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.

Cosmic Connection

The whole Blog Universe is such an interesting place and an interesting community. Friendships via ethernet cable are every bit as meaningful and real as ones nurtured in person. I have made many, many friends through writing Poppyprint and reading blogs and flickr and now Instagram. When friends ask for help, or a favour, I try to oblige because I know the day will come when they'll happily return it.

Back in the fall I got lucky when two such requests came in almost simultaneously: a pattern test and a fabric test.  Tracey asked me if I would test her amazing new Cosmic pattern and Lynne asked if I would like to try Oakshott's new Lipari cottons (shot with black for a lux luminescence) and share the results on my blog.  I had been staring at the beautiful fat eight stack of Lipari's sent my way, wondering what to do with them when Tracey's request came in.

Lightbulb moment: a Lipari Cosmic block! Finding the right background fabric from my stash to surround that star was tricky. The Lipari's are so rich and vibrant, flat cotton solid would not do. Only this black tone on tone batik seemed up for the task.  You can see by the rotary cutter that this block is a behemoth, measuring about 28" square. This quilt design fits in perfectly with the popular craze of giant one-block quilts. Tracey's design was inspired by a vintage scarf and she worked up the pattern with EQ.

Now the quilting. I'm afraid my FMQing skills are rather rusty. I used to FMQ with abandon years ago, but I've been straight-lining it lately.  I just couldn't see laying down a bunch of straight lines of one colour thread all over this star. No, I was envisioning a more traditional, formal quilting treatment. In a continuation of sharing the blogland love and asking for help, I turned to fellow VMQG member and friend Janet. She is amazing at quilting feathers and that's what I wanted on this wallhanging. Lucky me, she agreed to do a trade and is now working her magic on my Cosmic star (and don't worry, I'm enrolled in an advanced FMQ workshop in two week's time to kick start my mojo and get back in the swing. I want to FMQ my current scrap quilt - it's the perfect pattern to hide a rusty quilter's work!).

Tracey's excellent instructions and templates made this a surprisingly quick make. Even though it looks potentially complicated, the star sews together without y-seams. Just standard piecing! Tracey  now has plexi-glass template sets available to help with cutting out and pre-trimming the triangular corners to make it even easier. I know that a full-size 88" quilt of this pattern is in my future (and I just ordered a set of templates to help with that. Bonus is that Tracey is working on a second pattern for the same templates!).  

Shame I don't have a massive piece of farm equipment for a photo shoot! 

This really gives you an idea of the scale of this quilt.

So there you have it, the Cosmic Connection that brought 4 bloggers together over one 28" square wallhanging. That's happy-making for me.

Disclosure: I'm not making money here people, but Oakshott supplied the fabric & Tracey supplied the block pattern. I bought the templates to support my friend because I think she's a fantastic quilt designer and her patterns are incredibly detailed and well-written. 

It's only been a year in the making....

Quilt tops abound here at Poppyprint, but finished, bound quilts? Hmmm. Not that often. Like so many others obsessed with fabric combinations in quilting, I am easily distracted by the next exciting fabric line/pattern/quiltalong/block and as a result my UFO's linger. And linger.

Over a year ago, Laurie Wisbrun  and Kaufman very kindly shared a LOT of her sweet, graphic holiday line called Brrr! with me. Around the same time, Chelsea started the Made in Cherry quiltalong on her blog. It had been a while since I made a big quilt and I thought this free Lecien pattern by Sarah Fielke would be an ideal one for Laurie's prints. The 5" square sized allowed the polar bears and large polkadots to shine, instead of getting all chopped up and lost in small piecing. The bright aqua, red and green colours are even more fun on the field of medium grey background.  The quilt is bound with Laurie's adorable stripy/dotty print in the Holiday colourway that I cut on the bias: perfect.

Here's the top getting a good soaking on some white rain that accumulated last year!

I made the top really fast (for me) and showed you last year. Then, I pieced left over large chunks of  Brrr! with some coordinating Kona solids and the back went together lickity split as well.

Then we went on a month-long family trip to France.

By the time fall rolled around, I realized that sometimes the best way to complete a large quilt is to get help. I took the top and back down to Seattle for Krista K2 to work her magic. I'd seen her Baptist Fan quilting on Krista's K3 quilt (confused yet? There are three of us!) and asked her to quilt mine with the same design, with an aqua thread.  The pattern is programmed into IQ, a computerized system that Krista can use on her longarm when she's not working her dreamy free-motion quilting magic.

I just love how incredible this very traditional quilting pattern looks on this decidedly contemporary quilt! I will definitely have more large quilts done with the Baptist Fan.  It is the first quilt I've made that has Polydown batting inside. I've always been a stickler for cotton blend batting, but Krista convinced me that that the quilting texture would really shine with a slightly poufier batting.  Of course, she was absolutely right! Trust the experts.

The polar bears will go to live two blocks away at SIL's house, on her spare bed. She's already said she likes the back better (that's how she rolls) so that's likely the side that will be 'up'. I haven't yet decided what to do about a label, in that case.

Tis the Season....

....to sew my heart out, but not be able to share anything with you!  My nieces read my blog, my kids follow me on IG, my SIL reads my blog. It's hopeless, any surprise would be ruined if I published photos before the big day.

Now that the VMQG has held their Christmas meeting I can share one recent make with you, though. I love this one. It's a little beyond the intention of the scrap swap we did (last month we all brought a sandwich baggie filled with our own scraps with our name concealed inside. Then we grabbed a bag off the table to take home and spend a couple of hours making something out of the scraps to gift back to the scrap owner).   I might have spent more than a couple of hours.

I made this machine cover for my lovely friend Berene. In the summer, she bought a Pfaff QE 4.0, the same machine I have. It was my plan to make her a cover for it (since she sews at her dining table) for her fall birthday, but I didn't manage it. This swap was a perfect opportunity and I was happy to score Berene's scraps! All of the wonky stars, patches and the strip along the top of the machine were in her scrap bag. The medium grey Kona were all scraps of mine from this quilt (which, by the way, is now quilted and bound - photos as soon as the rain stops here. I'm thinking maybe May).

Having the same machine made sizing a breeze.  The panel across the top of the machine has a piece of heavy weight interfacing under it so that the front and back sides drape vertically from the top of the machine. These geometric quilting lines are a triple stitch that I love using for stand out lines - here I used a 28wt Aurifil that has a lovely sheen. The cover is quilted with a fun backing fabric that I've enjoyed using on the back of various projects over the past couple of years (yikes, I'm almost out!).

The cover was finished just in the nick of time, so I didn't have a chance to take any photos - thanks for taking and sharing these ones Berene!

I plan to make another appearance prior to Christmas, but if you're taking a blog-reading break, then I'll take this opportunity to wish you and your family a wonderful holiday! xox