be a quick job.

 

I need to stop playing with fabric for a few hours and get busy on some computer work. My procrastination became this blog post!