Tuesday, November 24, 2015

A Kaffe Fassett Quilt for Dad

I am pretty confident that my dad doesn't read my blog, so I hope I'm safe in sharing this with you, because it's his Christmas gift.  Shhhh!  Don't tell!

I don't often use patterns for my quilts, but when I saw this one, I knew it was just what I was looking for.  I wanted to make a quilt for dad that was colorful, yet masculine.  This is it.


I really liked the modern simplicity of the design, and that blue Kaffe Fasset Roman Glass fabric was just perfect.  It is getting hard to find, but I tracked some down at Hancocks of Paducah and promptly ordered it.

I didn't want to pair it with white, so I found this gorgeous silvery gray fabric at my LQS.  It is from the Moodshadow collection from Andover.

I was already planning on quilting this with gentle wavy lines from side to side across the width of the quilt, and the lines in the gray print gave me something to follow.  So easy!
I stitched-in-the-ditch at each seam, and quilted straight lines across the blue bands.




The backing fabric is a simple cream and tan mottled wide-back, and I used more of the gray for the binding.

Now it's time to start preparing for Thanksgiving and a Grandkids Play Day here on Friday!  Woo Hoo!!!

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone.

Cheers!


Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Tasting Table Tuesday - Two Finished Quilts and a Challenge

The two memorial quilts are finished.

Labeled and bound and ready for delivery.

It was an honor to work on these special quilts, and I'm sure the recipients will find great comfort when they snuggle up in them.



Coming up next is a quilt I made for a challenge at my LQS.

Tracy, at Needles, challenged her customers to make a project featuring this fabric from the Luna Lounge collection from Andover.


Here is a portion of my quilt.

The challenge fabric appeared to be all neutrals, but when I paired it with a soft green and lavender, it seemed to take on those green and lavender hues - almost a chameleon effect.

My design consists of Ohio Star blocks, curved piecing in the sashing, and hourglass-in-a-square cornerstones.

I quilted it with soft, flowing curved lines from side to side, like waves.

This quilt, along with the other entries, are on display at Needles Quilt Shop in Wellsboro PA.

Cheers!

Sunday, November 1, 2015

A New Modern Quilt

I finished a quilt this weekend.

This is an idea that has been rattling around in my head for months.  What would happen if I stacked four fabrics, then rough cut them into a free-form churn dash block?

No pattern - no measuring - just cut them by eye.

Mix them up and sew them back together.

What would it look like?


I squared up each block, adding a little more "wonkiness" to each block, then sewed the four blocks together to make this nice little wall hanging.

I just love the freestyle look it gives to this traditional block.

I quilted each block with a slight curved line to start, then echoed it all the way to the edge.  Then went back and added matchstick quilting to just the first arc in each block, emphasizing the pinwheel effect in the center.


I also deviated from my normal binding on this quilt, and decided to try a facing instead.  I followed this tutorial from Terry Aske Quilts and found it very easy to follow.


I am very happy with how it turned out, and actually prefer this type of edge for a wall quilt.  Now I have lots of ideas for more quilts like this!

Edit:  I'm having a hard time photographing this quilt.  The colors just aren't true and I'm not having much luck with edits.  I just tried another angle in another location and it's a little closer to the actual colors, which are softer and more muted than the first three pictures.  I wish I was a better photographer...


Cheers!