WiP! And on a Wednesday too!

It's starting to feel a little more like springtime here on the East Coast. Today, I escaped the classroom and took a little road trip (still work related) to the Annapolis Valley. It was sunshine and blue skies all the way there and back!

My latest quilt finish went with me...

We had a little photo shoot. It was windy and I kept worrying that she'd blow away! I could just imagine myself chasing her all the way to the four lane highway that you can't see in this pic. That's beautiful Blomidon in the distance.

I wanted to play in the studio a little last week-end and my current projects weren't calling me. So I started digging in my 2 1/2 inch square collection and sewing little sections of colour together. As it grew, I laid it out on the floor (I know, I know, I need a design wall) and made transition sections to go from colour to colour.  Et voilà! I'm really pleased with the quilting... totally different than what I would normally do, but that was kind of the point. Reminds me of ripples in a pond...

Also on the spring theme, here are the placemats I whipped up for the 'Rents for Easter. I couldn't resist staging them a little for pics. No, I didn't eat off them before wrapping them up.

 

 
Not quite as spring-y... but it makes me think of summer and boogie boarding.... I finished up my flip and sew project from the Elaine Quehl workshop. I blogged about it already here.

Pretty happy with the quilting again... used variegated thread. I'm not usually brave enough to use it, but I had enough different colours in my collection to do three of four sections!

Now, on to the List!

Child's Play - no progress. Just not sure how to quilt it. Need a Q-Square consult.
Jewel Squares -  backing and batting purchased today!

Mr & Mrs Cousin's wedding quilt - backing pieced, waiting to be layered and pinned. Check out my pattern matching... never done that before!
Mme S-S's retirement quilt - STILL waiting for main fabric to arrive
K's Dare - no progress
Transformer - no progress






Hope you had a wonderful Wednesday! With a Q-Squared quilt therapy session booked for Saturday, I see more quilting in my immediate future!


J

Sew-y Sunday!

Another wonderful sewing-filled week-end! Today I headed off to a workshop with Elaine Quehl, an amazing quilter and fabric dye-r from Ontario, organized by my guild, Mariner`s Quilt Guild. (On a side note, the current blog post is about my recent presentation on modern quilting - shameless pluggery!)

Our morning`s class was all about free form curves. Scary, right? But Elaine's technique is amazing. After her initial explanations, the class of 18 was off to the races, rotary cutting without patterns and sewing them together without too much trouble at all.

 Look, Q-D! No pins!

You just keep cutting and sewing more curves. The technique works best with gentle curves, so some of mine puckered a little. Nothing a wallop of steam and a load of machine quilting won't take care of!

You're unlikely to be shocked by this, but I opted to work with Konas for this project. The materials list called for fat quarters... I don't have a lot of FQs in my stash, other than my monthly dose of Kona.

These colours are (from darkest to lightest, with repetition): teal blue, turquoise, peacock, robin egg, and baby blue









Behold our creations! So amazing to see the variety created from one technique! I'm thinking of adding a bit of aquatic foliage in a lime green and a few orange fishies... I might even hand appliqué them!

I even have some ideas for the quilting... see what a workshop does to you? So energized!

The afternoon saw us working on small flip and sew projects. These were pieced on muslin backing with a technique reminiscent of paper piecing (Try not to cringe too hard, Q-A!) We worked from one of two patterns on offer - Femme Fatale or Ocean Waves. I chose Ocean Waves. Here's Elaine's piece... her goal was moonlight shining on the waves.

 You start out by tracing the pattern onto muslin, and then (horror of horrors!) cutting it apart. You then flip and sew your scrappy bits in place.





I went for more of a daytime feel with mine. I was thinking of afternoon breezes on the beach while staring out at the Caribean. The idea I had didn't line up with the fabric I brought, so a little more sewing time will be needed at home to finish this one off. Section 4 will have lighter turquoises and whites to represent the breaking surf and section 5 will have sandy tones.

This workshop was well worth the time and cost and has solidified my decision to take more workshops. I never would have thought of curved piecing as being something I could improvise with, but clearly, it is possible. Even if a class isn't exactly your "thing", you can always glean a new tip or technique just from being in a room with all that quilt talk. I only wish I had another day of week-end so I could play some more!

Here's hoping you had a quilt-y week-end too! Thanks for reading!

J

More than meets the eye!

Transformers! No, I'm not watching 80's cartoons...it's Saturday's workshop organized by my quilt guild.

I was so excited to go sewing for the day that I whipped up a snazzy new thread catcher from Merriment design. That's it hanging off the table. More Amy Butler and Kona! 

Here's my workstation all ready to go... 

With this amazing technique, you take a basic block, cut it up, and sew its parts back together to create a different block.

I chose to slice diagonally... just one of many options. I only cut once, but some of the options have you cutting twice. With the 6 inch block, the inner portions would be lost.

Once you get the blocks sewn back together, more decisions await you. There are so many options for layouts. After three, different options I had to stop. It was dizzying! I made really good use of the design wall... so much so that I'm thinking it might be a good addition to my studio.

And here's the completed top... 48 6 inch blocks. I wasn't sold on the chevron at all before we put it on the design wall. Just goes to show you should try stuff you think you don't like! The asymmetrical-ness just makes it even better. I love it so much that I'm considering whipping up another 48 to make this quilt into something large enough. Technically, it strikes one item off my Wanna do list (a project using all Konas)!

Q-A was at this workshop too... working all in oranges - her favourite! She opted for the same diagonal cut blocks. But her layout is completely different. Sorry, no pics of the finished product to share. You'll have to check her blog! :)

To top things off, I spent much of today at the sewing machine. I finished off the last three blocks to a challenge I'm doing for my guild. The participants each put a total of 2m of fabric in a lunch box. You could choose 2m of the same, 1m of two, whatever. Then the boxes were swapped around. Each participant makes a lap sized quilt with the fabric they received. You can add  fabric, make any kind of block... just so long as you make a 60 by 80 top. I'm working with this...

And as much as I'd like to show you the finished product, it'll have to wait until the big reveal in May! I'm excited to see what comes back to me. And once I put some borders on it, I get to strike something off the Gotta do list!

I also made some progress on my qui-vet - that's a quilt - duvet cover hybrid). The duvet cover back is pieced and pinned to the quilt that will make up the duvet cover top. I also got the ties all made (what fiddly work that was!) and the binding's done too.

All in all, a very productive weekend!

Thanks for reading!

J