Solids and Cabbage

It's not a healthy living hack of my blogger account, I promise.  There simply wasn't anything else to call this quilt!  Any suggestions for names will be taken seriously from my faithful readers.

I purchased two jelly rolls on clearance at a very nice little shop in Gainesville last year while on a quilting retreat.  Made some very quick strip blocks from them and zapped them together into a top.  I had to look around for a while, but I was CERTAIN there was a Kaffe Fassett fabric that would be perfect for the border.  :D found it.

Boy did I ever have fun doing a little bit of every kind of fill work I've ever seen, tried, heard of or thought up.  It's a little zany to look at the front, but it grows on ya'.

The back (I encourage you to click through for the enlargements) restores a little method to the madness.

Butterflies are amazingly strong and sturdy for as delicate as they appear, and I had hoped to capture some of that strength along with the delicacy in this representation.  It feels both over- and under-worked to me however.  I suspect this is due in large part to my lack of artistic ability - that is, my lack of ability to draw.  I'll probably try this again after i've had time to think about how better to approach it.

Whimsy.  I love getting to do whatever the heck I want on my own quilts.  That's a cameo of a butterfly above. 

Can't have butterflies without flowers of course!

This is a closeup of one of the butterfly wings' eyespots.  You should have seen me fiddling with my circles to get them lined up right.  Had my tongue sticking out the entire time.

Got my "Better Homes and Gardens" shot taken (always the last one I take of a quilt) about ten seconds after the rain started this afternoon.  Fortunately it was a very slow start and was just sprinkling.

First time I tried the flange binding.  I think it worked wonders on this quilt and I'll try it again sometime as it was pretty easy.  This one is too thick for my tastes though and it will get cut slimmer (the binding part) for the next run.

Autumn 3D Bowtie

I'm still working through my obsession with bright autumn colors.  Using the border and knot fabric as my focus, several fabrics from my stash were brought together to make these 3d bowtie blocks.  Random block placement enhanced the overall look.

The back fabric has nothing to do with the front, but is a cheerful neutral and was big enough to prevent the need for piecing.

My great-grandmother taught me how to make this block about fifty years ago.  I have no idea why the technique stayed with me, but it's cool.  You can learn this technique in a number of places online, but HERE's a link that has nice pictures.

To all of you the binding choice probably seems obvious, but first I tried the orange blender and then the green and gold leaves before figuring out that something more sedate was called for against the very colorful border.

Sure, it's dead of winter now, but dragging this quilt around in the back yard this morning to photograph it brightened up my day. 

Colorful Stripey Experiment

The post title really says it all.  I saw the technique somewhere on the internet and decided i had to try it.  It is far simpler than it appears at first glance and it's a great way to use up leftovers.  I might get brave and try a scrappy version in the near future.

Dizzying Disappearing Rhapsody

Yes!  The top is finished!  Still trying to decide about a border, but otherwise, it's done.  There was a LOT of matchy-matchy involved in this top, but it's good exercise.  I'm happy with the fabrics and the layout.

Next up is the hunter's star I've been hoping to do for probably two years.  Still cutting out parts for it, but piecing will start this week.

Disappearing Rhapsody

The post titles get lamer as time goes on, I know.

A fat quarter pack of rhapsody of reds from Connecting Threads has been sitting on my sewing table for about a year now waiting for just the right project to come along.

My buddy Beth pointed me to this video from the Missouri Star Quilt Company.  Yah.  Perfect!

I'm going to lay out the blocks differently though.  Here's what her quilt looks like (the layout not the fabrics):

and this is what I'll be doing:

Their layout is pretty, but being a long arm quilter, I really like the little buttons of color surrounded by all that white space.

As usual I added in fabrics from my stash that play well with the CT fq pack.  Here's my first few blocks finished and layed out in the configuration I like.  The one that looks completely white is made with a very low volume red print.  It might not make the final cut:

This technique is fun, but it does take a little while, so the quilt won't be finished this week.

Bloggers Quilt Festival Autumn 2013

Welcome to the Bloggers Quilt Festival!  I hope everyone is having fun surfing through all the lovely quilts on display!  If you get lost you can click on the button above and go back to Amy's Linky list of participating blogs.

I buy panels when they go on clearance.  You know, panels for instant baby quilts, panels for embellishable vests, panels for stuffed toys and doll dresses.  I make up the baby quilts and have them ready for donations or emergency baby shower gifts, but most of the rest of them just hang around until there's some need.

BEFORE

Thimbleberries made this panel a few years back.  I snapped one up when they went clearance at my local discount fabric store, but the victorian child in the center really creeps me out.  (Yes, I'm one of those silly people who think clowns are scary.)  So I thought I'd try a deconstructed panel.  You know, like a deconstructed book, only with a quilt.

First thing I did was find a few fabrics that approximated the reproduction prints on the panel.  Then I cut out the spooky center pumpkin boy

and muah hahahaha! chopped him into bits!

 I built a four patch insert for the hole in the panel,

then used the pieces of the pumpkin boy to make strange jacobean style flowers to applique onto the center.

Quilting was fun with a feather border with variegated thread pebbles in the veins and swirls in the center.

No more scary pumpkin boy!

AFTER!

Thanks for stopping by to see my quilt, and have fun with the rest of the show!

Boring Sashing Conversion

Beth whipped this up at the retreat we went to recently.  Nine blocks don't really make a whole quilt I told her.  So she added some area with very wide sashing (I practically FORCED her to make it really wide.  She has way more sense about color and proportion than I do and realized that sashing half as wide as the blocks was going to overwhelm the quilt.)  She snorted at it, tossed it across the table to me and said, "There's no way to make this pretty."  (Yes, it can be argued that it is very pretty even before quilting, but we're talking about the sensitivities of a color PRO, remember.)

"Heh.  Sure there is!"

First you stitch in the ditch around all the block elements. No problem. :)



Then you quilt a bunch of scribble roses all over the sashings. Ok, make two passes. One with a darkish pink, the other with a lighter shade. There. That wasn't so hard.



Still using the focus fabric as your guide, insert buttercups along the same path with the scribble roses. Wow. Those buttercups have tiny petals. But there. It's done.

Finally, go through the entire quilt again with a green thread. Make wee tiny calyxes (calices?), leaves, and stems along the floral path. Do it in 30 minute increments because your eyes are getting wierd. Phasing in and out of the universe as we know it wierd.

After just over a week of quilting on a small, donation quilt, there! It's quite pretty.

I do go a long way to win an argument, eh Beth?

Lord of the Circle Lord

I did it. I broke down and bought a Circle Lord. In some ways I think of it as selling out. At least until I look closely at my freehand circles. Then I just cackle with glee. This thing makes even my quilting look good. No kidding. Have a look at some of the things just a super basic stripped down Circle Lord can do:



this was my first ever attempt to use the gizmo, too.

There won't ever be a replacement for artistically worked careful freehand quilting, but there is plenty of room in my repertoire for well made circles.

I'd write more, but I need to search the internet. I'm now in the market for a Dirty Dishes Lord.

Quilting Experimental Bubbles

It was a toss up between the title I chose and "Too Much Spare Time".

I recently designed a quilt (which hasn't been built yet so I can't really show you anything) that I wanted to quilt spheres on. Now you have all probably just stopped and said to yourselves, "but tirane, spheres are 3 dimensional and quilts are only 2 dimensional!" I'm with you on that. I considered things like trapunto which definitely gives a 3D feel to a quilt, but I don't think it would have suited my goals here. Instead I went for the sketcher's solution, shading. I loaded up a piece of boring white on Terpsichore and threaded up a pale color. I outlined a circle and then meandered almost all the way to the center. Then I threaded up a medium shade of the same color and meandered from the outer edge to about halfway into the center. Finally, I put a dark shade of the same color through the needle and meandered just around the outer edge of the circle. I made several of these practise spheres, changing the density of stitches, the size of the meander and the focal point of the sphere.

The only hard part of this technique will sound astoundingly simple-minded to those of you who don't meander, but for those of you who can meander in your sleep, you'll understand. The really tricky part is when you're going over the first meander with the second thread - because you're so inured to the idea that you NEVER CROSS YOUR STITCHES you end up almost following your first meander. Of course, that'd ruin the look, so you have to bravely cross the first lines over and over, pretty much ignoring the first run. It makes you sweat and twitch the first few times, but then you get used to it.

I turned the experimental bubbles into a baby quilt. I don't currently know any babies in need of a quilt, but I'm sure one will turn up. They tend to do that.