Modern Quilts

Blushing Peonies – IV

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Just done – the piecing for Blushing Peonies is completed. Fiddly! More than once I opened seams and rotated/repositioned small 4-patch blocks because a colour was next to the same colour in a larger block. I took apart large sections of the middle portion of the top in order to center the large bordered block. At this point, I have to say I’m please with the colour flow and can live with the symmetrical layout.

Blushing Peonies – Piecing Finished

I now understand why I ended up stuck with the symmetry after looking again at the first 2, 4, 8, 16 quilt and comparing it with this one:

Original 2, 4, 8, 16 Quilt

Same block size – same number of blocks (more or less) – but in this first version, my 16″ blocks were background, neutral, used to showcase the bright 8″ blocks. The strong turquoise block draws the eye to the central portion of the quilt and the large blocks in three of the corners fade away. Your eye moves to the other 8″ blocks in turn and then picks up the colour flow of the small blocks, but not really ever landing on the three large corner elements. So in this quilt asymmetry allowed me to make the 8″ blocks the focus of the quilt.

In Blushing Peonies, having decided to border the three 16″ blocks and make them the focus of the quilt I was forced to arrange them in a diagonal with symmetrical placement. The 8″ blocks don’t capture your attention, and the smaller 4″ and 2″ blocks just fill in colour around the three large blocks.

I could have gone with my original idea:

Quilt Top Laid Out – Sort Of

In this case I managed a viable asymmetry – but the final quilt dimensions were wrong – it wanted another 4″ in the length and if I had put a 4″ row on one end, I would have wanted a complementary 4″ column on the right side – which would have distorted the width/length ratio. So I opted for inserting the 4″ between the middle and the bottom and centering the large block.

Now the question is – do I frame the piecing with a narrow border (in which fabric)? Do I bind it conventionally, or use a hidden binding and allow the pieced edges to border the quilt?

I have enough each of the red mottled and grey mottled fabric to construct a backing with some kind of insertion – not sure yet which to use – it will likely turn out to be the grey to tone down the back in relation to the top. I need to sleep on all of this before doing anything more.

It’s been an interesting exercise – I’ve learned a lot more about colour and design by doing this quilt. I did not anticipate the decisions I’d run into before I started out.

One other thing –

Yesterday Melanie McNeil raised the matter of quilting seam allowances:

(someone) asked today about a “scant” quarter-inch seam allowance. A variety of responses were given, from “it doesn’t matter as long as your seam allowance is consistent” to “it DOES matter if you want things to fit.” The best answer included a link to this video, which explains exactly why a good seam allowance matters.

This Blushing Peonies quilt top is an example of when it does matter – in order to get all the small 4-patch blocks to fit the 4 1/2″ squares, etc. I needed careful scant 1/4″ seam allowances. There have been instances where I haven’t needed to be so vigorous about the seam allowances but here (and with the Wandering Geese quilt) I had to be meticulous.

Watch the video if you’re interested in what this discussion is all about.

Blushing Peonies III

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I’ve just completed 2/3 of the assembling of the Blushing Peonies quilt top and I can see I’m not going to be happy with the asymmetrical position of the middle large block!

I wanted to offset it from dead centre but it’s going to annoy me if I go any further and don’t reposition it so that it’s balanced in relation to the other two large blocks. (I wish I could think of another way to create asymmetry in this quilt top, other than the random placement of the 2, 4, & 8″ blocks, but I can’t. I tried eliminating the 4″ horizontal row between the top and middle sections and didn’t like how that looked. Pushing the middle block to the left as I have today feels unbalanced as well. So I guess I will have to go with a symmetrical placement of the three 16″ blocks and live with it. Those large blocks definitely stand out and draw your attention – they need to be in an aligned diagonal.)

Blushing Peonies – 2/3 assembled

So first thing tomorrow I will open sections of the pieced middle so I can move the large block over 4″ to center it in the panel. Then I’ll piece the top 1/3 – that will go fairly quickly once I have the elements in the middle 1/3 moved around.

Another Quilt To A New Home

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I gave away another quilt this morning. It’s going to a new home and I’m happy for it. I know it will be used well and appreciated.

Quilt Top – Convergence Quilt

I need to draw up a list of friends who would appreciate receiving a quilt and give more away. I have three which I’ve put out to use myself and some of the rest in that closet need to move on.

I’ve given away about half of the quilts I’ve produced since I began quilting 15 years ago. If I have them hanging around too long I grow attached to them and it becomes harder to send them on their way. I like keeping particular ones on hand as examples for classes but I have photos of every quilt I have made (front and back) and, you know what, that will have to be enough.

 

Moved On

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My sister and niece were here from Toronto last weekend to visit the boys attending summer camp not far from the city. I was able to spend time with each of them at the apartment and to my delight two quilts have found a new home.

My niece fell in love with this “Double Vision” quilt which I completed in 2017. She has new light furniture in her family room and this quilt will be a bright addition to the room.

Finished Quilt Top

My sister came over a few days later – I showed her the quilt I wanted her to take back to Toronto for my niece. She loved the red. I mentioned there were more red quilts in my closet. In the end she chose the Shadow Quilt I made in 2016 to complement her new grey furniture. I love how the red blocks seem to float above the background – that, of course, is the effect of having a drop shadow on an image, it creates the illusion of depth.

That gives me room to make two new quilts. I have to go through what I have in the collection and see if I can find homes for a few more of them.

Wandering Geese Quilt

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Just finished pinning this quilt together. The quilt started with a “Jolly Bar” of “Fragile” fabrics by Zen Chic (Moda). Turns out this 5″ x 10″ size is practically useless. In order to construct flying geese I had to trim down the size, and trim away triangles from the corners – a wasteful way of doing this quilt block. However, I saved the triangles and created half-square triangles from the remains and used about half of them on the back.

Quilt Top

The original collection of fabrics had hints of turquoise in several of the colour ways but no predominantly turquoise fabrics. I decided to add several to brighten the overall appearance of the finished quilt. I had enough turquoise fabrics in my stash (dark and light) that I didn’t have to go looking for more. I also added in some light fabric since I didn’t have enough lights from the jolly bar to complete the flying geese blocks. I’m pleased with the modern layout and the overall feel of the top.

The quilt is pinned ready for quilting. I’ve set up an 8″x8″ embroidery design which will fill each block and give me an overall quilting that should work reasonably well with the flying geese. Just trying to decide what colour thread to use for the machine quilting.

Quilt Back

I plan on binding the quilt with the dark grey I’ve used on the back, with a small amount of contrast inserted in one side.

On Show in Parrsboro 2018

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Last Saturday I travelled to Parrsboro for my 4th Annual exhibition of “Quilts As Art” show at the Art Labs Gallery.

Sign on the Sidewalk

It took about an hour and a half to hang the 8 quilts and 11 smaller wall art pieces. That’s my complete production for 2017/2018 – new since last year’s showing.

Quilts Hung

Hard to believe I manage to get so much sewing/quilting/machine embroidery done. That’s not everything I did make – there were a variety of garments: pants, jackets, tops that I constructed in that same time period – from end of August to mid-July of this year.

Two Wall Art Pieces On Display

There was an “Opening” later in the afternoon – a small attendance because the weather was so hot I’m guessing people in Parrsboro spent the day at the beach. Those who did come to see and talk about the textile art with me were interested and  appreciative of my work. Always fun to see how people react to it. The show lasts for two more weeks until August 17. Then I’ll head back on the 18th to bring it all home. I think I’m going to hang Federer somewhere in my place, the rest will be put away in my “quilt” closet (which is getting full).

I’ve already got work for next year under way. I pinned a new quilt this morning – ready to start quilting it. When that’s done I’ve got fabric for some summer pants (almost too late to bother making them this season). I’ll get those cut out and maybe one or two pairs stitched up.

Bamboo – Making Progress

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I’m making headway slowly on the Bamboo quilt top. I’ve created some more blocks – they’re getting better even though I’m not getting faster! The tapering of the inserts is looking more like I want it to. I’ve also started joining blocks and fitting in inserts where needed to make row segments. I’ve got 15 blocks assembled – I figure I’ll need between 35 and 40 to make a lap-size quilt.

Bamboo – Beginning To Take Shape

In the picture I saw originally, there are some leaves overlapping from one block to another: 

The only way I think this can be done is if the whole quilt top was constructed using raw edge appliqué. I’m doing this with slashing and inserting contrasting fabric.  I’m stumped about how to accomplish the overlapping across blocks! Nevertheless I’ll keep working away at these blocks.

It’s All About The Pink – V

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Just finished the pink quilt  – I bound it in the same fabric I used for the wide border. In the end I left the narrow border alone – I began stitching the leaf motif but two repeats of the stitch and I stopped and picked it all out – the stitches weren’t quite even and it just didn’t look good.

It’s All About The Pink – Completed

That’s likely it for sampler quilts – while I enjoyed creating the 63 different blocks, most of which I’d never constructed before, the task is time consuming because each block had to be cut out and pieced individually – couldn’t streamline the process.

The back – because the quilt top is so busy I decided to simplify the back insert – I used large pieces broken up with strips of accent fabric. The quilting shows on the back – you can barely discern it on the quilt top.

It’s All About The Pink – Back

Another winter scene: Friday, after the storm – with ice pellets and freezing rain the night before – a beautiful sunny day, if cold, and the trees, shrubs, plants, grass – all sheathed in ice – a beautiful sight. This small tree made me stop and capture its image as I was leaving the pool after my morning exercise class. I tried capturing other photos but there was so much vegetation covered in ice that the images weren’t worth keeping.

Sheathed In Ice

It’s All About Pink – II

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I’ve just finished stitching the quilt blocks together into a 7 x 9 array. There was a lot of moving blocks around as they sat on the floor trying to get the colour, shape, fabric distribution worked out. I can live with how the quilt top has turned out. Some of the blocks come from Tula Pink’s 100 Modern Quilt Blocks; most are blocks I just made up from scraps, or from blocks I found on Pinterest. The distribution of light/medium/dark fabrics works out reasonably well – I’m happy with it.

It’s All About Pink – Blocks Stitched in 7 x 9 Array

Now comes the next difficult decision – how to border this array. I’m thinking it wants a narrow light sashing (probably 1″ wide) with a wide medium outer border, but maybe I want to piece the outer border in some way. I need to do a bit of searching to see what I might come up with….

In the meantime this is kinda what I have in mind:

Auditioning border fabric

 

It’s All About Pink

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Just finished the 63rd block. Laid them out – first pass – to get an idea of what the whole would look like.

63 Blocks

Not bad, there’s a LOT to look at here, although one block has to be revised – I didn’t see the swastika until I looked at this image. I’ll make a replacement. I also need to array all of the blocks on the floor and walk around them for a while to make sure I’m happy with the layout – colour, shapes all reasonably distributed.

And then the big challenge – there’s not a lot of light pink batik available here in town so once I get these blocks assembled into a 7 x 9 array, I will have to go shopping for a couple of fabrics to border, back and bind the quilt. There’s nothing in my backing stash that goes with pink.

Overall, I am please with how the impact of the layout is “pink” – that was what I was aiming for. A lot of improvising has gone into this block collection – I didn’t have measurements for most of these blocks, while I worked a bit with graph paper, most of the time I started with an element and built around it. In effect each block represents a “sample” – the sort of thing I’d do to work out the dimensions of a block before using it in a quilt. Here, the sample is my end product.