Beach Glass or Beach Grass Quilt Top?

The pattern for this quilt top is Cheryl Arkison’s “Beach Grass” from her book, A Month of Sundays. This is my rendition. I was thinking more about the colors of beach glass. But also about the colors of water, beach grass, sand dunes and sky.

The center stripes can be straight or a bit wonky. I cut some a deliberately a bit wonky, but mostly I just trimmed the blocks to size, not thinking about it too much. That’s the great thing about many of Cheryl’s quilts…perfection is not required, or even desired! I think that’s one of the reasons I really enjoy making her projects.

I’ve got some great ocean floor fabric coming for the backing! Can’t wait to show you the completed quilt. But camp is next week, so it’ll be a while!

"Nicole's Challenge" 20 Fabric Quilt from Bits 'n Pieces Quilt Shoppe

Every couple weeks, Bits ‘n Pieces Quilt Shoppe in Pelham, New Hampshire, does a live Comment Sold sales event on Facebook. 6 weeks ago they were selling stacks of twenty 7 inch wide fabric strips. I think they had originally be cut and sold to be used to make face masks. Anyway, it was time to move them along, so they were on sale.

Off the cuff, someone suggested that the bundles could be used to create a quilt challenge. Nicole, one of the shop’s staff members, took up the challenge and on the spot, ans off the cuff, came up with “Nicole’s Challenge” 20 Fabric Quilt.

Here are the rules.

• Each of the 20 fabrics in the bundle you purchased had to be used in the quilt. You didn’t need to use up every bit of the fabrics they sent, but at least a patch of each fabric had to be in the completed quilt top. (The bundles weren’t all the same, but they chose the bundle for you).

• Supplemental fabrics could be added. (I added 10 extra fabrics).

• It quilt could be any size and any pattern.

• The top, with a brief description, had to be completed and submitted via e-mail by April 11. That gave the entrants 6 weeks to sew. The quilt did NOT have be finished.

• Voting for the winners is open to anyone visiting the Bits ‘ Pieces their Facebook page from the time the entries are uploaded until the winning quilts are announced on April 25th, 2021. Nicole promises there will be prizes!

For the most part, I really liked the 20 fabrics in my bundle. But I did find the fluorescent pixel fabric and it’s coordinating palm tree fabric to be rather challenging—especially the pixel fabric! I did use the pixel fabric twice, but there isn’t much of it! Still, that met the brief.

I used the pattern “Autumn Flight” by Beth Vassalo from the Lucky Spool book Scraps, Inc., Vol. 1 as my inspiration. (This 2014 book is available as a digital download from Lucky Spool or still can be found as a paperback from Amazon.

I used Beth Vassalo’s idea of flying geese and plain blocks in strips. Beth used an alternative method to make her flying geese blocks and staggered them so they aren’t flying exactly in a straight line, while I used a couple quilting flying geese rulers to make traditional flying geese blocks. I also added 3 square-in-a-square economy blocks in 2 of the block strips in the quilt. So, this quilt is my own variation, but it is definitely styled on the quilt design in the book.

All 20 fabrics, plus a number of added coordinating fabrics, were incorporated into the quilt top. And just for good measure, I made the binding with all 20 fabrics too! (The eagle eye will note that that pesky pixel fabric got short shrift in the binding as well as in the quilt!! I used the pixel fabric as the last fabric in my binding. I didn’t need the full 9 inch length of that section when I came to the end of the binding and I’ll admit, I was happy to cut it short!)

I did all the quilting with my walking foot. There is echo quilting around the flying geese and the economy blocks, and lines of quilting spaced in a variety of distances, from 1/2 to 1/8 inch, across the vertical width of the longer plain blocks.

I loved the open-ended nature of this challenge. With the only constraints being needing to use a bit of all the fabrics and completing in time, that allowed lot of freedom for the quilt’s design and execution.

If you are reading this post before April 25th, 2021, Head over to the Bits ‘n Pieces Facebook page to see all the other entries for “Nicole’s Challenge'‘ and vote for your favorite!

Below are 19 of the 20 fabrics in my bundle. The one that is missing from the photo is the fabric with the yellow sloths in row 2 of the quilt photo above.

Modern Doll Quilt Completed

Here's my completed Modern Color Block Doll Quilt.

I've quilted it by hand with Big Stitch Quilting using Pearl Cotton thread.  Each row has white stitching and three rows have a second line of stitching using aqua thread.

Here's the back of the quilt.  The baby blue fabric with the tiny white polka dot is really sweet.

A big shout out to Jeannette T. for her assistance with this project!

Coming up in the next few weeks:  My newly designed Waldorf Style Doll.

Modern Doll Quilt Top

Having made 4 good size quilts in January, I decided my next project would be a small doll quilt! I was given a stack of 2 1/2 inch squares as part of a Yankee Swap over the holidays. And I had a few left over white 10 inch layer cake Kona®squares which I cut into 2 1/4 inch strips. The 2 1/2 inch squares were pinked so 2 1/4 inches was a better match.

I haven't picked a backing or binding yet but I know I'm going to quilt it with straight line quilting. It's a sweet little piece!

Hexagon Log Cabin Quilt

I have two new quilts to share with you this week.

Every summer the Proper Bostonian Quilters guild has a Summer Challenge. (Lest our hand be idle in the summer months when we don't have meetings)!  This summer the challenge was hexagons.

English Paper piecing immediately comes to mind when hexagons are mentioned. But there are other ways to create hexagons, including using strips of 60 degree triangles.

I, however, trod completely off any beaten path by deciding to make a Hexagon Log Cabin quilt!

I had a stack of laser pre-cut hexagons in my stash.  I decided to get out my bag of remnant fabric strings and use them to make log cabin blocks using the hexagon pre-cuts as the enter patch. 

I quickly understood why houses typically are constructed with 4 sides.  It took SO much longer to add strips of fabric to 6 sides of each block!  My fabric strings were a variety of widths of the quilt has a modern improv character, which I really like.  I had some handmade EPP hexagon blocks which I appliqued on the center of some of the log cabin blocks. So this quilt has a little bit of everything!

I quilted it it using free-form organic curves which follow the lines in the blocks. It looks great on the front of the quilt, but rather a mysterious mess on the back!

Back of the Hexagon Log Cabin Quilt

This was an interesting exercise.  Even though I really like this quilt which has so much amazing visual motion, I can't imagine I'll ever make another one!

Christmas Forest Frolicking Fun Quilt

On the Twelfth Day of Christmas I want to show my Quilt.  

It has 1 cherry block, 2 red squares, 3 shades of green, 4 red rectangles, 5 quilting stitches, 7 foxes sledding, 8 bunny trios, 10 rabbits guarding, 11 foxes leaping and 12 Christmas presents... but that's not quite the song!!  

This is my 2015 Christmas quilt.  It's an original pattern. I sat down one day in December and sketched out the design on graph paper.  It's interesting how different the finished quilt seems than the quilt in the sketch, though clearly it is the same pattern. It may be the difference between the 2 dimensional drawing and the quilt which has texture, or maybe it's the color intensity of the fabrics.  

I used my fabric, Christmas Forest Frolicking Fun, printed by Spoonflower.com with Kona® solids for the greens and reds.  The two whites are a sateen and a white on white large snowflake print. The quilt, with so much white negative space, has a very festive, snowy feel.  

The back is a large intense floral with dark reds, greens, pinks and purples. The contrast is unexpected but really works!

Working on the "Snow Melt" Quilt

The irony that I was working on my "Snow Melt" quilt on a day when it was snowing (again!) was not lost on me!  But the the silk screened of crocus card that I made years ago, tucked into my ruler stand, added a hopeful feeling to the day!

Here are a couple of pictures of the quilt top and back.  I can't decide which I like better!  It was very windy the day I took these photos. The only place I could keep the fabric still was draped over the deck railing facing the wind.  

"Snow Melt" Quilt top

"Snow Melt" quilt back

Part of the quilting I'm doing on this project is grid work.  I've used an pastel sea green thread for most of the stitching. At the moment I'm adding diagonal quilting with yellow thread--sun beams!

My diagonal yellow stitching extends over 1/3 of the quilt.  I used painter's tape to mark the first line of diagonal quilting. Additional lines of quilting are stitched using the marking lines on my walking foot, following the first line of diagonal stitching.  The painter's tape works really well. It doesn't leave any sticky residue.  However I wouldn't put the tape on a quilt and leave it there for more than a day. I've read that masking tape will leave a residue of glue on the fabric so make sure you use only use painter's tape.

Here's a photo of diagonal quilting using painter's tape as a marking line on the "Early Birds" quilt that I just completed.

Painter's tape on the "Early Birds" quilt, ready for quilting a long diagonal line

I'll keep you posted on my progress!

"Early Birds" Low Volume Fabrics in a Modern Flying Geese Quilt

I put my "Snow Melt" quilt aside to work on a sample quilt for a class I teach at my local quilt (and yarn) shop, JP Knit & Stitch.   I had seen the Cloud 9 "YoYogi Park" fabrics designed by Heather Moore of Skinny la Minx in the shop and thought it would be fun to use them in the quilt. Genevieve, the shop owner, agreed.  

I chose the grey and white "Peeking Birds" first, then the deep teal and light aqua fabrics from the same line.  Genevieve wanted yellow in the quilt so I added the yellow from Carolyn Freidlander's "Doe" line from RobertKaufman.com.  She picked the bright orange and white floral fabric ("Nobi" from Alexander Henry) for the back!

All of the fabrics on the front of the quilt meet the criteria for Low Volume Fabrics.  (See my post from 3/19/2015).  This quilt has a lot of negative space.  I'd made a quilt using this design once before and that time chose two light solids in the negative space. It's an entirely different quilt using all low volume fabrics. 

I like both quilts. Each has a unique character.  

I usually try to put a solid in a quilt with a lot of print fabrics to give the eye a place to rest. Up close this quilt is busy.  At a distance, the flying geese blocks read as solids while the pattern in negative space in the background seems much more dominant. That's really interesting. 

I really enjoyed making this quilt.  I had recently listened to Abby Glassenberg's great podcast with Heather Moore.  Heather lives in Cape Town, South Africa.  It's unlikely I'd ever meet her or go to her shop, but it was fun to hear Heather talk about designing fabrics.  The Internet really can make Half-a-world-away feel like Right-next-door!

There are still a couple places in my class, Beyond Beginner Quilting, at JP Knit & Stitch if you'd like to join us!  The class starts Saturday, May 2, 2015. 

Low Volume Fabrics in a Quilt--WIP

After a winter with unusually heavy snowfall, Massachusetts is just starting The Long Melt.  (Can Mud Season be far behind)?  While some years, March here does seem like the beginning of spring, this year the landscape reminds me of low volume quilting fabrics:  Mostly white with a bit of color.

Low volume designs of snow and shrubs in my front yard:

After watching part of Cheryl Arkison's class, "Quilting with Low Volume Fabrics" on CreativeLive, and looking again at her book, A Month of Sundays,  I decided to try making a quilt with just low volume fabrics.  A low volume quilt perfectly echoes the world outside my window.

What are low volume fabrics?  Cheryl describes them as white or light colored fabrics with a colored design OR a colored fabric with a white design. "Low Volume".  It's a term created by, and only used by, quilters. Unlike most other design and color terms, this one isn't used in the art world.

I also think of low volume fabrics as light colored fabrics with some design and which are especially well suited for backgrounds in quilts.  These fabrics have color, but it's understated. 

Making a whole quilt with low volume fabrics is a challenge. You need to pay attention to value so the quilt isn't flat looking. Cheryl uses the "X Plus Block" in her class.  I didn't want both an X and a plus sign in my blocks. So I modified the pattern, keeping the plus sign but changing out the X for a small fold-over triangle which will create a secondary pattern of small diamonds in the negative space of the joined blocks. 

Above are four of my blocks. I've laid them out on a snowbank.  They have the pale blues, green and lavenders of the snow and it's shadows and then the light yellow block, like the March sun, whispering of warmer, brighter days to come. 

Irish Mini Quilt "40+ Shades of Green"

With St Patrick's Day just around the corner, I made a little Irish Mini quilt.  

Ireland: ocean, beach and green hills. There are three 1 inch blocks in the upper half of the quilt that run almost on a diagonal.  White, light grey and dark grey, these blocks are symbolic sheep on the hills.  There's a realistic horse pulling a wagon on the far left if you look, a couple of shamrocks too!

This mini quilt was totally improv pieced. I pulled most of the fabrics out of my bag of strings. The rest of the pieces came my collection of pre-trimmed scraps, 1 1/2 inch squares and 2 inch squares. 

Because the piecing was truly improv, the completed top was off kilter. (It was more off kilter than shown in the picture below!  The tilt bothered me enough that I only took a detail photo of the top!)  I wasn't at all sure this little quilt was going to work.  But once I started quilting the curves of the hills, it was just fine!

While the celebration officially isn't until next Tuesday, it's never too early to wish you a Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Book Review: "Cultural Fusion Quilts" by Sujata Shah

Every so often I pick up a new quilting book and all I can say is "Wow!"  Sujata Shah has put together a book of 15 amazing quilts.  The quilt designs in Cultural Fusion Quilts--A Melting Pot of Piecing Traditions are inspired by art, handcrafted items, textiles, and quilts from India, Africa, and the United States. The Pennsylvania countryside, where she currently lives, also gives her ideas for her quilts. 

The designs are bright, colorful and have lots of movement. The blocks are purposely not perfect.   She uses common quilt blocks and cuts slightly curved lines in place of straight lines. In several of the quilts, she makes a traditional block and then cuts it up to create something new. 

The basic block for the quilt, "Zigzag Amish Impressions" on the lower half back cover of the book, is the Square in a Square Economy Block!  That really surprised me!  A lightning storm and Kuba cloth from Kenya were the inspiration for this quilt.  On the page in the book facing this quilt she has a photo of her sons watching the electric storm and a picture of the fabric from Kenya. 

Sujata Shah has included lots of photos of various works of art that relate to each quilt in the book. I really appreciate being able to see the tangible work of art next to the quilt based on that design.  That's a brilliant feature of this book!

This book will appeal to a wide group of quilters:  those looking for patterns based on ethnic designs, modern quilters who love blocks with asymmetry and anyone who loves bright, exciting quilts!  Click the link above to see more photos of the quilts in the book.  (If you click on the small quilts in the scroll under the book cover, they will open in a larger window).

I highly recommend this book!  It's a wonderful addition to my library of books with quilt patterns.

"Construction Zone": A modern twist on Bonnie Hunter's "Grand Illusion" 2014 Mystery Quilt

This week Boston had the largest January snow storm on record--24 1/2 inches. It was predicted well in advance.  "Snow Day!" I thought.  "I can sit inside and quilt and watch the snow accumulate outside."  That so did not happen!   I spent the snow day snow-blowing and shoveling.  And catching up with neighbors-- that's one of the great things about Big Snow in this city.  (My neighbor @franklin.e, an artist at work at home during the storm, did a watercolor of me shoveling show. It's on IG at #snowdraw.  How cool is that)!!

I did find some time yesterday to finish up my Modern take on Bonnie Hunter's "Grand Illusion" 2014 Winter Mystery quilt.  It was made from the orphan blocks I had left over after I decided to make the quilt twin size instead of queen size. 

This morning I went out and shoveled around the fence in the backyard so I could take some photos to share with you. Then I went out front and put the quilt on a sunny snow drift in the front yard to get the photos of the quilting.  That's why the photos are a bit ripply!

Shoveled out for photos!

This modern quilt is a snapshot of the assembly of the "Grand Illusion" quilt. (Click the link to see my completed "Grand Illusion" quilt top).   Top to bottom:  Outer border, inner border, "exploded block" on the left, block components on center right, blocks falling off the sewing table bottom left and completed block on the bottom right.

Here are some pictures of the quilting. I used my walking foot for the geometric/straight quilting and did free motion quilting for the flowers and vine.  I used the serpentine stitch (#4 on my Bernina) to create the motion of the blocks falling off the table onto the floor. 

And here is the back.  The backing fabric wasn't wide enough so I added some the left over border strips.

"Construction Zone" Back

Now, time to tackle quilting my real "Grand Illusion" quilt!!

Single Block Star Christmas Quilt--WIP

I'm working on a Christmas quilt this week. I am using fabrics with fanciful mushrooms, and some elves, which I've been collecting for a while.  Our family lived in Europe when I was a child. As transplanted Americans, our family was delighted by the red mushrooms with white polka dots on their caps which are used as Christmas decorations throughout Europe.  These mushrooms are  Amanita muscaria and they really are beautiful.  (The results of a  quick google search to learn why Amanita muscaria are used for holiday decorations: The child-friendly explanation is that they are a symbol of good luck for the New Year and a tribute to nature).  

Photo by hansenn/iStock / Getty Images:   Amanita muscaria 

I thought this story was worth the addition of a licensed photo so you can see these amazing mushrooms their natural habitat!  Doesn't it look like a fairy might peek from the back of one of these mossy tree trunks at any moment?  You can see why this mushroom species captures the imagination!

For the quilt, I picked a template for a single block quilt in Electric Quilt 7 (EQ7).  It's a star block.  The finished quilt at present will be just over 50 inches square. I'm trying to add some Modern Quilt elements to this quilt--a bit of a challenge since I'm using Christmas and fairytale fabrics! 

I decided to build this star quilt as if it were a medallion quilt.The photo above is the center of the quilt. The paper pieced tree is a design from the EQ7 block library.  I hadn't planned to use the fabric with the little trees, but it was in my stash and echoes the center tree so well that I had to include it!

Here are a couple more elements in the quilt that are pieced and ready to use.  Can you find the Amanita muscaria in the 4 patch blocks?  The polka dot red mushroom is featured in the fabric on the right as well. 

I'm still working on the other blocks in this quilt.  More to come in a later post!

Somerville Homeless Coalition Raffle Quilt

If you've been a long-time reader of my blog, you know that my friend Janet Hanley and I designed a quilt as a fund-raiser for the Somerville Homeless Coalition.  Members of the Proper Bostonian Quilters Guild joined us in making the star blocks for the quilt.  Some of the stars have a log cabin block as the central block.  It's a delightful design and the quilt's colors are bright and cheerful.  Janet sewed the completed blocks of the quilt together and we quilted it on a long-arm at Bits n' Pieces Quilt and Fabric Shoppe in Pelham, NH.

The Burren Backroom Series, with Brian O'Donovan of WBGH's Celtic Sojourn, is hosting a funding raising event for the Somerville Homeless Coalition in Davis Square, Cambridge, MA on December 3, 2014.  They are selling raffle tickets for the quilt now and the drawing will be done that evening.  Click on the link above and scroll down the page to the Benefit for Somerville Homeless Coalition to see some of the fabulous musicians who will playing that evening. You may also purchase tickets to this gala musical event at the link above.

If you wish to participate in this quilt raffle  click this link to purchase tickets on-line. Tickets will also be available at the event December 3. 

Please do share this post on Facebook, Twitter or other social media if you have friends who love quilts and would be interested in supporting the Somerville Homeless Coalition. Thanks so much for your support! 

Half Square Triangles: The Tree Quilt

Here's my half square triangle Tree Quilt.  The designs in the fabrics include cross-sawn tree trunks, tree branches, flowers and woodland animals.  The large yellow square block has quilting intended to look like tree bark and a reverse circle imitating a hole in the "trunk."

Detail of quilting of the "tree trunk"

The quilt has a wool batting.  It has a lovely, light loft and quilts beautifully.

I initially just quilted the diamond pattern and the close quilting in the yellow block. The quilt seemed to float.  But I decided that the quilting just wasn't close enough for use over the long term.  So now each of the half square triangles has quilting outlining it.  It doesn't have the quite the same floating feel now but still is a bit puffy.

I'm really pleased, however, that the diamond pattern of the quilting is still what draws the eye.  I think that's due the layout of the blocks and to the 2 lines of quilting 1/4 inch apart alternating every 2 rows of blocks in the quilt. 

This is a happy fall quilt and I really look forward to using it on the chilly nights which will be here soon!