Hello Houston

Updated with a photo from the Andover booth.

This time every year there's a big quilt industry tradeshow and quilt festival in Houston. I didn't go, but two of my quilts are there.

Thomas Knauer brought my Hurle Burle Marx quilt to show off his Frippery fabric collection for Andover Fabrics. Here's an action shot of Thomas showing the quilt in a Friday "schoolhouse" session, tweeted by the Fat Quarter Shop team.

Photo Credit: Fat Quarter Shop

And here it is hanging in the Andover Fabrics booth.

Photo credit: Heather Grant

On the festival side, my Ripple quilt is included in The Modern Quilt Guild Showcase 2012, a juried collection of quilts made by members of the modern quilt guild. Alissa took this photo of the quilt hanging in Houston.

Photo credit: Alissa Haight Carlton

The Modern Quilt Guild has some more photos of the collection on Facebook.

Looking at the quilts side by side (or top and bottom) I realize both are riffs on the traditional drunkards path block, taken in very different directions.

There's a good chance I'll make it to Spring Quilt Market in Portland next May. It will be great to meet in real life so many of the people I interact with in the online quilting community. But for now, it's fun to have my quilts in the mix.

Hurle Burle Marx Quilt

I've just finished a quilt using Thomas Knauer's new Frippery fabric collection for Andover fabrics. It's bright and a bit crazy.

The design of the quilt is inspired by the work of Brazilian landscape architect and artist Roberto Burle Marx. Burle Marx had a bold graphical style that is on display in private gardens and huge public spaces throughout Brazil and around the world, including the iconic paving design of the Copacabana Promenade in Rio de Janeiro.

Thomas had asked for an energetic modernism. Thomas's brief and the exuberant geometries of the fabric line made me think of modern tropical landscapes. (Confession: the list of things that make me think of modern tropical landscapes is long and varied.) And that led me back to Burle Marx. I love how his designs capture both a retro 50's space-age aesthetic and a 70's rainbow vibe.

The quilt is constructed in thirty 12" (finished) blocks, using squares and rectangles, and drunkard's path and point-to-point curve units in various sizes. The blue background uses an egg print in three Frippery color ways and three blue solids. The red background uses the Frippery tonal swirl in red and gold and two salmon/red solids. The circles feature Thomas's large-scale prints.

I quilted free motion on my domestic machine using three quilting patterns. The circles have a radiating asterisk pattern similar to the Frippery firework print. The two backgrounds use patterns from Angela Walters's Free Motion Quilting. I used "Flower Power" on the red background, and wavy lines & pebbles on the blue.

It was pretty easy to get the hang of the flower pattern, an the quilting went quickly. The lines and pebbles were trickier. It's hard to free-motion quilt continuous lines without getting jiggy and jaggy, and the pebbles just take a long time (and a lot of thread). The best thing about the pebbles is that they are great for hiding those jigs and jags. I quilted with Aurifil 50wt cotton thread in salmon and aqua. The thread was wonderful to work with, giving me even tension and only one or two thread breaks.

I used all the scraps from the front on the back, along with some larger pieces of the large-scale prints. I trimmed all the quarter-arc scraps from the drunkard's path units into triangles and made half-square triangle units.

The quilting shows beautifully on the back.

The binding is the red arc print from the collection (the blue arcs appear on both sides of the quilt). It's a double-fold bias binding, hand-finished on the back.

Frippey started showing up in online shops last week, including Fat Quarter Shop and Hawthorne Threads.

August Bee Blocks

Another month, another round of bee blocks. For the Free Bee, Leanne She Can Quilt asked for tiny improv blocks framed by neutrals. I did a bit of curved strip piecing, surrounded by off-white cottons and linens.

The block is 15.5x15.5, unfinished. I have a feeling Leanne's quilt is going to be gorgeous.

For the Traveling Quilts, I worked on Amber one Shabby Chick's quilt. There's so much energy in the quilt already, I decided to go low volume. I added the column to the left of Monica's spool and thread.

The bird in the middle of the quilt looked lonely so I gave him a friend to sit between my three log cabin blocks.

More precisely, there are two courthouse steps blocks and a chevron log cabin. Any now Penny gets to take a shot at this one, too!

And one extra photo, with drama provided by concrete and wind.

Little Things

I made a couple things for Munchkin this week. He's been asking for them for a while. I'm afraid it can be easy to put that sort of stuff off when there is so little sewing time and my head's wrapped up in bigger projects.

The first thing is a messenger bag.

The bag is made out of up-cycled cargo pants, lined with quilting cotton and an up-cycled shirt, using a tutorial from Noodlehead.

It was easy to put together in a single morning session.

Munchkin specifically requested the mushroom print. In truth, I think he was disappointed that the mushrooms are on the lining, rather than the exterior. Alas, I was unable to find any mushroom pint cargo pants. I added pockets to each side of the lining using a check toddler shirt that hasn't fit for years.

The edges of the cover flap are finished with bias binding scraps from my recent shot cottons quilt and blue and brown quilt.

 When I put the whole thing together I extended the strap along the interior side gusset about 3", then stitched to reinforce after I turned the bag right-side out.

If I make another one of these bags I'll plan for 1/2" seam allowances instead of the 1/4" recommended in the tutorial. I worry that the seams won't stand up to Munchkin's abuse. For a bag measuring 10"x11"x2", the cutting sizes (exterior and lining) would be:

front & back: 11" x 12"
side gussets (2): 3" x 12"
bottom gusset: 3" x 11"
flap (with pocket on exterior): 10"x13"

Munchkin's second request was to make a blanket and pillow for his Totoro plush toy. I fear the window for this kind of request will be closing soon, and I would kick myself if I missed the chance.

He saw me making a log cabin block with this anthropomorphized sushi novelty print, and assured me the Totoro likes sushi, so it would be perfect for him. He also picked the coordinating Flock print.

He's probably right. What do you think?

July Bee Blocks

I finished blocks for the Free Bee and the Traveling Quilts round robin earlier this month. July is Stacey's month for the Free Bee, and she asked for strip-pieced improv blocks inspired by the work of Rosie Lee Tompkins. You can read a bit about her at Collectors Weekly: 'The Beautiful Chaos of Improvisational Quilts'.

Stacey's sketch served as color inspiration for my block. The fabrics are cotton solids, linen, and shot cottons. The untrimmed block measures approximately 15"x23".

For the Traveling Quilts, I added my bit to Alissa's quilt. So far, this project has been touched by Alissa, Elizabeth, Heather, Monica, and now me.

I added the coloumn of circles on the left side. I used a bit of the Art Gallery chartreuse Alissa sent with her first block, along with various linen and cotton solids and prints from my stash. I love how each quilt in this round robin is developing it's own personality. This one is just so elegant -- I had half a mind to keep it and claim it must have been lost in the mail

Next up in the Traveling Quilts will be Amber's project, if Monica can stop staring at her amazing Ron Swanson quilt and sew along for just a few minutes.

Picnic Nine-Patch

Thomas sent me a pile of scraps a while back. I'm not sure where he got them, but they weren't quick to make friends with my fabrics. I tend to collect saturated colors; Thomas's scraps were mostly pastels.

Picnic Nine-Patch, front

And I'm not very good with scraps. Where on earth am I supposed to keep them?I decided to whip up a quick picnic blanket to lay on the grass on warm summer afternoons.

Picnic Nine-Patch, front

I cut the smaller pieces into squares and made nine-patch blocks with various blue solids (at least one of which had some serious sun bleaching from sitting atop a pile by the window for too long). The bigger pieces I cut into larger squares to alternate with the nine patches.

Picnic Nine-Patch, back

I had to add a few prints from my stash to finish it. In the spirit of scrappiness I cobbled together a batting from at least 14 batting scraps, of at least 4 different varieties, including cotton, cotton/poly, and various manufacturers and weights. And you know what? When it came out of the dryer I was hard pressed to identify a batting seam, or where one type started and another ended. Granted, all the battings I used have more or less similar shrinkage characteristics, but it was still noteworthy.

Picnic Nine-Patch, back and machine binding

The back is really quite a collection of prints. It will be sitting on the mud so I went for darker colors, and prints I was eager to find a use for (i.e. I didn't want to see them in my fabric cabinet ever again). And the same for the binding. I finished the binding on the machine for a change, and was pretty happy with the result.

Picnic Nine-Patch, folded twice

I have to say, I'm amazed how well I like this quilt considering how ambivalent I am about so many of the fabrics. But the overall colors are cheerful, the back is solid, the binding forms a solid frame, and the composition is simple and satisfying. It's amazing how a quilt can transform the uglies into something beautiful.

Stencil Quilt Workshop

Yesterday I finished up a two-session Stencil Quilt Workshop at New Pieces in Berkeley. We had a great time and my students did amazing work.

We started off discussing reverse applique technique and strategies for fabric selection. To simplify, we work with whole cloth in the workshop, though we do discuss how we might incorporate patchwork.

Susan picked a rich woven grey background and an amazing text print of Japanese characters for her applique.

Each student picked a stencil design and we set about transferring the stencil to fabric. Shannon and Kelly chose a dragonfly design, and Gail opted for a gingko sprig. My gingko quilt had hung in the shop as the class sample.

And Susan chose a tarantula. Isn't that print amazing?

I love it when students take my designs and make them their own. Kelly doubled up the dragonfly. With her wonderful blue scale print for background, the dragonflies look like they're chasing each other over the surface of a lake.

Somehow I didn't manage to get a photo of Gail's gingko, but she also had a wonderful innovation. She added a 10" inset square with three small gingko leaf silhouettes in the lower corner of the quilt. But she reversed the foreground and background, so the leaves are the background fabric and the square is the applique fabric. It really looks great.

And finally we sandwiched and started quilting. Shannon's fabric choices are so bright and summery -- her dragonfly glows. I'm confident all of these quilts will be stunning.

Class Announcement:
My next two-session Stencil Quilt workshop will be in September. Sign up soon to make sure you have a spot!
New Pieces Quilt Store
766 Gilman Street, Berkeley
Sunday September 16 & 30, 12:30 - 3:30