Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Just in time for London

The last VMQG meeting proved very lucky for me. I won half of the block lottery and came home with enough Modern Disappearing 9-Patch blocks to make a 52" square quilt. We often have monthly challenges that result in everyone making one or more blocks in order to practice something new. I always participate, but have never won the lotto since Felicity is busy winning them all (wink).

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For the modern version, you make the 9-patches with more solids than prints, based on Kristy Daum's tutorial here. We chose black as our solid, to provide background or negative space. I must say, it was hard to sew all that black and I wasn't really in love with the quilt top after piecing it all together.  I wondered if I could lighten things up a bit with some fun thread and chose to do a loopy meander using a variegated Aurifil 40 wt cotton in bright colours of yellow, green, fuschia and blue.

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I like it much more now! I'm much happier about donating this quilt to a child now that all that black has been jazzed up.  For the back, I built a log cabin around a colourful panel I've had stashed for several years. The panel was printed off kilter and it always bothered me as I wasn't sure how I'd deal with that in a baby quilt. I don't notice it as much now that the field of green is all around it.

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The binding is pieced from several colourful leftovers. I like this dotty corner that happened quite by accident!

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This quilt will accompany me to London next week and I'll happily hand it over to Lynne for her Siblings Together quilt drive.  Siblings Together is a wonderful British charity that brings siblings separated by the foster care system back together at a summer camp. It appears that there will be many other comfort quilts coming into the Fat Quarterly Retreat; the goal is to send every child home with a quilt to cuddle and remember their special time with brothers and sisters. I hope they give comfort to a lot of children living in less than ideal and complicated circumstances.

I have quite a bit of sewing to do before I depart in a week. Hopefully I'll get to show it all to you before I go!  Yesterday I spent a lovely few hours with even lovelier company at Berene's house. Mai was visiting from the OahuMQG so we were all invited to meet her and stitch together. She came bearing surprise gifts from my sweet friend Amber, look:

wonderful surprise gift from Amber 1shabbychick!!
Gah! Cutest camera pouch and gorgeous FQs! This is totally coming on vacation with me. Thank you so much for your thoughtfulness Amber, and Mai for the personal delivery.

Finally, for those of you who just can't get enough of me, the VMQG did a lovely "member spotlight" of me and my work that you can see here. Thanks friends!

14 comments:

Andrea C said...

Oh it came together so well!! I think there will be a very happy sibling. And what a great charity! I wonder if we have anything like that here.

Catherine said...

The variegated thread finishes it off perfectly. And for a great cause too

Leanne said...

That is a great quilt for Siblings Together and the feature at your guild on you is lovely too. Can't wait to get to London.

Arita said...

It turned out great. I love how the black background turned out.

Dianne said...

The quilt turned out really nicely, some lucky child is going to love it!
Good interview for the MQG too!

Elsa said...

I'm not too excited about working with black but this quilt turned out great (I may have to reconsider black)! Love the variegated thread and the loops.

Kathy P said...

Love what you did with your blocks! Awesome quilt! And the write-up about you was very nice too. Congrats!
BTW - I remember seeing a blog post ages ago about a rolling toolbox you use for retreats, but now I can't find it again. Can you direct me to it again? Thanks!

Carla said...

I can't imagine why they would split up siblings. What a wonderful charity. I hope they get lots of quilts. Enjoy your time away

Debbie said...

What fun for the guild to have a block lottery! Good call on the variegated thread - definitely lightens things up!

Isisjem said...

Love how the quilting lifts the black. See you next week! Eek it's that close!

Kristy said...

The quilt turned out great, I'm so excited to see my pattern used in such fun ways.

Good choice on the varigated thread!

Sandi said...

Beautiful job Krista on the quilt and your quilting.

Have a great time in London and enjoy your little camera bag!

Pétra said...

London is going to be a blast have fun!! I love what you did with the blocks as well. Are you coming to Portland for the meetup?

Danielle said...

Looks great Krista! Variegated thread on black is such a good idea. Love the back too. Have a wonderful time, so wish I was going too!! xx