Stumped

Every year for the Boston MQG Quilt Show, we have a mini quilt challenge. This year, the theme was Improv. We had to make a mini quilt that was no more than 36" x 36" using an improv technique. That's it! It's amazing how when given so much free reign, that it becomes difficult to get your mojo and make something. In fact, I was stumped (despite being the president and issuing the challenge...)

I decided I just needed to dive in. I've toyed with the idea of an improv curved quilt, so I pulled a bundle of fabric and some coordinating solids and just started cutting and sewing. I had no idea where I was going with this when I started, but I ended up really enjoying the end result. The colors and process are definitely out of my comfort zone, but that's what I love about a challenge. It pushes me as a designer. 

I thought the quilt top looked like a tree stump (hence the name of the quilt), so I quilted concentric circles to enhance the design. I love the effect it gives the quilt. I quilted this using Aurifil 50wt (and pieced with it) in an all over moss green color to match the background. I love using a thin thread to really blend in with the fabric, regardless of the color.

The end result is a fun mini quilt that I really like. Now to think of a new challenge for myself!

Fabric: Alison Glass Handmade and Cotton Couture Solids
Thread: Aurifil 50wt
Batting: Quilters Dream Poly (from my QuiltCon goodie bag!)
Finished Size: 25" x 30"
Started and finished in March 2017

Picchu Boo

Almost a year ago I took a trip of a lifetime to Peru to celebrate graduating from graduate school. One of the most memorable parts of the trip was when I visited Machu Picchu. I took thousands of photos during the ten day trip, but this photo was one of my favorites.

I knew it had to be turned into a quilt, so when we announced the solids challenge in the Boston Modern Quilt Guild, I decided this was my opportunity to make this into a quilt.

Not wanting to do an exact interpretation or make an art quilt, I started cutting a ton of 1" strips out of five different brown fabrics and sewed them together. I ended up making three different groups of these brown strips, one with the strips horizontal, one vertical and one on the diagonal. I varied the width and length of all three as part of my interpretation of the photo.

I decided on a teal background instead of a more natural green that's found in nature. Again, this was my way of modernizing the quilt and avoid looking too much like an art quilt. When it came time to quilt it, I knew I wanted to quilt straight lines opposite the direction of the brown strips. It took me a little while to settle on echoing the brown sections, which ended up giving the quilt a 3-D look.

I used an Art Gallery print from my stash on the backing that I thought went well with the top. I quilted it using gold and teal Aurifil threads. The batting is Quilters Dream Cotton Select. The solids are Michael Miller Cotton Couture.

Overall, I'm pleased with this quilt and it will definitely remind me of my trip to Peru every time I look at it.

Zippered Pouch Swap

We decided to conduct a zippered pouch swap within the Boston Modern Quilt Guild, which we conducted at our November meeting. I love making zippered pouches and thought this would be a fun, easy swap that didn't require a ton of time for our members. While I've made a ton of zippered pouches, I never made a boxed pouch. I decided this was the perfect opportunity to make one.

I used the Boxy Bag pattern by Kelby Sews. This really came together quick and easily. The most difficult part was when I went ahead and trimmed my plastic zipper and then unzipped the pouch to iron it. Well, I forgot to tack the end of the now-trimmed zipper and the zipper came right off the teeth and into my hand. It took me a good 15 minutes to get it back on. Once I did, it was smooth sailing from there. You can bet I won't be doing that one again.

This fabric is an Art Gallery fabric that I got in a fat quarter bundle a year or two ago with the coordinating yellow print. The zipper is from Zip It. I used three layers of 101 Pellon interfacing for this. Two pieces on the outer fabric and one on the liner. The pouch is stiff enough to stand on its own but flexible enough to allow the new owner to manipulate it as she wishes. 

Retreat 2015

Last weekend I attended the annual Boston MQG retreat up in Kennebunkport, ME. This was my fourth time attending retreat and I can honestly say I always have an amazing time with the wonderful ladies of our guild. I think we have a pretty awesome guild with a wide range of skills and aesthetics, which is always so inspiring.

My first order of business was finishing up my Prism Dust quilt top. I arrived with 33 out of the 36 blocks made. I finished the three blocks and got to work on piecing the top together. Because these blocks were paper pieced, I kept the paper on, but it becomes very heavy as you're piecing along. The benefit of keeping the paper on while piecing everything together is that you have less distortion because of all the bias and accuracy is improved.

Piecing the top took a lot more time than I thought it would. All together, I've definitely spent over 100 hours piecing this top, which I began last summer. Given my schedule, I've spent a few hours here and there on this quilt when I had the time.

My other finish for the weekend was this zippered pouch for our zipit challenge. ZipIt kindly provided a 14" navy zipper for us all to make a zippered pouch. I've wanted to use these cotton and steel arrows for the bottom of a bag for some time. I thought this was the perfect opportunity. I freehanded a flying goose pattern on some paper to paper piece for the top part and offset it. I was really happy with the result and blown away that I actually won the challenge. I can honestly say I wasn't expecting to win because there were so many awesome pouches. We have some seriously talented quilters in our guild, so I was honored to win.

I did work on a few other projects here and there that I didn't finish. One was a leaders and enders project with equilateral triangles. One was a quilt that I can't speak of. Not because it's secret, but because the pattern was such a PITA and poorly written that I had to put it aside I was so frustrated. I think I'm going to figure out how to paper piece the pattern instead. I don't have pictures of those yet, but stay tuned!

Getting Ready to Retreat!

Our annual BMQG retreat is upon us and I've been very busy getting ready for it. With my longarm out for service for 14 LONG weeks and my domestic in for regular maintenance and to repair the broken handle and thread holder for the past four weeks, I've been spending most of my time cutting. Throw in the craziness of working full time and going to grad school full time, and I'm going through some serious sewing withdrawal. Four days of sewing sounds like pure bliss right now.

One of my big projects will be to make a quilt using this bundle of fabrics. I'm using a dozen different Liberty of London prints with a coordinating Textured Solids fabric from Andover and a neutral chambray from Robert Kauffman for the background. Let's just say this quilt will be full of different textures. If all goes according to plan, I hope to enter this quilt at QuiltCon and possibly a few other shows with modern quilting categories.

I'm also hoping to work on a bunch of WIPs including my Meadow quilt, which I started at the Philly SewDown. I have four of the 20 blocks complete. Below are the first three blocks. I finished cutting the remaining 16 blocks last week, so I might be able to finish this one, depending on how much time I spend sewing vs. talking.

I'll bring a few other WIP's with me to work on, but I don't know if I'll get to them or not. Maybe I'll get to my quilted tote, also a WIP from SewDown.

And if that's not enough, I brought a few smaller projects to make some zippered pouches and such for some upcoming birthdays and baby showers. Let's just say I'm going to be busy. But that means I'll actually have something to show since I've been so quiet lately.

Linking up to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced. 

Trunk Show by Victoria Findlay Wolfe

This past Friday, the Boston and Seacoast Modern Quilt Guilds enjoyed a trunk show by the lovely Victoria Findlay Wolfe.

Victoria gave a great presentation, talking about her life growing up on the farm and watching her grandmother quilt.

I love hearing about where quilters and artists get their inspiration from. It's amazing to hear how we all find inspiration from so many different places.

You might recognize this quilt from the cover of Victoria's book, 15 Minutes of Play.

I loved how Victoria talked about grandmother flower garden quilts. Who doesn't have a bunch of unfinished hexi's lying around, waiting to be made into a top.

I loved Victoria's attempt to use solids. I don't use a lot of orange in my quilts, but there's something about that orange in the center medallion that speaks to me.

And here I am with Victoria after the show, getting my book signed. 

Sew-In on the Common

This past weekend a bunch of us from the Boston MQG got together in Boston to have a sew-in on the Boston Common.

It was extremely HOT on Sunday, but with our ice cold beverage, we positioned many of the Quilts for Boston quilts off our laps and to our side, attaching labels and binding.

We finished the day with about a dozen finished quilts, ready to be donated.

The heat might have gotten to us, because we took over the Make Way For Ducklings statue at one point.

As you can see, we had a great time. I posted even more pictures on my Facebook page, so hop on over there if you want to see more. 

Quilts for Boston

As I mentioned yesterday, the Boston MQG has decided to do something for our community given the recent events surrounding the Boston Marathon bombing. The modern quilting community really stepped it up leading up to QuiltCon, and we are reaching out to the quilting community once again to help those affected by these tragic events.

We are asking folks to make quilt blocks in blue, yellow, gray and white - the colors of the Boston Marathon and The One Fund. Your blocks, like those made for QuiltCon, should be at least 12.5" wide by however long you decide. Below is a sample color pallet pulled by the talented Natalie of Greenleaf Goods. For the full details, please check out the Boston MQG blog post.

Please mail your blocks to the Boston MQG by May 24th. In addition, we are also looking for coordinating fabric for the sashing, backing and binding.

Blocks can be mailed to:
Quilts for Boston
P. O. Box 79225
Belmont, MA 02479

To help inspire you, here are some pictures of the many wonderful quilts created at QuiltCon using 12.5" quilt blocks.

Finish Friday: Madrona Road Challenge Quilt

This week I finished my Madrona Road challenge quilt.  I mentioned earlier that this quilt doesn't really match the style of quilts that I usually make - very much planned and in jewel tones.  I knew early on that the colors of the fabrics would be perfect for my basement, which I redid last year in a grey and yellow color scheme.

I had originally planned to make a paper pieced pattern featuring flying geese around the big yellow flowers, like I have as the center of these blocks.  But, I recently got a new computer and the old program I use to design my patterns wasn't compatible with my new one.  Onto plan B.

I used almost every last inch of five of the fabrics provided.  I decided not to use one print because it just didn't quite fit with the vision I had in my head.

Each quilt block finishes at 9" square.  I added five additional solids - four grays, a white and a baby blue to the Madrona Road fabrics.

I quilted this quilt with a bunch of straight lines 1/4" apart.  While most people would use their walking foot for this, I tend to just use my normal 1/4" foot when I'm quilting straight lines.  I find I have more control with my smaller 1/4" foot than a big walking foot.

For the back, I used an old Patrick Loose print that I've had in my stash for what seems like forever.  I bound the quilt in what is becoming my go-to for binding - Kona Charcoal.

You can check out more challenge quilts and projects in the MQG Madrona Road Challenge Flickr group.

Quilt Stats:
Size: 27" x 27"
Fabrics: Madrona Road and Kona Cotton
Thread: Pieced with Aurifil 50wt, Quilted with So Fine! #50 #508
Batting: Warm and Natural

WIP Wednesday: Madrona Road Challenge

This week I began to dig into my Madrona Road fabrics for the Modern Quilt Guild challenge.  I need to create an object with the fabrics provided and can only add solid fabrics.

I don't want to reveal too much, but I decided to make a wall hanging for my basement, which just happens to be decorated in a grey and yellow color pallet!

The only thing I'll reveal right now is that this quilt isn't going be obviously "me" in the paper piecing style.  I decided to go a completely different route.  So far I'm really liking how it's coming out.

P.I.N. Pillow

The Kansas City Modern Quilt Guild is hosting a pin cushion swap with a bunch of other modern quilt guilds, including the Boston guild.  Me being me, i had to come up with a paper pieced pattern for my pincushion.  After some thinking, I created this very literal pin cushion design that I have dubbed P.I.N. Pillow.

I first made the pin cushion in some scraps for the swap, but then decided to make one for myself out of the new Denyse Schmidt Chicopee line.

This pincushion will be the one I'm including in the swap.  I usually stuff my pincushions with crushed walnut shells, but because this was for a swap, I just stuffed it with some bamboo stuffing.  My Chicopee cushion is stuffed with the walnut shells.

Here's the block before I sewed it together with the backing and stuffed it.  You could easily use this block in a quilt or other project, other than a pincushion.  You could also easily scale it up (or down) if you feel the pattern is too small for you.

You can purchase this pattern in my Craftsy shop here for instant download. 

Angela Walters Visit

This weekend I had the pleasure of spending time with the oh-so-talented Angela Walters as she visited one of my favorite local quilt shops, Quilter's Way, and spent some time with the Boston Modern Quilt Guild.

For the trunk show with the BMQG, Angela talked about how she got started in quilting and how she evolved as a quilter. As we progressed during the show, she talked a lot about how she goes about quilting a modern quilt.  She shared some secrets with us - like some new collaborations she has coming up that I'll let her tell you about soon enough.  

She shared some of her awesome quilts and talked about how she goes about quilting them.

I'm sure you recognize some of these quilts from her book and her blog.  Let's just say that they were all awesome to see in person.

I loved this quilt.  Probably because the quilting was awesome and I love Art Gallery fabrics. 

We were the first group that got to see quilts from her upcoming book, In the Studio with Angela Walters.

I loved this quilt.  Probably because I've always loved things celestial, and the quilting in the sky, moon and ocean were awesome in this quilt.

I loved the swirl quilting she did on this quilt.  I was happy that I got to learn how to do it during a class I took with her right after.  Now to find something to practice on.

I wanted to steal this quilt to hang in my basement.  Hey, I did just redo it in a grey and yellow color scheme.  It would go perfect.

Anyone who knows me would assume I would like this quilt just for the abundance of teal in it.

Looking at this quilt up close, it took me a little bit to realize that the quilt spelled out "Inspire." The quilting on this one is great too, but what else would you expect from Angela?

I do love me some good citrus colors in a quilt, and this one is no exception. 

Angela was amazing.  She's an incredibly talented quilter who genuinely loves to share her craft with others.  I was lucky that I spent some time with her Friday night during an opening reception and basically all day Saturday.  She is such a genuine person and I truly enjoyed spending time getting to know her and pick her brain.