Tag Archives: quilt

A winner, and another chance to win!

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Lisa Boyer is the lucky winner of the box of crumbs. She was chosen by my very favorite random number generator—my mom. Once I explained to mom why she had just picked a number, she was very excited. Mom loves this sort of thing :-). Lisa, if you didn’t get my email, contact me at becky@pieceocake.com. I need your shipping address.

I have one more item on my desk that needs a home. This is an almost-finished small quilt. I made this quilt to illustrate a point, but it didn’t really do what I needed. I was in a rush and thought that maybe I could make it work but when I got around to quilting it, I had to admit that it just wasn’t going to work in the book. Luckily I had time to make a different quilt. But what to do with this quilt?

Hopscotch--02

I call it Hopscotch. It’s simple and graphic, and about 32″ square. I started quilting it in a variegated rose/red King Tut cotton thread. My intention was to unify the dark and white areas of the quilt. I think with more quilting, it would do that. Or, it could be quilted differently. The lucky winner is free to rip out the quilting I have done in favor of something else.

Hopscotch-Detail

Unfortunately, I don’t have time to finish this quilt. I do not want to add it to my (small) pile of UFOs. I’m hoping that one of you would love to have it.

Included with the layered, partially quilted quilt is most of a cone of the King Tut quilting thread that I started with, fabric cut for the sleeve, and black and white bias binding, ready to attach. Here’s Belle, keeping watch over the folded quilt (with the back showing), the sleeve, thread, and binding.

BelleAndQuilt

As before, leave a comment and mom will choose a number, this time on Wednesday.

It’s a crumb-y giveaway!

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Welcome to my new blog home! If you have followed my blog before, and you want to still, please do click the ‘Follow Piece O Cake Blog’ button on the right, above my picture. (FYI: I switched to wordpress because it is easier to manage.)

So, about the crumbs in the post title… I subscribe to Ami Simms’ newsletter and a little while ago she wrote about a student, Megan Null, who was making ‘crumb quilts’. Megan let Ami film her, and her video says it all:

(Link to video here.)

I googled crumb quilts and, who knew! There are pages of crumb quilts! It looks to me like crumb quilts started with Bonnie Hunter and have now taken on a life of their own. I have been too busy writing the color book to have noticed crumb quilts. Sigh.

Anyway, back to Ami. She has issued a 2014 Crumb Quilt Challenge! I generated a lot of lovely, colorful scraps when I was sewing for the color book and for a few days I thought I would start my own crumb quilt(s). I looked at the pile lovingly… and then I admitted to myself that this is not something I am going to do. My pile of crumbs could become your very own crumb quilt!

BoxOfCrumbs

Everything in the box is pre-washed cotton—except for one piece of a silky polyester that is obviously not cotton. I was going to throw it away but thought maybe the winner would love it. There are little pieces and bigger pieces, strips, triangles, and other shapes.

If you would like a chance to win, leave a comment. I will have my random number generator (my mom) pick a number Sunday. I think I’ll be able to contact the winner from your comment but sometimes there isn’t a way to do that, so check back on Monday, mid-morning. I’ll post the winner. It could be you!

Busy busy busy…

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Every day is a sprint.

I'm guessing that the same is true for many of you. I sometimes wonder if it has always been this way. I have dim memories of times when I could sit and read a book—very dim memories. I don't necessarily think that my life was better then, but there are days when I wish I could focus on one thing without knowing how many other things I also need to be doing. OK, enough of that 🙂

I was in Monterey and Pacific Grove, CA, last week to teach for the quilt guild. Monterey is such a great place to be. The people were wonderful, the weather was lovely. On the way to dinner one evening I spotted this in the sidewalk. It made me smile. 

HeavenUnderFoot-Pebbles copy

While there, I got to visit one of my all-time favorite shops, The Back Porch. Of course, I shopped…


BoughtAtBackPorch copy

I didn't shop for anything in particular and the stacks reflect that.

In the same way that I did after my last shopping trip, I thought I'd tell you why I bought what I did. The first two fabrics that went in my pile were these:


Kokka-PenguinsPhones copy

Both are linens from Kokka. The penguins are designed by Nancy Wolff, the telephones by Melody Miller. They are not inexpensive fabrics but I have used similar fabric before and I am always sorry when it's gone. (FYI: Linen and regular cottons are not a problem to combine in quilts. They sew together well.)

The penguins have text on them! You know how I love text…


Penguins-TextDetail copy

These two cottons are both designed by Stella but I didn't realize that when I bought them. One of my students had used the light branch fabric as a background and I really liked it. The concentric circles didn't make me think of tree rings until I saw the two fabrics together.


Stella-Branches copy

Besides the fact that the Kokka linen is expensive, I'll bet that many of you don't buy it because you aren't sure how to put it with other fabric. Here are some ideas:

I would not have normally have thought about putting the tree fabric with the penguins but it works! I would add more fabric, but this is a nice start.


Penguins-WithBrowns

The more delicate, feminine floral looks really good with the telephones. It makes me think of myself as a teenager. I probably add some light fuschia and teal, possibly a lot of cream, and a deep dark burgundy.

Phones-WithFlowers copy

The orange tile print from Kaffe Fassett is pretty nice with the telephones too. In fact, it surprised me…


Phones-WithOrangeTile copy

And I like it even better with the yellow and orange fabric by Thomas Knauer for Andover—although I would use the yellow in very small doses. 


Phones-WithOrangeMore copy

What else I would add? Probably blue, more aqua than true blue. 

I'll share more in a couple of days. Until then, I hope you have a nice holiday weekend!

 

 

Tick tock…

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I am out of hand work – oh no! I don't have a new pattern drawn but I have plans to work on a book on color so I let the fabric talk to me for this project. This is where I started, and this is the direction the background will take.


TickTock-13 copy

I added more fabric…


TickTock-03 copy

and then I added more fabric…


TickTock-12 copy

The original fabric is less prominent in this photo but I knew at this point that the other fabrics would be used in small doses. My thought was that the browns would be prominently used in the applique.

Then I started constructing the blocks. I am using the same technique that we wrote about in Applique Outside the Lines. I cut with a rotary cutter but I didn't touch a ruler. The clock fabric is the dominant fabric – as was my plan – no matter if it is used in large or small amounts in each block.


TickTock-15 copy

A few hours later I had several blocks in progress, on my design wall…


TickTock-37 copy

At this point I had to decide how big this quilt might be, and what sort of shape it will be — square? rectangle? Did I want it to be lighter or darker overall? Notice that where the fabric shapes are bigger, the blocks are easier to look at. As pieced areas get smaller and denser it has an effect on the look of all the blocks. 

I made backgrounds for 9 blocks but I can't show them all online because of that whole 'it might be in a book thing'. But I do plan to put together a tutorial on how to do this sort of piecing that should be helpful if you haven't done this before. I hope to have it up next week, it might be the one after that. I should be able to share smaller areas of this quilt as I work on it.

PS – How many of you would buy that fabric with the big clocks? I'll bet not many because quilters tend to shy away from big prints. I've said it before and I'll say it again – you really need some of these amazing prints in your stash. They will surprise you!

 

Do you know how to miter a corner?

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I've been piecing more than usual lately. First it was the baby quilts, then it was the Big Fish quilt for Elanor. I needed to get the back made for the fish and I pulled some fabric I've been saving to use for a kid's quilt – from the Castle Peeps Collection by Lizzie House for Andover.

I got the center of the top (below) together before I decided that it really did not go with the fish at all. I added the dark strips top and bottom and am calling this yet another kid quilt (and I have just the child in mind for it – a nephew that never got a baby quilt!).


Castle-Top_01

Those 8" wide border strips around the center had to be mitered to look good. Mitered corners are easy to do if you know how and I do know how. I want to share what I know with you. 

I've made a new Piecing Lessons page. There are only two lessons on it for now; more will come in time. I'm hoping that if you click here the How-To Miter A Corner PDF will open. If not you can get to it from the Piecing Lessons page.

NOTE: In case you don't know, you can save a PDF to your computer from your internet browser. In mine, I go to 'save as' and save it to my computer.

There's a link on the Piecing Lessons to a video that shows how I make triangle squares. To spare you from having to click to get to it, here it is. I hope you find both of these piecing techniques useful. 

 

  

ANOTHER NOTE: We did write a book, Piecing the Piece O' Cake Way, that you may or may not have seen. It's on it's way out of print but it is available as an eBook.Click here to read more. You might find a copy in print if you hunt around the web a bit.

 


For Annabelle Grace…

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Both of my nieces, sisters Alea and Rachel, had babies in July. I don't always promise a baby quilt because I can't always get one made but this time I did promise. To both of them. And I finished both quilts before the babies were much more than 1 month old! Here is the quilt made for Annabelle Grace:


Annabelle-04 copy

Rachel requested color combined with black and white. I decided to play with progressions of color and size to give Annabelle something to think about. Small strips lead to larger strips, light yellow blends to darker blue. The dark blue strips are centered and act as an axis in the design.


Annabelle-07 copy

I wrote her name in my best longhand and enlarged it to make a template. I used the cutaway applique technique and appliqued it in place with perle cotton.

The quilting is fun! I quilted lines in the strips but switched to flowers in the prints. (Note: you can click on any of these photos to see it larger.)


Annabelle-06 copy

I made this quilt to hold up to wear and washing. The more it is washed the softer it will be. I mostly used prints so that stains won't show so much. If it gets dragged around on the floor – that's just fine. I hope Annabelle uses it for a very long time.

Tomorrow I'll show Addyson's quilt…