Bloggers Quilt Festival Fall 2011

Hi there! Welcome to Poppyprint if you are clicking your way through the Bloggers Quilt Festival listings. Here is my favourite autumn quilt, which is hanging on my office door for the season.

I first saw a photo in Quilter's World Magazine of this wallhanging by Ellen Stuckey (I believe she's from Indiana, but I can't find a blog or website for her). I hung on to a colour photocopy of it for several years and finally found the perfect fabric. All of it was hand dyed by my friend Kathy, except for a few of the lighter fabrics, which are batik.

This entire quilt is free cut with scissors, no rulers or rotary blades. I pieced it on my annual November retreat a few years ago and made a massive mess of my work table and the floor around me! Free-piecing can be pretty wasteful, but all of the scraps were so beautiful I saved them for other, tiny projects. The quilt is not bound in the traditional way, but with a facing instead. I really liked the way Ellen had defined the two panels with an asymmetric top and bottom edge -it's a unique quilt finish.

I had a lot of fun with the quilting; using different thread colours, some free motion in the leaves themselves, but mostly straight line quilting with a walking foot on. In some cases, I used the quilting to define more leaves, like the one pictured below.

If you are not a regular Poppyprint reader, you may be interested in my recent free-cut project that I just made earlier this week in a workshop with the Quilters of Gee's Bend, Alabama. You can read about it here!

Thank you so much for stopping by. Be sure to visit Amy's Creative Side for a complete listing of participating blogs and check out all of the other amazing quilts in this Festival by clicking on the button below!

Passionate Dyes - a Giveaway!

It's Birthday Month Giveaway #3!

ETA: Comments are now closed, thanks for entering!!

When my local friends Susan and Martha announced that their amazing hand-dyed fabrics were now available to purchase from their very own online store, I immediately wanted to share their excitement with all of you. When these gals take their fabric on the road to quilt show merchant malls, their booth is full with gasping admirers. These women are definitely passionate about dying fabric, about colour, quilting, and art. To celebrate their online opening, Passionate Dyes will give a $30 gift certificate redeemable for hand-dyed yardage from www.passionatedyes.com to one lucky Poppyprint reader!!

Have you ever sewn with hand dyes? The colour depth is unlike anything achieved with commercial printing, and no two pieces are exactly alike. Susan and Martha have trained in numerous dying methods, including shibori resist, wrapping and colour mixing. The variety of colours and patterns achieved in their workshop is incredible....and I just love that you can shop their website in colour categories like Earth, Coloured Glass, Luminous and Stone. I think my favourite category is Shibori (resist techniques). Look at these beauties!

Their fabrics cover the complete colour spectrum but have an added feature; many pieces evoke landscapes, sea beds, trees, forest floor and flower gardens. Texture is created by folding, pleating, scrunching and shibori resist techniques. A passionately dyed fabric will add immense interest to your next project!

You'll notice that each piece of fabric is priced by it's size and base fabric (either Hoffman PFD -prepared for dying, Pimatex or Kona cotton)

Both Susan and Martha are expert quilters. I've had the pleasure of seeing many of their beautiful quilts first hand. Some of these art works are available in the webstore as well. A quick trip through their quilt gallery will provide plenty of inspiration for your own hand-dyed fabric project!

"Circles" by Martha Todd

"Line and Shape" by Martha Todd

Perhaps you're smitten with hand dyes and you'd like to treat yourself to a little present? You can join the monthly fabric club and have one yard, or two 1/2 yard pieces sent right to your mailbox! You can also sign up for their newsletter for all the latest on quilt shows, new releases and shop updates.

If you'd like the chance for a $30 shopping spree* at Passionate Dyes, please leave ONE comment below and let us know your favourite colour to work with. I must have a way to contact you, so if you email is not linked to your comment, please include it in "your name (at) your server (dot) com" form. Comments will stay open until 6:00 p.m. PST on Thursday, July 21 at which time the random number generator will choose the winner!

*(not including shipping)

GOOD LUCK!