Blogger's Quilt Festival, Spring 2014: Lanyard

If you are here by way of Blogger's Quilt Festival, welcome! Twice a year it is such a wonderful place to find inspiration.

 Awhile back, I saw a picture of some carpeting in an ad for Flor carpet tiles.

 I knew instantly that it needed to become a quilt. I gathered a lot of my neutral/low volume scraps, some Kona cotton and some Essex linen, and started working on some blocks.

Four different, but similar, blocks.

The very fabulous Krista Withers did the machine quilting.

 After getting permission from the design group at Flor, I gathered up the courage to submit it for publication. It was in the Winter 2014 issue of Modern Patchwork.

So remember--inspiration is all around you.

Name: Lanyard
Size: 42" x 64"
Quilted by: Krista Withers
Blogger's Quilt Category: Original Design

Thanks for stopping by. Enjoy all the beautiful quilts.

Blogger's Quilt Festival, Spring 2014: Swooning with Oakshotts

If you are here from Blogger's Quilt Festival, welcome!

If you have been here before, you might be aware that I really love sewing with solids. And I'm also a huge fan of shot cottons, particularly those from Oakshott in the UK.

Every other year, I make a king-sized quilt that is donated and auctioned off with proceeds going entirely to Third World relief efforts. Swooning with Oakshotts (with a name change to Amish Stars for the auction) was my donation this year. You can read more about it here.

Have you ever made a Swoon block? Although by now I have made over 25 of them, I'm always surprised at how large it is--24 inches!

This picture gives you more of an idea of how large the finished quilt turned out to be:

It took a really large wall to get a decent picture!

It's just so very hard to photograph the absolutely gorgeous Oakshott fabrics, but trust me--they are stunning. 

It's hard to choose a favorite block but it might be this one:

I also couldn't resist turning it into a "watercolor" with the waterlogue app on my iPhone:

Name: Swooning with Oakshotts
Pattern: "Swoon" by Camille Roskelley
Size: 116" x 116"
Fabric: Oakshott shot cottons and Robert Kaufman organic black
Blogger's Quilt Festival Category: Large Quilts

Thanks for stopping by! There are so many wonderful quilts to see--enjoy the rest of the show.

Blogger's Quilt Festival: Peace Around the Color Wheel

Welcome to the spring 2013 edition of Blogger's Quilt Festival, hosted by Amy Ellis.

A few months ago I did a pattern test for a good friend. Rene' had written a pattern for an awesome peace sign in a variety of sizes. I tested the baby size, using solid kona cottons for the circle and tone-on-tone prints for the center spokes.

Because of all the white, I knew it needed some really exceptional quilting, so after completing it, I then passed it on to quilter extraordinaire, Krista Withers. I received it back a couple of days ago at quilt market in Portland. So say that I was speechless when I saw the quilting is putting it mildly!

Here you can see the moon (my favorite detail) a little better.

Size: 29 inches square.
Pattern by Rene' Martinez from Rene' Creates

Pieced by me
Machine quilted by Krista Withers
Category: ROYGBIV quilts 


I know you are anxious to see lots of quilts.  Thanks so much for taking a few minutes to stop here.  And thanks, Amy, for this opportunity for all of us to view amazing quilts from all around the world.

Blogger's Quilt Festival: One in Every (Kona) Color

It's always fun when Blogger's Quilt Festival rolls around. Amy puts a lot of time into it, so thanks, Amy!

I know a lot of you have already seen this, but honestly, One in Every (Kona) Color is my favorite finish of 2012 so far.

I was trying to duplicate the Kona color card, since I just adore working with solids, and used the iconic Pantone color blocks as my inspiration.

It started with trimming lots of charm pack squares,

printing out lots of labels that included the color number and name,

and then meticulously matching them up to reproduce the Kona color card.

 All of their 243 colors is represented. I had some spaces to fill so I added some other information from the color card, including washing instructions. This turned out to be a good idea, because not only did it fill the space that needed to be filled, it gave the eye a place to rest in all that sea of color.

I thought and thought about how to quilt it. While not a fan of stitch-in-the-ditch, except for a line of quilting through the white labels, everything else is stitched in the ditch. There were so many colors to take into consideration and I also didn't want anything to detract from all the color.

I used the wonky alphabet by Kelby Sews for the back,

black and white striped binding a la Red Pepper Quilts,

and ended with a tribute to Pantone, the initial inspiration for the quilt, a label using the color of the year, Tangerine Tango.

This was such a fun quilt to make. Thanks for stopping by, and enjoy the rest of the Quilt Festival--there is so much to see!

Quilt Stats:

Size: 63x72 inches

Quilted by: Me

Best Category: Throw, ROYGBIV

Blogger's Quilt Festival, Spring 2012: Double Dutch

If you are here from Amy's Creative Side, welcome! I have been pondering which quilt to showcase for Blogger's Quilt Festival. If you have been following along for the last couple of months, you have seen many pictures of Colorbox, from inception to completion.

So I decided instead to show this quilt.

I first saw it in an issue of American Patchwork and Quilting and fell in love with it. I ordered the fabric (all American Jane--love anything by American Jane!--a kit is still available) and started working on it.

It was originally intended to go to friends who were having a baby. But after I started working on the blocks, which are really large, with a crazy amount of half square triangles, I decided to make an easier quilt for the baby (all American Jane scraps), and give Double Dutch to someone else.

When our  best friends' daughter got married two years ago, this quilt went to live with the newlyweds.

 Thanks for stopping by. Enjoy the rest of the Festival!

Bloggers' Quilt Festival, Fall 2011

Welcome to Fall 2011 Bloggers' Quilt Festival. I'm so happy you stopped by!

The name of this quilt is California Ice Crystals.

I have always enjoyed kaleidoscope blocks. This quilt was inspired by a single piece of fabric designed by Paula Nadelstern:

All of the blocks were made by placing the kaleidoscope template on the same identical portion of the fabric eight times per block, and then positioning the template in another part of the fabric for the next block.

The spectacular machine quilting was done by my  husband's cousin, Ione.

It was then donated to a quilt auction which raises money for Third World relief.

I'm not  a "blue" person but I really love this quilt.

Thanks, Amy, for hosting this amazing show-and-tell twice a year.

Bloggers Quilt Festival: Spool Play

Welcome to Spring Bloggers Quilt Festival! I'm so happy you stopped by.

Spool Play was made as a challenge quilt for a quilt retreat I attend every year.

Everyone is given 1/2 yard of a specific fabric. Here is this year's fabric.

 

The idea for my quilt came from a combination of wanting to do a traditional spool block but in different sizes, and my absolute obsession with selvages edges, so I got out my graph paper and colored pencils.

While most of my selvages are stored in ziplock bags by category, this quilt required selvages to be sorted by color.

It was really fun seeing the quilt come together block by block.

When it came time for the quilting, I machine quilted in the ditch around brown part of each spool, and then outline quilted around each full spool using perle cotton.

In the border I used a fabulous variegated perle cotton, and even added a sewing needle in the bottom border.

Can you see the selvage edge pieced into the flowered border?

This was a fun and easy quilt to make. I hope you enjoyed seeing it. Enjoy the rest of the show!