Tag Archives: quilt

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…


Magen’s Flower Garden…

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Look what Linda made for her neice, Magen!


MagensFlowerGarden

Linda rediscovered the joy of English paper piecing and has been going to town with hexagons. She made the flowers and then appliqued them to the quilt. I've just put the pattern up on the web site. Click here for more information about the quilt and the pattern.

It's always interesting to write instructions for a technique that I haven't written about before. Linda gave me the tips that she had come up with as she worked on this quilt. I combined that with what I know from my own English paper piecing. Steve took the photos to illustrate the techniques… all of that went into this new pattern. Here's one of the how-to photos:


HexPrep-09

I really love digital technology! Imagine, 10 years ago it would have taken a lot more time and money (and printing, warehousing, and shipping) to get this pattern from us to you. It's amazing when you think about it. (FYI – I'll probably upload a movie showing how to English paper piece in the near-ish future.)

I'll send a newsletter soon announcing this pattern, and new fabric that isn't online yet, and there is one more pattern to get up… but before then I thought I'd share Magen's Flower Garden with you.


What’s behind Door #2?

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I think there is a happy family behind Door #2! I know the new block looks way too big to fit with Door #1, but it gets trimmed to size after the applique is complete. 

DoorNumberTwo-04

I've made some progress since I last showed you the doors. The panels in the yellow doors are reverse appliqued and the 'stained glass' window over the door is stitched off the block. I needed to get the whole door and trim appliqued so that I could set the rest of the block together. I've designed these blocks so that they can be set together in one quilt or stand alone as individual quilts.

Here's a tip for stitching something like the window. Cut the underneath fabric bigger than it needs to be (in this case it's the floral print). Trace around the template onto the underneath fabric. Trace and cut out the smaller pieces. Finger-press them and sew them to the fabric like this…

Window_OffBlock-1 copy

Once the 'spokes' are sewn to the underneath fabric you can treat this as one piece and sew it in place. 

As I type this I'm taking a break from cutting leaves for the plants that go next to the door. I'm going out of town tomorrow to visit the Mississippi Valley Quilt Guild in Iowa and I really want to have some stitching to take with me. So now I'm going to get back to it!

FYI – You can click here to read about my class for Adventures In Italy where I will be teaching from the door patterns. My class is called Open A Door To Adventure.