January Quilt for Sarah: Blogger's Quilt Festival

As soon as I saw Liz Harvatine’s January Quilt block pattern, I knew I had to make my own version. Her designs are always so interesting and her piecing skills leave me in awe and wondering how exactly she puts everything together.

I made this quilt at the beginning of April for Sarah's birthday. Both she and Liz have been such an inspiration to me over the years and I knew I wanted to use a special pattern for Sarah's quilt. This quilt probably has over 100 different fabrics in it; I used all of Sarah's favorite colors--blue, green, orange, and red. One common bond we share is our love for cute fabric and, of course, shopping for said fabric. One bond we don't share is my love of purple!

For the back of the quilt, I pieced random strips of fabrics together to form a colorful mosaic. I'm on a fabric fast until the beginning of August and didn't have matching yardage for the backing.

I quilted this on my new Gracie Queen frame that's set up with my Brother Nouvelle 1500s. It was so much fun to quilt and a lot easier to maneuver everything around on the frame. I have a queue of quilts that are ready to be quilted and just need to find some time to tackle my unfinished projects!

In the past couple of years, I've become obsessed with curved piecing. Curves break up the monotony of chain piecing for me and allow me to try out lots of fun new patterns. Some curved quilts I’ve made so far are: 

• Glam Clam pattern by Latifah Saafir (here and here)
• Snow drift quilt pattern by Modern Quilt Studio
• Single Girl quilt pattern by Denyse Schmidt
• Orange You Glad Liberty quilt 
• Metro Lattice Quilt featuring the Quick Curve Ruler

If you’re looking to sew with curves, I highly recommend Angela Pingell’s book, A Quilter's Mixology. It’s filled with beautiful patterns and helpful techniques. One new tool I found at Quilt Con is the Bloc Loc Drunkard’s Path ruler set. This is a three piece set with two acrylic cutting templates and one acrylic piece to use to square up your block. The square-up piece has a curved groove the size of your seam allowance, so it locks your block in place for cutting (hence the name!). One of my next quilts will definitely be a drunkard’s path design!

The biggest tip I can share for piecing curves is to place the convex piece face up on the bottom and then concave piece face down on the top. Then slowly stretch and curve the concave piece to fit the convex piece as you sew the quarter inch seam. Having a ¼” foot with a right side guide is helpful to make sure that you’re maintaining a ¼” seam  throughout and it gives something for the curved seam to line up against as you sew.

This is my Spring Blogger's Quilt Festival entry in the Scrappy category.

Radio Way Quilt

My dad is a professional night time TV napper who lives in a chilly house. Naturally, his 60th birthday was the perfect excuse to make him a quilt. 

I used two jelly rolls from the Zen Chic Figures line, which were purchased at my favorite quilt shop, Stitched Studio Grand Rapids. I found a contrasting solid for the block borders. For someone who really enjoys picking out coordinating fabrics, this was a bit anticlimactic for me. Jelly rolls, while great time savers, just aren't my thing.

 

Pattern: Radio Way by Jaybird Quilts

Size: 63"x81"

Quilting: free motion meandering stipple with grey thread

Finished: November 2014

Robot Quilt

 

Here's a quick quilt that I put together for the Detroit Area Modern Quilt Guild's charity donation to Beaumont Children's Hospital in Royal Oak, MI. My favorite part of quilting is pairing fabrics, and it was fun to come up with a non-girly palette based on a robot print I had in my stash. I pulled everything together back in September and then finally got around to finishing this at the beginning of November.

I used 6.5" squares (final size 6") in a grid of 9 squares by 13 squares. The final quilt is 54"x78" and should cover the entire length of a hospital bed. I backed the quilt in a super soft flannel and quilted it with wavy lines using my free motion foot.

My favorite part of this quilt is the guild label, made by our graphic designer and guild member, Amanda. She did such a nice job on our branding and it was a great way to finish off the project.

Quilt Con 2015

 

Sarah and I traveled together to Austin two weeks ago for QuiltCon 2015. The whole experience was overwhelming in the best possible way. I think I'm still in recovery mode and my inspiration and urge to sew is at an all time high right now.

Because we didn't take any classes, we spent most of our time looking at quilts, attending lectures and buying everything in sight at the vendor booths. Looking back, keeping myself busy in classes probably would have been a great way to channel my creative energy and reduce my shopping haul! Of the lectures, Yoshiko Jinzenji's Simple Quilts, Bill Kerr's Details Matter and Susan Beal's Modern Quilt Documentation lectures were the highlights for me.

It was so nice to meet long time blog friends, Shea, Liz and Krista and to connect with so many other people who share my love of quilting. We also had fun catching up with our guild members for meals and drinks each night. For someone who would rather be home binge watching TV shows with Jon or listening to an audiobook and crafting away, I was exhausted after being out and about so much!

Unfortunately we didn't get out and tour much of Austin, but we did catch a few food trucks, the infamous Gourdough's donuts, Hill Country Weavers, Home Slice (home of the Mr. Roger's mural), and the adorable sewing shop, Stitch Lab.

Sarah and I with our hilarious Aussie friend, Melanie. We met on the first night in our hotel lobby and became instant friends. (Melanie is holding Happypotamus The Happy Hippo)

You'll have to trust me that the donuts were more tasty than they were photogenic.

 

Here are a my favorite quilts from the juried show. You can see my full album here.

 

Refresh by Anna Boenish

Bird's Eye View by Nathalie Bearden

 

Arne by Rossie Hutchinson

   

Coral Reef by Marla Varner

   

Do Good Stitches-Sunset Stripes 

   

Facets by Liz Harvatine

  Flyaway by Heather Jones

   

Full Bloom by Latifah Saafir

  Fuzhou Fujian by Patricia Lutteral

   

Grand Pineapple-Dichotomy by Alison Lee

   

Improv Double Wedding Ring by Natalie Sabik

 

Letting Go by Andrew Steinbrecher

  Mahjong by Leslie Schmidt

   

Paint Chip by Sarah Lowry 

   

Phased Circles by Michelle Wilkie

   

Pickle Jars by Jamie Gonce

   

Rocket88 by Latifah Saafir

  Spirography by Matt Macomber

    Steps by Carrie Strine

   

Welcome to Colorful Colorado by Katie Larson

   

The Knit Stitch by Dorie Schwarz

 

Smithereens by Emily Cier

   

Somewhat Herringbone by Dorie Schwarz

   

The New New by Amy Anderson

   

Tidy Towns-Irish Houses by Andrew Steinbrecher

   

Tiki Dilema by Jodi Robinson

   

Primary by Elsa Albury

  Lite Brite by Maria Shell

   

Las Ventanas by Kristin Shields

   

Knit Snippet by Lotje Meijknecht

   

Balancing Act by Amanda Hohnstreiter
 
Half SquareTriangles by Tara Faughnan

  iQuilt by Kathy York (winner of best in show)


Akhaten by Shannon Page

...

Modern Quilt Guild chapters were invited to design and make quilts with a predetermined color scheme using an alternate grid. Here are some of my favorites from the charity quilts. I wish these had been labeled with guild names and participants!

Dana, from the Detroit Area Modern Quilt Guild created this pattern and divided the sewing up between several members. I helped by piecing the backing and making a few blocks. Dana worked so hard to coordinate this and I love the design she created! The quilt was quilted by our guild's resident longarmer, Barb.

Quilt 1 from the Ann Arbor Modern Quilt Guild - designed by Jenna

Quilt 2 from the Ann Arbor Modern Quilt Guild - pattern by Debbie of Esch House Quilts

Pyramids, by the Edmonton, Alberta MGQ. Designed by Stacey Lee O'Malley

I loved the giant pebble quilting on this one. I'm going to try this sometime.

I love these pieced x's and also want to give this a try.