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

 

Sew Every Day- 5- Improv

Day 5 was Improvisation Day! It was finally time to try out the slice and insert technique from Jackie Gehring's Craftsy class, Improvisational Piecing, Modern Design.

 I used a palette that I am continually drawn to. Sorry, there are no process pics. I was too busy sweating my butt off. (Every time I hear them mention a heat wave on the news, I get the song stuck in my head for days! Marilyn Monroe's Tropical Heatwave. Not Martha Reeves and the Vandella's Love is Like a Heatwave. You're welcome.)

 

I was really excited to do some matchstick quilting. The parallel lines are about 1/4" apart, and I used yummy white Aurifil thread. The binding is pieced from leftover bits of orange, pink and white. I didn't have much of that particular white solid left, or I would have added a border around the four blocks before binding.

Improv

21.5" square

7/5/13

Two Blocks and a Pillow

 Just a quick Sew Modern Monday post. It's Girl Scout cookie season, so I'll be trying to squeeze in a little sewing whenever I can.

I finished my first bee blocks for the Modern Stash Bee. Mo Stash, for short. Tom Selleck is the poster boy, and the hives are named after his TV shows and movies. So silly!  I'm in the Three Men and a Baby hive, and Kelleigh asked for bright solids on white to use in a charity quilt. The tutorial for the block on the left was part of Jackie's Bloggers BOM last year, but I had to scale it up to make it 12.5". And I used flying geese units instead of HSTs to eliminate some seams. The block on the right is the Spring Blossom block from Volume 1 of Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks.

Julia finished up a pillow she had been working on for a friend's birthday.  She had seen the quote on Pinterest and drew it on a piece of linen blend. She had to watch some Youtube videos to remember how to do a stem stitch. (She's always been a redwork fan!)

Instead of piecing a border around the embroidery, I had her cut two 15" squares of the Amy Butler print, one for the front and one for the back. She pressed under a seam allowance on the embroidered piece and basted it to the center of a print square. Then, she trimmed it out with the ric rac and stitched it down. Quick and easy!

Have a great, quilty week!

Tuesday Triangle Table Topper

 Last night, I put the binding on this table runner. It will be my entry in the Rhode Island Modern Quilt Guild all-solids challenge AND the Pink Castle Fall for Solids contest on Threadbias. The design is inspired by Little Miss Shabby's Triangle Toss quilt. I don't have the magazine it was published in, so I figured it out using a block size that would work for a runner.

You might remember that I pulled the fabrics based on this color palette that I created here.

I wanted to do some big stitch hand quilting with some #5 perle cotton I had in the stash. I used gray thread around most of the triangles, but switched to yellow thread for the gray triangles. It was not easy! If you are considering quilting with perle cotton, I would suggest a thinner thread. My fingers are still sore from tugging so hard on the needle to pull the stitches through. Live and learn!

 I also should have spray basted. I always forget that I have a can of basting spray and it works great! It's not the flattest piece I've ever made. The surprising green on the back was purchased years and years ago. I have 4 yards of this horrible poly blend from Walmart that was supposed to be made into a Statue of Liberty costume. (Julia changed her mind about that one!)

 It's not a bad piece, and I enjoyed stepping out of my color comfort zone. I love how the triangles float as if they were tossed onto the background.

Finished size: 12.5" X 36.5"

Linking up with:

Find a Friend Friday


Finish it up Friday

A New Space

Julia has only been out of the house for a few weeks and I've already taken over her bedroom! It's the perfect place for my new sewing space. It's on the sunny side of the house so I don't feel like I'm in the dungeon. I can spread things out on the bed, the desk is the perfect height for cutting and I bought an adjustable portable table for my machine. When she comes home, I can quickly tuck everything away, back to the basement. The stash and supplies are still down there (safely stored in the dark), so when I need anything, I get some exercise going up and down two flights of stairs. And I have to walk across the hall to use the iron in my room. (My husband, the creature of habit, might have a stroke if I moved the ironing board in here!)

That's an Ikea print fabric attached to the wall with Heat & Bond.

Today I'm working on a table runner in all solids for the RI Mod Guild challenge. It is inspired by Little Miss Shabby's Triangle Toss pattern and I'm using the color palette I showed you last week.

I can't stop photographing these beauties. That's mama near the road.

Have a sunny day!

Color Palettes

I've been playing with color palettes and wanted to share what I've found.

I'm sure you're all familiar with Design Seeds. This fabulous site provides seemingly endless color palettes based on gorgeous photos. Here's one of my favorites.

But what if you want to create a palette from one of your own photos? There are several free options out there for that! I really like the Palette Builder on Play Crafts. You simply load an image from your computer and a palette is generated. You can adjust the number of colors and the variety, then save your palette. Here's my little friend again.

Next I tried DeGraeve's Color Palette Generator. On this one, you enter the URL of an image, which means it needs to live online. Pull one from your own website or flickr photostream, or anywhere online. I can't figure out how to save the palette, so I took a screen shot to show you.

Judy featured Chip It! from Sherwin Williams several months ago. This is a great one if you are in the market for new paint colors. It works a little bit like Pinterest in that you can Chip photos online as you surf. The original links are preserved, which is nice. Create a free account and your palettes will be saved. (Again, I had to take a screen shot.)

 I'm sure there are more options out there. Let me know if you have a favorite.

So now what? I started with all this because I need to make an all solids table topper for a Mod Guild challenge. Let's see what happens with this sunrise photo.

Here's my stack of solids, ready to go. Not bad!

Black, Medium gray, Flamingo, Snow, Banana, Brown

Now to choose a pattern. Pinterest and flickr are calling!

WIP Wednesday

I'm seeing RED this week!

Finished: For the Love of Solids Swap shipped Thursday to Michelle. Yay! She likes it! Click over to this post to see details of what I sent and received!


Almost Finished: Nonna's Garden. I quilted it yesterday, buried all the threads and rinsed out the blue pen.


Grrr. Several colors ran during the night. Of course the red was the worst. I laid it on a towel to dry and it looked fine before I went to bed. This morning, this...


After a couple of rinses with Oxy clean and a color catcher, it's better, but not perfect. Should I still submit this for judging, knowing I'll get points deducted for the bleeding? Any suggestions for getting the rest of the bleeding dye rinsed out?


In Progress: All the units are done for the RED Interlocking Windmills. I love how this is coming together. It will have a pieced blue border and will be donated to QOV (if the red doesn't run all over!).


Others:
1. 4X5 Swap Blocks are done- need to be pressed, trimmed to size and shipped.
2. Meadowsweet Dresden needs to be rinsed to remove quilting pencil marks. Please, God, don't let any of those dyes run!
3. Labels need to be made for the Hexie Runner and Zig Zag Friends before our guild show.
4. I might skip the Block Lotto this month, but I was on a roll!
5. Wedding Ring Star- no progress this week.

No linky box this week. Lee will be back next week.

For the Love of Solids

This may have been my favorite swap so far. It was a secret swap, so the quilter I made something for is not the quilter who made something for me. My partner said her favorite color is turquoise and she'd like a tote bag, table runner or mini quilt.

Here is the table runner I'm shipping today.


There was a circle of geese in her inspiration mosaic, but I wanted to mix it up a little. All I did was shift the bottom half of the circle to make a serpentine row of geese.

The background quilting design was inspired by a section of Pat Ferguson's Zen Dahlia quilt.

There was a group discussion of whether or not we could use a print on the back. The consensus was yes, so I used this Kaffe target print.

Besides the main piece, we needed to send one "extra" that could be handmade or some other little gift. I made a crossed canoes lapel pin from the solids and a key leash from the Kaffe print.

When I got home yesterday, there was a package on my porch and it never occurred to me that I would be receiving a swap package! Here is what I got from Debbie!

I indicated that my favorite solid was mango. I love how Debbie combined that with other oranges and a variety of grays, and my other favorite, snow. Isn't that a great block?! I only do curved piecing when absolutely necessary, never by choice.

The back is just as cool as the front.

Here are my extra goodies. I can't wait to play with the pearl cotton and fill up the pouch.


An awesome swap all around!

WIP Wednesday

I've been sewing again and I can prove it! See the mess?

New Project:
I made a couple of key leashes from Stephanie's tutorial. I needed that quick project to jump start my sewing. Now I want to make hundreds of them! Julia will be making them for all her friends for Christmas.


Finished:
My For the Love of Solids swap pieces are done. I'll show you the whole thing tomorrow. It needs to be shipped by tomorrow, and even though I finished it last week, I'm holding onto it for guild show & tell tonight.


Ongoing:
I finished my Teeny Weeny blocks for September. Sadly, this swap group is closing down. And I only got to participate for 3 months. Oh, well. I'll have a dozen fun blocks to play with. These will be shipped out today. (P.S. The houndstooth is a nod to Lady Gaga!)


The 4x5 Swap blocks are almost done. I'll talk more about these later this week, too.


At the top of the LIST this week:
4X5 swap blocks- complete piecing and ship
Nonna's Garden- quilt & complete by Oct 1 for quilt show judging
Meadowsweet Dresden- rinse out pencil marks and block for judging

On Hold for a little while:
Kaleidoscope Quilt Along
Wedding Ring Star
Red & White Swap
Polka Dot Swap

You know there are many, many more on the back burner.

This Week:
Finishes- 3
New starts- 1
In progress- 20+

Now off you go to see more...