{Michelle Patterns}

RockDots by Umbrella Prints

 

     

 

RockDots from the RockGarden Quilters Cotton Collection

Using Color Palettes for Quilt Color Selection

This morning I finished binding this small quilt. The top has been done for a while now, but I got sidetracked by life. 

If you are like me, and just buy individual fabrics, rather than buying several prints--or all the prints--in a collection, when it comes time to put together a quilt it can be a challenge to figure out what color scheme you want to use!

I don't know much about color theory and tend to just wing it. In the past, picking one print with lots of colors and then using it as the basis for the rest of color scheme has been my method.  But it was still very challenging, and there were always lots of doubts and swapping out of various prints.  I don't like to get bogged down in the details of fabric selection too much, or I tend to get bored and wander off to another project. 

If you stop by pinterest regularly, or perhaps obsessively, you've probably noticed lots of pins for color palettes.  They are lovely to look at, and they are also awesome for color scheme inspiration.  By the shear number of color palette pins, I'm sure I'm not the only one using them for quilting!  You can see my color board here.

For this quilt I used the Design Seeds "wooded tones" color palette to give me some direction:

I didn't have these exact colors, so it was just a good place start.  I added in blue and purple.

I really like how this quilt turned out.  The color mix is interesting, and pairing these fabrics would not have come to me naturally. 

More QAYG Blocks

I'm up to 4 finished blocks for my second Quilt As You Go quilt.  Only 52 more to go! 

Quilting with Linen & Silk

Last night I whipped up this small sample of quilting using blue linen and piece of washable silk.  The linen has been in my fabric stash for some time now, and the silk was recently purchased from a seamstress having a moving sale.  

I'd like to make a quilt using these two fabrics, but wanted to answer some questions first:

Q. How difficult is it going to be to sew with these two fabrics?

A. It wasn't hard. Both have a lot of drape, but I didn't find it unreasonably challenging.

Q. How will the finished quilt feel?

A. I plan to use Quilters Dream cotton batting in the Request version.  It is super light, easy to sew and gives the finished quilt a nice drape.  The thinner batting also makes the finished quilt look more modern.  This batting is going to be perfect.  The finished piece feels divine!  

Q. How will the silk look with the blue quilting lines.

A. Looks fine to me. Lately I'm feeling interested in high contrast quilting.

Q. How well will these fabrics wash?

A. I washed/dried the sample by machine and it turned out lovely.  The linen gives even extra crinkly quiltiness to the washed piece.  I like it when quilts are wrinkly and old looking (can you tell I want it to look both vintage and modern at the same time?).

Q. How hard is it to use linen for binding. 

A. It is not easy and will probably be the hardest part of making this quilt (when I get around to actually making it...).  But it is going to be ok.  Using lots of spray starch on the binding pieces will probably make it easier to handle.

It was definitely worth the small investment of time and materials to make this small sample. 

For anyone who might be interested in quilting with linen, but maybe isn't quite ready to work with the fabric, here is something I discovered:

Robert Kaufman makes a whole line of "Quilter's Linen".  It is cotton fabric printed to look like linen!  Maybe this has been around forever, but I just stumbled across it while researching quilting with linen, and found it interesting.

I will still use my linen, since I have it and already went through my experiment. But this Quilter's Linen fabric looks like a great idea for anyone who wants a linen look, without the extra sewing challenge or expense. 

 

My First Abstract Quilt

Yesterday I finished one of several projects I have running here in the background--my first abstract quilt. 

This quilt was a concept quilt for me to play around with this idea of piecing quarter circle(ish) pieces to make slightly irregular shapes and then use them in an abstract composition. 

The idea came to me while starting to cut and sew the pieces for a polka dot quilt.  Let me digress for a moment here and talk about the polka dot quilt first.

I'm not even sure whether it is called a polka dot quilt, but it is a variation of what is known as "Drunkard's Path".  I believe all of the many, many variations of Drunkard's Path utilize quarter circles pieced together in various directions to create the overall scheme. 

For the polka dot quilt, four quarter circles intersect to form one dot. In this photo, the two on the right are sewn together, and the other two are waiting to be joined.

The polka dot quilt came to my attention about a year ago when I bought a $1 quilting book at a thrift store, and brought it home for my thrift store sewing book collection.  Once I sat down to take a look at what was in the book, there is was...an antique quilt with red polka dots on a white background.  Love at first sight!

So I sat down and cut out a few pieces to get started.  Then I looked at the instructions and found I was supposed to be pressing over the edge of the quarter circle, and then hand sewing it to the background piece.  Ummm, no, not gonna happen. 

I can hand sew all day long, but knew that pressing the curved edges was going to look terrible and be a giant pain.  So I machine pieced it and it turned out just fine.  Then I put the pieces back in the book and promptly forgot all about the polka dot quilt. 

So back to this quilt I just finished...

A year later I open the book again, and there are two very sweet quarter circles all sewn up and ready to be utilized.  So back to work I went on the polka dot quilt!  Then one night I looked over and saw this picture on the back of my friend Thérèse's business card:

suffer no fools, gladly by Thérèse Murdza

Suddenly, I realized the possibilities of making something new and modern by piecing these curved quarter circles into half circles, irregular circles, etc.  So that is what I did.  

My finished quilt is just a baby size quilt. It was an exercise in checking out how the finished quilt would look if I pieced together a bunch of half circles and then interspersed large pieces of fabric.  I wasn't sure if there would be a bunch of obvious seams, or if I'd even like the idea in the end.  But I like it very much and hope to explore it a bit more in the future. 

Here is a shot with the backing fabric:

 

 

 

Quilt As You Go Quilt is Done!

 

Yesterday I finished binding the QAYG quilt.  It turned out really great!  I'm very exciting about the quilt and loved doing it Quilt As You Go.

Here is a snapshot of the back:

Some pictures of the front can be found here.

Below is a recap of the project.

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Design

I decided on using a very traditional block pattern called Log Cabin.  This block originated in the 1800s.  Traditionally the center is red to symbolize the hearth of the home.  Then the top and bottom are generally a contrast between light and dark.  The light part symbolizes happiness, while the dark part represents sorrow. 

My quilt doesn't have a strong contrast between the light and dark parts, but I did make an attempt to use light scraps on the lower right part, and dark scraps on the upper left part.  Sometimes it was a toss up whether the scrap was light or dark, so I relied on the background color of the print to decide.

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Quilt As You Go (QAYG) Method

As far as I can tell the QAYG method was either invented, or at least became a popular quilting method, in the mid 1800s during the time when many people were migrating West in covered wagons.  Back in those days I think most quilting was done by hand with the quilt stretched on a giant frame.  So being able to quilt one small square at a time was something the women could do in the cramped wagons.

The basic idea is to make a bunch of quilt blocks, quilt the individual block and then attach the quilted blocks together using sashing (like mine).  There are some other methods, but I don't know enough about them to explain.  You can see how I attached mine here.

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What I Liked about QAYG

No Special Tools Needed:  I did NOT use a walking foot, and did all the quilting using the standard presser foot.  There might be a pucker or two, but nothing like what would have happened if I tried to quilt the entire top without a walking foot.   

No Sewing Machine Wrestling Match: It was a huge relief to know that towards the end I didn't have to shove the whole thing through my machine.  This quilt was much easier to work on than either of the two baby sized quilts I made before.  When it came time to attach the blocks together, all the sewing was done with the quilt to the left resting on the table.  At no time did I have to roll it up and fit it through the space between the arm and motor. 

Doing It Myself: Since I could quilt the entire thing myself, it saved me a lot of stress and money. I have not had a quilt quilted by a professional with a long arm machine, but I think it costs several hundred dollars for the quilting labor.

Relaxing: Overall, it was a lot of hand stitching.  But I also watched several movies, so it was a relaxing and pleasant task.