Geode - a Mini Quilt

This sweet little expression of colour reminds me of the crystals you find inside a geode.  On the outside, a geode is typically a non-descript round-ish grey rock. However on the inside, if you are lucky when you smash it open with a hammer, you discover a tiny magical world of perfect crystals. Typically quartz (often purple amethyst), calcite or dolomite crystals form over hundreds or even thousands of years as water trickling through a cavity in the ground leaves behind the mineral components as crystalline deposits.

I was starting to feel like this little project was taking a geologic amount of time to complete. After all, it is only 15" square and it has been two years in the making!  Why do we do this to ourselves? Delay finishing a project when really, there is only another hour or so required to get it done? If you've got a better answer than good old fashioned procrastination, please share so that I can learn and stop doing this!

The center block of 'crystals' are teensy little two-fer triangles cut off the corners of this project. Each half square triangle measures 1/2" finished.  I pieced them together to form colourful little square in squares without an overall quilt design in mind.  Next, I created a 9-patch by adding low volume squares around the crystal block. I even used a precious piece of poppyprinted white linen I found in my scrap drawer. Gradually, more ideas came to me and I settled on the green bias tape (appliqued using this method) to frame the little block. I used a flexible curve ruler to draw the wiggly shape on the low volume background fabrics with a pencil (the line is covered by the tape when it is folded over).

Realizing the quilt wasn't yet finished, the tiny circles were hand-appliqued on. Then this poor little quilt top sat for over a year. Sometimes on my design wall. Sometimes thrown over a pile of other fabric on top of a cabinet. Many times folded up and brought to retreat, only to remain folded up until I got home.  FINALLY, last week Geode made it to the basting, quilting and binding stage. Phew.

This little gem (couldn't resist) is going in the mail as a reciprocal thank you gift for a special friend who surprised me with her generosity once. 

The Orange Grove Quilt

In my blog hop kick off post, I wrote about 3 of my projects in Make It, Take It. You can also find more background information on the inspiration behind the book in this post.

My final project in the book is Orange Grove, a 71" square quilt featuring a modern layout and colouration of the very traditional Pinetree block. This block has long been a favourite of mine and for years I've thought about creating a modern version with bright, colourful pine trees set on point (very different from the typical forest green and brown trees that you see in older versions).

Photo Brent Kane for Martingale, Inc. All rights reserved.

 It was long-arm quilted by the amazing Krista Withers. Her masterful quilting really shines in the negative space of this quilt!  In particular, I love how she created quilted 'ghost blocks' between the pieced trees - first by outlining the square with a 1/4" echo frame and then filling each one with a unique design.  I was so happy that she included her signature moon motif in the upper right corner. This quilt could be coloured in so many fun ways; it would look amazing in multicoloured shot cottons.  I've got a full set of blocks in rainbow colours made by my Stash Trad bee-mates that I look forward to piecing into my second version.

In the book, you'll find a tip box describing an exciting retreat activity you can do with these blocks and others.  You'll also get to feast your eyes on amazing details shots of Krista's quilting, which is truly breathtaking. Seriously, when I hold up this quilt at trunk shows people literally gasp!

AH-MAZING

Chilcotin Wild - a mini quilt

A last minute finish before departing for QuiltCon tomorrow, this mini quilt is a gift for my friend Kristie's new sewing room.  Seriously, I can't get enough of this mini Lonestar Circle (full-size lap quilt pattern by Lynne appears in my book).  The ombre effect with the Cotton and Steel basics is striking as long as you don't stare at it too long. I found that the skinny border helped to reduce the pulsating effect a bit by reining in the points.

The centre seams of this one didn't turn out quite as accurate as my first effort, I think in part due to the fact that I had to fussy cut the horses individually instead of strip piecing them in to the sets (this would make more sense if you had the pattern in front of you).  I think there is enough going on with the horse motifs and quilting to divert any critical examination of seams though, haha.  I'm contemplating making 9 or 16 of these sized blocks for a queen size quilt. Call me crazy but I love making them - it's a bit of a shock considering how intense the piecing and seam matching is after all of the improvisational work I've been doing lately. At this point, it is only a "plan". You are quilters....you know what that means. At any rate, I need to make at least one of these minis to keep as this is one of the projects I'll be teaching on the Alaskan cruise in June!

I quilted with straight lines to define wedge shapes on each side and in each corner.  I then filled the wedge-shaped areas with a free-motion ribbon design that I'm super happy with. All of the thread is 40 wt Auriful in hot pink and aqua.  I just love how the quilting looks on that Essex yarn-dyed linen.

For my 40th birthday (cough,  many years ago), B surprised me with a long weekend trip to British Columbia's Chilcotin region for three days of trail riding at a small dude ranch. We didn't see the famous wild horses of the Nemaiah Valley, but I would love to, one day. This quilt is named for them.

Chilcotin Wild, 22 1/2" x 22 1/2"

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).

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.

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.

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

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:

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!

More Retreat Makes

We're at the end of school crazy time around here and while classes finished yesterday we are now in the throes of exam prep. Each of them have 5 exams to write to write this week. I may lock myself in my sewing room to keep from incessantly nagging them to "Get the heck off Facebook and study!"  Honestly, how does anyone make it through university these days with all the social media they have to keep up on?

Ok, so I'm really dragging this retreat thing out, but here are a few more pics. My spring retreat buddies are French General Fanatics. When we retreat, they both just bring bags and bags of every line of FG. And I mean every line. Then they proceed to make the most beautiful quilts, pillows, pin cushions, table runners and bags out of it!

To start, here was our basement sweat shop! The set up was perfect - big cutting table, individual work stations, a heater and carpeted floor. Our iron was just around the corner in the laundry room.

Isn't Rossie's bed gorgeous?! That's my dresden plate pillow pattern on the right - she 

made a beautiful one!

This is the quilt top Sandi got together. That border print is a fav of all three of us.

Here are our farm fresh breakfast eggs from local friend Sue's hens. And a sweet table topper by Rossie under the rose glass bowl.

Rossie's hand-quilted couch throw was super cozy in the mornings.

She made this gorgeous 241 Bag with Martha Negley's Farmdale feathers print and a French General linen look blue solid.

I was the beneficiary of a few choice selvage pieces and had some of my own to add so I got a start on this pillow top and made a few little pin cushions of similar design with leftovers

My second Scrap Vomit top is together. This time I used Kona pomegranate and a grey/white dot for the accent blocks.

I started free-motion quilting my first Scrap top that's been basted for weeks already. I was struggling with shredded top thread (I'm using a gorgeous variegated Sulky Blendable in 40wt). I tried 90/14 and 100/16 topstitch needles but the problem wasn't solved. I said a few choice words and soldiered on, but it was very frustrating.

A neighbourhood of tiny houses destined to become tape measure holders. I'm making these for the Fat Quarterly retreat sample swap. Laurraine's pattern can be found here.

I also made my secret partner's nametag for FQRLondon. I have to get that in the mail this week! The idea is that we send them in advance so we can arrive all nametag-equipped at the retreat Friday afternoon.

I think that just about wraps it up for spring retreat 2013. Only 31 more sleeps 'till I leave for London and I'm running a day retreat next Saturday as well, so there's plenty more social sewing in my near future. Yay!

Luminescence Defined

My Lipari Cosmic Star is complete.  Prepare yourselves for this stunning transformation. A couple of weeks ago I shared this photo:

I let you know that my friend Janet of WhatComesNext? was busy working her free-motion feather magic on the quilt.  We spoke briefly about the quilting, but I let Janet know that I trusted her and wanted her to enjoy the process.  I've seen enough of Janet's work to know this quilt was in very capable hands!  I knew it would be amazing. I knew it would be awesome. I'm just not sure I knew it was going to be so ridiculously, perfectly, mindblowing.  Even if feathers are not your cup of tea, you cannot deny that this quilting literally, and figuratively, makes the quilt.  Check this out:

Other bloggers have written how difficult it is to capture the true luminescence of shot cottons, and especially the Liparis which are shot with black thread. They behave like silk in natural light and bounce a lot of light. I upped the contrast and saturation a bit on that photo above to best highlight the quilting for you.  Here are some close ups of Janet's beautiful work.

The central design was over-stitched with a silver metallic thread.

As you can see, I bound the quilt with the same tone on tone black batik as the background because I didn't want any attention drawn away from that star. Here's a shot of the back so you can have an idea of all the stitching and see how perfectly it is distributed. That is a hanging sleeve you see across the top.

I feel like my role in this quilt was pretty small actually, so I'm going to take a few lines to shout out my appreciation to everyone involved. Thank you to Lynne and Michael Oakshott for the opportunity to sew with these gorgeous cottons. I did use Mary Ellen's Best Press prior to cutting out those big wedge-shaped pieces and the oakshotts held the bias edge beautifully.  These cottons press crisp and retain their sheen!  Thank you Tracey for your easy-to-piece pattern that I will definitely make again. And thank you Janet, for taking this small quilt to stratospheric heights with your incredible quilting skills.