Knit One Quilt Too

Only the cat saw

This cat was pieced on the machine at home before we left.  It was sewn in on road along with all the other pieces.  I love Jude's cats and couldn't wait to make one myself.  Do a search on "lions" at Spirit Cloth and you'll find lots of Jude's feline inspiration.  Just this morning I saw that Tonya is doing free pieced cats.  I see a trend coming on!

 

I hand pieced this little free pieced star on the road.  A little fiddly for me, but I like it.

 

This bit of cloud fabric came from Jude, who, by the way, has been adding more boro packs to her store.  They are sold out now, but if you check back this week you may find more.  It was totally worth it to buy the pack that I got, I almost wanted to get another, but thought it might be greedy.  Underneath the star and the cloud is the woven piece that Jude sent.  

 

I couldn't get this phrase out of my head, so it went on this piece.  I've got a busy day ahead, but more photos soon.

Car sewing has never been better!

A sneak peek because I'm tired and must sleep.  What fun it was to take my bag of yummy fabrics, some beautiful threads and a needle.  I ripped and sewed and thoroughly enjoyed myself.  More to come soon!

I've got the Indigo Blues

In the past month or so I've become enamored of all the indigo blues around the internet, most especially on Spirit Cloth, Shibori Girl and the Flickr Quilting with Indigo pool.  So I started collecting my blues.  I've gotten some spectacular packages, though so far have only these photos of the one from Jude.  I bought one of her boro packs and, oh, is it fabulous!

 

Rich texture, color and pattern galore.

 

 

My own woven bit of Jude's magic.

 

 

And, best of all, my very own tiny magic feather.

What will I do with all this?  I'm not sure, but I think I will do something small and rich with embroidery.  I will use my indigo scraps from Jude and Glennis and other ebay and etsy sellers.  This is spring break and since we are heading out to soak up some sun, I will take my indigo, scraps and threads with me and see what comes of it. 

In addition to the indigo I'm also exploring the Slow Cloth movement.  It's quite interesting, but I don't feel like I fully understand it yet.  You can find lots of links by searching for slow cloth, but here a few to get you started:  Slow Cloth group on Facebook, 10 Qualities of Slow Cloth, and some discussions of slow cloth here and here.  I've also been reading lots of the archives at Spirit Cloth.  What a treasure Jude's blog is!  I think there's a book or several in those posts.

Hope you all have a great week!

Solids with Gwen:: Show & Tell

 

We had a nice show and tell during class.  Some of the ladies had been to Gwen's Michigan retreat before and had some great quilts to show from that.  The above quilt is based on an antique quilt, but done in a liberated style.  This group of quilters also loves to use old clothes and other vintage finds, so this one includes part of a shirt and the buttons that were attached.  She said she had planned to take the buttons off, but liked them so much they are still there.

 

These liberated string flowers are so sweet.  Click on the photo to see a close up including the great hand quilting which differs from block to block.

 

This great quilt uses ethnic fabric and thrift store finds.  

 

And now, the final photos that I got from some of the class work.  They are all wonderful!

 

 

 

 

 

Sarah, Gwen, Cheryl and I had a group photo.  I guess we were having a good time!

 

Sarah's work is amazing.  Remember, she's a fairly new quilter.  She knits like the wind,but hasn't done so much of this.  Now, I've seen her carrying around her bag of fabric for some hand sewing of liberated blocks.  Take a look at this post to see her cute liberated tea cups.  Way to go Sarah!

 

And, last but not least, here's what I did with some of my scraps when I got home from the retreat.  I've got a baby quilt top all ready to be quilted.  I hope you've enjoyed these posts.  It's been great to share my thoughts and photos.  If you are inspired by my work please let me know!  

 

Solids with Gwen:: Building a Quilt

On the second day Gwen wore this fabulous knitted sweater given to her by a Japanese woman while she was teaching in Japan.  It turns out these sweaters were selling for about $600 at the time.  On this day I decided to document some of my design decisions for the next piece.  I deliberately kept it small to make it quicker.  What fun these small quilts, especially after doing all those great big Collaborative quilts.

 

First I picked my palette- mostly greens and neutrals.  I've got a mix of all sorts of solids- shot cottons, chambray, linen, Kona solids and other un-named solids.  Oh, and that subtle white on white print too.

 

First I rough cut some strips wide and narrow so I'd have some choices and not have to stop and cut as I went along.  You can be conservative here.  One or two strips from each fabric is all that's necessary at this point. 

 

Then, just start sewing.  Whatever looks good.  I had started off wanting to have a large plain field to do some cool hand stitching in later.   However, after a bit that big white piece started to bug me, so I cut it up.

 

And I made this tiny pieced insert to fill in.  I didn't plan that at all, it just came about on it's own!  I do have a bit of an obsessive nature with the tiny scraps though and often will just sew a bunch of them together to make them more manageable.  After while you have a piece big enough to use somewhere!  Notice, the red snuck in too.  It seemed to need something surprising to make it more interesting.

 

Then I made that little strip of squares at the bottom.  These were inspired by a quilt that Tonye Phillips was working on in the Gwen & Freddy retreat.  She had made these little tiny 1/2" square filler strips and they were so cool I had to try it.  Mine are a bit more, ahem, liberated than hers.  The right hand strip came about next, again probably using up some small pieces that were just lying there begging to be used.

 

And, the finished piece.  Trying to balance out the right hand strips with the strips in the upper left and side.  A bit more red to keep you eyes moving around.  The green at the bottom is meant to anchor the piece.  Now it appears that I started with the tiny pieced rectangle in the middle and built out from there, but you know better!  This one is about 16" square.

 

This one came about because I couldn't just stop.  I really wanted to try the equilateral triangles, which, it turns out, are tons of fun to make.  Sarah was still working after the class had ended and I needed something to do.  This one was a lot of fun with no planning.  

 

It's also about 16" square.  I've started hand quilting it, but need to give my wrist a rest, so it will probably not be worked on for a while.  I've got one more post's worth of pictures from the class.  Stay tuned and enjoy the first day of spring!

Solids with Gwen: Detour into Liberated Amish

Having had one finish in the class, I went quickly on to this piece.  I brought the blocks with me the first day to try to figure out a setting.  These are for the Liberated Amish challenge put forth by Tonya.  I like the setting above, but didn't want to make more setting triangles.

 

I really like this one too.  At the time I was thinking I would need to make more blocks, but now I see it would have been pretty cool in an off balance way.

 

This is the setting I chose to do.  The other part of the challenge is to add a word with Tonya's free pieced letters.  I couldn't come up with anything, but I told the class all about the challenge and someone suggested ZigZag.  I like it, so that's what I'm going to do.  

Solids with Gwen: Getting Started

Gwen did lots of technique demos for this class, beginning with those wonderful equilateral triangles (like in the quilt right behind her).  It can be confusing at first, but once you get the hang of them, those triangles are addictive!

 

It was great to meet Marathon Quilter- Cher.  I was glad she introduced herself early on the first day.  Isn't her K is 4 Kindness quilt great!  It's wonderful to see a quilt in person that you've only seen online or in a book.  Below are some photos of some of the fantastic works in progress from the class.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I cheated a bit.  I was able to finish this quilt below on the first day because I came with the center part done (up to the rust colored border) from last year's class with Gwen.  I managed to finish the outer border on the first day.  It's pinned to a board with Gwen's quilt underneath.  I didn't realize until now that the center of mine looks like it could have come from hers!  How funny since I don't think she even brought that quilt with her last year.

 

Auditioning border fabrics above.  Finished below.

 

Favorites on this piece are the inserted strips, tapered strips, spikes (love 'em!)  Notice that floating point.  I just adore that.  Love the various purples and rusts.  Do you see anything interesting in any of the quilts I pictured in this post?  Let me know in the comments.  There's always so many details with these quilts that I'm sure I don't notice them all.  

Abstract Quilts in Solids

This class with Gwen was just amazing.  I've never felt so free with piecing as when doing this class.  First off we had a nice discussion about the quilts that Gwen brought.  What a treat to see them up close.  This post will be just about those close ups, more on the class in later posts.  I plan to show a little bit every day as I was a very good blogger for this class and have lots of photos!

 

This quilt is a stunner.  Very bold and there are so many design elements when you look closely.  I can't seem to move my photos around in the post so see below for closeups.

 

Gwen started to do these gentle pieced curves after staying with Jean Wells a few years ago.  They make a nice occasional design element in a quilt that otherwise has straight lines.

 

 

 

Getting back to this one, notice where she got tired of making the triangles and so continued with the solid red.  She did hand quilt in some triangles in that space- neat trick.

 

 

This quilt was all free hand quilted- no lines.  I love those swirls at the top.
 

 

 

The skinny inserts were another trick that Gwen learned from Jean.  I'd done them before, but did even more of them in this class.  A skinny strip of something like that red just really makes the block sing.

 

Love that tapered insert too!

 

Sometimes you might want to put in a long border strip, but don't have anything long enough.  Take that as a nice opportunity to piece in a bit of a contrasting color.  This will make it way more interesting.  You can also deliberately use a color that's close, but not quite the same.  That also makes the quilt more interesting.  You'll see that technique in several of the photos up above.

 

This last one is a quilt that I really admired in the Abstract Quilts in Solids book (as all these quilts are from), but I couldn't tell if it had any quilting in it.  As it turns out, it is only tied with these bits of silk thread.  It's very textural and serene.   More soon!

Baskets with Gwen & Freddy

The retreat was 4 wonderful days of sewing, chatting and learning from both Gwen & Freddy as well as my fellow classmates.  What talent there was!  I am a very bad blogger though and forgot  my camera on the last day.  I missed getting photos of most of other great quilts going up and didn't get a photo of me with Jan or Freddy or Tonye.  Ah well, I did better in the solids class which will be posted about soon.  

I had decided about a week before the retreat to do a basket quilt.  I had a nice collection of bird and bloom prints on light colored fabric and I wanted to highlight them.  The light baskets on a dark ground isn't something I'd seen before, but I like the effect.  Lots of people commented on the great prints.  There are several Japanese designs as well as regular quilt shop fare. There are even a couple of Liberty prints.

 

I managed to make all these baskets before the retreat started so I was well on my way when I got there.  I really wanted to try some of those spikes, so I made a bunch of them, then I thought it needed another color so I started adding in some blues and turquoises.  I was lucky to go home every night because I could raid the stash and come back the next morning with more treasures.  The handles are hand appliqued (needle turned) by the way.  I'm sure someone will ask!

 

The quilt on the left is by my friend Jan who I mentioned in the last post.  She did some great work on the center and then decided to try some baskets on the outer border.  We are going to get together next month to share our finished tops.  I can't wait to see how hers ends up.  Meanwhile, at some point I thought I'd better put the baskets together somehow and work from there.  Above you can see the vertical columns of baskets.  I also made a few more to fill in, the one on the bottom left and the three minis in the middle right.

 

Did you also notice how I added the great Kaffe Fassett flower print on the rust background.  I love that one and it really brightened up the quilt.  Lots of people said they liked the change in scale of the baskets, big to small, short to tall, narrow and wide.

 

I decided to add the sawtooth and spikes as separating columns.  The nine patch border was not fitting in, though I finally decided to put it on the bottom.  I also decided to change up the turquoise triangles because they are all the same fabric in the photo above.  I haven't done it yet, as you can see below, but I will soon.

 

Lastly, I made a bunch of shooflies, stars and even a churn dash block. These will go around the sides and top.  This top has really come together since I brought it home.  I'll have to show another photo of it soon.  I added a green inner border that was just the ticket.  More later!

Guild Night Out with Freddy & Gwen

 

The first night of the retreat was filled with a wonderful guild night out.  The East of the Cascades Quilt Guild is lucky to be based at the Stitchin' Post and has access to all the wonderful teachers who come to share their talents.  I was there to show my 6 Collaborative Chicks Quilts, but didn't get photos of any of mine.  I did get photos of some wonderful quilts by my fellow Collaborative Chicks.  Above is Vicki who taught the Lone Star class with her quilt.  She made the mistake of doing a 60 degree diamond instead of 45 degrees, but it's a beautiful quilt!

 

Lori was the only other of us to do all 6 quilts.  She actually had them all completely quilted and bound!   Her Lone Star is very bright and happy.

 

Lori's Liberated Wedding Ring is just fabulous in the black, white and red!

 

This is my new friend, Jan.  We were in class together for the Liberated Wedding Rings, but then we got to sit together for the 4 days of the retreat.  Isn't her quilt gorgeous- it's all solids!

 

This is Jackie, who taught the Posies class, and her class sample.  Very happy and fun!

 

Annette, who taught the Spider Web class and her class sample.  I like how the wide pieces in the strata make for interesting patterns.

 

This is Lawry who taught the Our Garden class quilt.  I didn't make it to this class so it was nice to see what everyone had done in it.  This one has a different setting than the way I did mine.

And now for Freddy & Gwen's quilts!  One of the great things about something like this is seeing these quilts up close.  We all have the books with these quilts in them, but it's different in person.  

 

Gwen was a hoot!  She has so many great stories and jokes.

 

Freddy was a little bit under the weather with a voice that she couldn't raise, but she was also wonderful to see.  This spikes quilt is so intriguing.   Lots to look at there!  In fact, lets have another look at it.  Below you can see missing points, floating points, that yellow strip added to make short points long enough, pieced points, backward points, alternate colors.  What wondrous possibilities!

 

 

These two are some of the "Parts Department" quilts.  So many ideas to draw from.

 

These sweet little Gwenny's baskets were quite an inspiration to me as you'll see in the next post.  Freddy pointed out the color substitutions in the backgrounds on some of the baskets.  You don't notice them until you look, but with this sort of quilt, it's so interesting it keeps your eye moving.

 

The next quilt is one of the newest.  The binding isn't even finished.  I like the wide parts of the strata- makes the quilt faster and makes a bold statement.

 

After that there was some show and tell by guild members.  The next quilt is just fabulous, isn't it?  I love the center applique with the flowers and birds, the outer spike border is just fabulous and the pieced bottom is genius.  I can't remember who did this quilt- perhaps Tonye?  Edited to add:  Sarah has reminded me that the quilt below was made by Jean Wells.

 

And lastly, some of Freddy's chickens.  So cute!  This quilt was made with a block contest in the guild.  The gal who won the blocks put them together.  I like that they are not marching along in a straight row.  What a great idea for a way to use the fillers.  

Well, there's lots more to come.  It was a fabulous 6 days, but I sure paid for it afterwards.  There was just so much cleaning and paperwork and clutter to put away.  On top of that, I've got a carpel tunnel problem.  Knitting is out altogether.  I can machine sew, so there has been some piecing going on around all the real work.  The computer is also a place where it flares up.  I see my doctor this week.  Yuck- I really don't want to have another medical issue to deal with.  Anyway, stay tuned for more this week!