STEM Theme Quilt

The Proper Bostonian Quilters Guild has a number of charity projects.  One involves making quilts for specific kids, using a theme of their choice. I recently took a look at the list. One teenage boy had requested a quilt which was essentially a STEM theme. (STEM=Science, Technology, Engineering, Math).  It had been on the list for a quite a long time.  Who has STEM themed fabrics?

I do!  The guys in my family are all engineers. So when I see a great technology fabric, I add it to my stash. I have used a number of fabrics designed by Carolyn Friedlander in this quilt.  She was trained as an architect before she started her quilting business and many of her fabrics fit nicely into the theme. There is also an Art Gallery fabric, "Manhattan's Dawn" by Leah Duncan, which is a street layout. 

I used Cheryl Arkison's pattern, "Stripes" from her book, A Month of Sundays. Her quilt was a mix of blue stripe fabrics.  I borrowed the idea of quieter fabrics in the center of the quilt and darker fabrics on each lateral strip of blocks from Score #5, "Rhythmic Grid" in Sherri Lynn Wood's book The Improv Handbook for Modern Quilters. It was fun mixing and matching the designs!

Here's a detail of some of the fabrics and the quilting.

Detail of the blocks and quilting

I used a mix of free motion quilting and straight line quilting with the walking foot for this quilt. I let each block in the quilt dictate which to use.  That definitely kept the project interesting!

Most of my quilts are lap size. This is a twin bed size. It really helped to have the folding table to the left of the machine to hold the weight of the quilt. 

STEM is a great theme!  A challenge, but so much fun!

Book Review: You Inspire Me to Quilt by Cheryl Arkison

Cheryl Arkison's newest book, You Inspire Me to Quilt,  was released this week.  This book is a collection of quilts designed by 8 modern designers plus 2 quilts that Cheryl designed.  All the quilts are inspired by "Everyday Life."   And they are!

Cheryl has made a quilt of with the colored dancing bars seen on a music equalizer.  My brother, who spent his teens and early 20s in recording booths, would love this one!  

Blair Stocker made a quilt of up-cycled ski parkas! And on the theme of cold weather sports, Andrea Harris designed a "Canadian Hockey Quilt".  

Cheryl's long-time collaborator, Amanda Jean Nyberg, has created a "Time Stamp Quilt" inspired by a digital clock radio.  I think it would be cool re-interpreted as a baseball score board for a significant win for a kid's team, or maybe a World Series Win for a grown-up's home team.

Those are just a few of the fun quilts in this book. 

The quilt design that immediately inspired me make it my own, is a quilt called "Dino Patch" designed by Carolyn Friedlander, based on a conversation with her nephew. Her quilt has raw edge appliqué dinosaurs. You can see several of them on the book cover above. I looked at those dinosaurs and thought, "Dogs! Cats! Fish!"  Critters that usually require serious paper piecing or mind-bogling appliqué.  This gets the critter's shape and motion, and takes about 10 minutes to stitch out.

I'm working on a quilt of Dog Pals. As the say, "Draw what you know!"  Here are the blocks I've completed. The first dog is Jake, a Black German Shepherd.  Then Maisie, a big red dog, and Hazel my black Lab mix, great pals from dog walking through Hounds About Town!  There's Hagrid, the bichon from Canine Nosework class, Taffy my English Springer Spaniel, chasing a ball (of course!!), and Magnolia, the best ever mystery-black-dog mix from Mississippi!!  More dog blocks are in progress.  When it's done, I'll post the finished quilt.

Check out Cheryl Arkison's new book!  There's even a BACON quilt pattern if you want one!  Really!!

"I Spy" Slab Blocks

I'm a member of the Boston Modern Quilt Guild.  The guild is making a few charity quilts for children.  They requested 12 1/2 inch square slab blocks in rainbow colors.  Members of the guild are limited to making 3-4 blocks--they don't want to get inundated!!

Knowing the quilts were going to children, I couldn't resist including some novelty fabrics.  There are paints and painting tools in the hot pink block.  The yellow block is more fun.  It has 

• cats
• ladybugs (2 sizes)!
• butterflies
• lemons
• flowers (2 styles of daisies and one generic flower)

I've made a number of "I Spy" quilts in the past using several different patterns.  

While I was sewing these slabs I realized this would be a really fun way to make an "I Spy" quilt.  It is so random that it can incorporate little pieces of fabrics that wouldn't work in a set pattern. A slab block "I Spy Quilt" would really make an incredible treasure hunt! 

Need help constructing your own slab blocks?  Cheryl Arkison has a chapter in Sunday Morning Quilts for a quilt called "The Missing U" which is constructed with slab blocks.  The instructions for the slab construction are on pages 48-49 of the book.  (More info about the book can be found in the Recommended Reading tab above).  Cheryl also has a slab block how-to on her blog, Dining Room Empire.  In that 2013 post, she was collecting slab blocks to make quilts for flood victims in Canada. That project is now completed. If you use the instructions on her blog here's one helpful hint from the book.  When your block is done, sew a 1/8 inch seam around all 4 sides to keep all those seams in the block from pulling apart when you handle the blocks prior to final sewing.  It's an extra step, but you'll be glad you took the time to do it!

An "I Spy Quilt" isn't on my to-do list at the moment. But I do like this idea!