Tuesday, January 24, 2017

Space Time

Agnes asked me to quilt this quilt for her.  She usually just asks me to do "whatever".  When my customers say that, they have no idea how happy that makes me!  I have to start coming up with ideas.  This quilt top reminded me of stars out in space.  We watch a lot of documentaries and many of them are on astrophysics.  I'm here to tell you that it is a very special brain that can think that stuff up and understand it.  I do not have such a brain.  Nevertheless, I do find it fascinating.  This quilt top made me think of the graphics they have come up with to illustrate "space time".  Here is one - not the best, but first one I found.


So I thought, let's get those stars into some space time!  I can only see a 20" strip of quilt when I'm quilting, so I need to imagine what the thing will look like when it's done. This is one of those that I wasn't sure the mental image was going to work on the real thing, but in the end, when it was flat on the floor I decided I like it.  And, happily, Agnes did too!  👍👍 




















Tuesday, January 17, 2017

Vintage



Here is one of my own.  I got the top made back in the fall and I decided to take some time to quilt it over the Christmas break.  This used up one of several really cute fat quarter bundles that I picked up at the Carola's Quilt Shop booth over a number of quilt shows.  She brings in the absolute cutest fabrics and her prices are "can't afford to not buy" prices - so I buy.  I just cannot say no.  At least it's less fattening than chocolate!  Anyway, this particular bundle was a line called Vintage, I think - I can't find it on line and I wasn't smart enough to make a note of the company.  At any rate, it's really fun predominately black/white/beige prints.  I added a few more FQs that I had to punch it up a bit - the orange grunge and the green and brown.  I have no idea where/how I acquired them.  But they worked perfectly for this quilt. The block designs are from Faith Jones Lemon Squares pattern.  It's the second time I've used these blocks, they work really well for this kind of quilt to show off the fabric.


Here's the back.  I made a few extra blocks - just bad counting on my part so put them in the back.  And to continue with my resolve not to buy new fabric, I pieced together a backing from a number of  left overs.  It's pretty scrappy - but hey! - it is the back!

When I do a quilt like this, I challenge myself to do each block differently. I treat each block as a mini quilt and each is quilted a bit differently so the quilt becomes a sampler of quilting designs.  It's good practice and since it's my quilt, I don't have to risk an experiment on a customer quilt.  I'm posting all the blocks for anyone looking for ideas.  In this quilt, I was trying to do less ruler work and more curvy stuff so there are various feathery things, swirls and my attempts at making some wrought iron looking designs.  Generally I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out, and I have a few new ideas for customer quilts.  (I may have put up a few more than once - if that's the case, sorry bout the redundancy.)