A new stencil quilt -- and a new class!

I'm teaching a Stencil Quilts class at Berkeley's New Pieces in September. Enrollment opened today, and it's filling up surprisingly quickly. This is the sample I made for the class -- it's hanging in the store now!

The class is on two Sundays, September 18 and 25, 12-2pm. I'd love to see you there!

The fabric is an Indian wood-block cotton front with  a reverse-applique Joel Dewberry print. There's a splotch in the woodblock repeat -- you can see it twice about a foot in from the left. I considered positioning the stencil to hide the splotch for a moment. Then I completely changed my mind and decided to feature it.

I'll teach my technique using whole-cloth fabrics. I love the patchwork in my other stencil quilts, but I want to focus on the stencil technique in class.

I'll be teaching the technique I've developed for all my stencil quilts.

Green Stag

Orange Lizzard

Harvey Milk

Dialing up the FMQ

Finishing up a whole-cloth stencil quilt, I've decided to push myself on free-motion quilting.

The stencil is a ginkgo twig, very similar to the design on the back of my marquee quilt. The back fabric  is a Michael Miller green and yellow print.

If ginkgo leaves grew on vines (which they don't), they'd look exactly like this. I swear.

The top fabric is an Indian woodblock print. I'm binding the quilt now -- more photos when it comes out of the dryer. 

Just a little late for Harvey Milk Day

I finished my first portrait quilt this weekend. In celebration of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month, it's a portrait of Harvey Milk. I'm not much for big street festivals, as large crowds tend to make me anxious, but I can quilt!

I used a Denyse Schmidt small red check print on the back...

with five Marianne stripes across the width.

The design is based on the famous photograph by Daniel Nicoletta of Harvey Milk standing in front of his Castro Street photo shop. Dan graciously allowed me to use his image for my piece.

Harvey Milk. Photo by permission of Daniel Nicoletta

When I contacted Dan he told me that Elva Smith, the mother Scott Smith (played by James Franco in the film), was a dear friend and avid quilter until her death about a year ago. It was another reminder of progress and continuity. There is a famous refrain among quilters that nothing is ever new in quilting -- in the long history of the art, someone has done it before. While I strive in my work to be inventive and original, I am mindful of the work and creativity of those who came before me. Similarly, this time of year I remember the gay rights pioneers who came before, who fought, sacrificed and sometimes died to make the world a better place for all of us.

Hero's nemesis; or, the orange lizard

If a had to choose a favorite among my three stencil quilts, it would be this one. I love everything about it, starting with orange and blue (the colors of the California poppies and blue lupine blooming all over the hills right now.) The background is a disappearing nine-patch of royal blue and deep turquoise prints and solids. The stencil is a grid of half-square triangles in orange shot cotton and prints.

I'm also pleased  with the sense of menace and movement created by the dinosaur entering the frame from the side.

The back is also pieced in orange and blue collected from trimmings and extras from the front. Once again, The quilting along the stencil outlines has a surprising impact on the back.
The stencil design was inspired by a piece of clip art I saw on SLOG (the blog of Seattle's Stranger newsweekly). My favorite things on SLOG are the Savage Love letter of the day and Mary Traverse's regular Dinosaur News updates, in addition to lots of other delightful nuggets. Mary was kind enough to send me the full image of the articulated skeleton. Thanks Mary! And thank goodness the Stranger has its priorities straight and put her on the dinosaur beat.
I quilted the blanket with concentric zig-zags emanating from the T. rex's gaping maw. It was as close as I could get to a menacing roar without spelling it out.

My nine-year-old wants a dinosaur quilt, but he insists on a red one. So the orange lizard is now available on Etsy.

Flip the switch

The Marquee quilt is done. I posted about construction of this Modern Quilt Workshop pattern the other day. I feel like I've been working on this forever, setting it aside again and again to work on more pressing projects.

The sun decided to cooperate today.

I wish the ginkgo applique were a little larger. It looks a little lonely on this queen size quit.

Here the applique is backlit with beautiful sunshine.

And here are a few detail shots of the fabric and the pieced binding.

Marquee quilt back

I haven't finished quilting the Marquee project I posted about the other day, but I like the way it's turning out, especially the back. I'm using Kona natural muslin for the back -- it's a nice compliment to the "all cotton" print that serves as the background on the quilt top. It's very simple except for a 3-foot reverse applique of a ginkgo branch. I've cut away the natural muslin leaving a raw edge to reveal white beneath.

I love the way the dense stippling stitch (at least it's dense for me!) uniformly covers the backing and the applique, sometimes pushing the raw edge back, and sometimes tacking it down. And I can't wait to see how it comes out of the wash.

To make the pattern I photographed a neighborhood tree, simplified the photo and generated a silhouette, printed it on several pages and pinned the paper to the two layers of uncut fabric. 

I sewed loosely several times around the drawing through the paper and both layers of fabric, then pulled off the now-perforated paper and cut away the natural muslin leaving about 1/8-inch of raw edge. I'm counting on the bits of paper still stuck in the tightest corners to wash out.

Quilt #4

I made a queen-sized quilt for Hamish a little over a year ago. It was my fourth quilting project and my most ambitious one to date. Before that I had made two stacked strip quilts with improvised, wedge-shaped strips that turned out fine, but were really more learning experience than artistic success. The third was a log cabin quilt for my mom. I drew the mauve and aqua color palette from her throw pillows and quilted timidly in the seams (stitched in the ditch). Although the pattern, colors and quilting were pretty conservative I was happy with the result.

But conservative wouldn't work this time. Hamish wasn't sure what he wanted, but he didn't want the quilt to look like a collection of 12" square blocks. Of all the photos I showed him he reacted most enthusiastically to Boo Davis's "Rock Out" quilt (100% amazing and possibly nsfw). And maybe an angel. And definitely no pixelated images.

Well, two out of three isn't bad.

I started with Boo's all-square one-patch pattern and envisioned the crosses with a gradient from all browns at the bottom to all blues at the top. But it needed something more. Yes, it definitely needed a pixelated tree. I started playing with a tree shape over a graduated Photoshop background.

I scanned the fabrics and created the layout in InDesign.

Then I cut out a whole lot of 2" and 3-1/2" squares (with 1/4" seam allowances the finished square sizes are 1-1/2" and 3"). While sewing I went back and forth between loving and hating the design. I really wasn't confident I was going to like the result, even when I was almost done piecing the squares together. For the quilting I took my first stab at free-motion work, sewing a curvy zig zag. When I finished the binding I was pleased with the result. And more importantly Hamish loves it.

The angel lives on the back.