Trunk Show Anyone?

I've been invited to do a couple of trunk shows on short notice and had a lot of fun doing them, got positive feedback so I thought I'd put it out there that if your Calgary (or nearby) guild or group would be interested in seeing my quilts up close and personal, I'd be happy to oblige. Get in touch and we can work something out.

Joe did a photo shoot the other night.  These are the quilts that are currently on my "quilt storage bed" with a few exceptions, which are noted.

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My Pattern Quilts 

(quilts for which I have patterns available on my Etsy store)

Art Deco

This is the first one I made to test the pattern and is also the cover photo for the pattern.  This quilt is currently hanging in Addies in Cochrane.

Art Deco Meets Dapper - this is the third Art Deco quilt I made - Dapper is the name of the print fabric line.  The second one was made with Tula Pink Elizabeth fabric and is currently hanging at Chinook Fabrics in High River - I don't seem to have a decent pix of it - I will have to remedy that!

Paris Art Deco  - this is the fourth Art Deco quilt I've made and probably my favourite.  It actually was juried into the 2019 CQA show so I was pretty pleased about that.  Currently on the quilt storage bed!

All my Art Deco quilts feature fussy cutting for the large square-in-square and large flying geese blocks.  And of course, any quilt I design has lots of space for some interesting quilting!  😎

Galaxy - Above is the first Galaxy quilt I made to test the pattern.  I was super happy with it and when the Calgary Long-arm Group ladies started asking about it, we decided to do it as a group display for the 2019 Heritage Park Festival of quilts.  So I had about 15 experienced quilters to test the pattern for me!  And what is even better is that one of them, Terry Rowland, entered her quilt into the Red Deer Quilt show and it won Best in Show!  Wow!  Doesn't get any better than that! 

Below is the Galaxy I made for the 2019 Heritage Park show as I'd entered the green one the previous year and I don't like to enter a quilt more than once.  There is no rule against it but I just don't like to do it.  

Galaxy is a paper pieced quilt.  The largest New York Beauty block is 24" - and when combined the whole "Beauty" is 48" - so pretty big (to be clear, the quilt is 60' x 72").  And there a couple of very large elliptical beauties as well - something I personally think is very cool!   😎

Mondrian  - above - this is the cover photo for the pattern and is currently hanging in Addies in Airdrie.  If you google Mondrian, you will see this is true to the artist's motif style. ( I did check and the copyright expired in 2015, although I didn't directly copy any of his work.)

Mondrian de la Luna - another Tula Pink fabric line.

Mondrian, especially the original with the skinny black sashng, has the look of a stained glass quilt. But it is, as noted, skinny black sashing, so the maker has to be able to stitch a nice even 1/4" seam for a nice even sashing.  Otherwise I've been told it reminds folks of Tetras, a game I've never played.  It's comprised of 10 blocks.  Can you spot them?

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Patterns in Development

(quilts for which I have patterns in various stages of development)

Flock - the is the test quilt.  It's a paper pieced quilt.  I've started work on the pattern but have been pretty busy over the last few months and, to be honest, have just needed a bit of a break.  But I'll get back to it soon.  This is inspired by an outdoor art installation.  I've blogged about it in a previous post.

What the Hex? 

This quilt was in Quilters Connection a couple of years ago so thought I could re-do the pattern.  Obviously it's not an original design - these mosaic designs go back 1000s of years, but I can put my cutting, sewing and quilting instructions in the pattern for anyone who wants to make this particular version.

Above - this is a quilt I designed as a quilt to showcase my quilting so people would hire me to long-arm their quilts.  It didn't ever occur to me that I should develop it as a pattern, but it's been suggested to me that I should, so I will put it in the queue and see how it goes. This one is made up entirely of 6" blocks - even the large white areas area actually 6" white blocks stitched together.  So it's actually pretty easy to make.  And again - lots of fun quilting.

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My Designs that will never be made into patterns!  😎

(because either I don't like them or for other obvious reasons!)

Hex Again

Gotham

Big Bang

(this began with a Laurel Burch panel)

Beetlejuice!

(I figure you either love it or hate it!)

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Joe Cunningham Workshop/Class

I attended a Joe Cunningham Workshop early in 2018, had a blast and made a couple of mini quilts that I quite like.

Boxes

Snake Paths

And then I made this (above) quilt based on a Joe Cunningham Craftsy class.(actually, I think this came first, then the workshop)

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Other people's Patterns

Tula Pink's Butterfly quilt - probably one of the biggest quilts I've made.  I added a 6" border to each side.  

Above - a pattern from a book titled Quilting Happiness by Christina Lane and Diane Gilleland.  I called mine Chatbot because is reminded me of something digital.

Above - This is from a book titled A Quilter's Mixology by Angela Pingle.  Her's is called Curved Nine Patch.  I called mine Daisy Chain.

Above - This one is Scrappy On Point Triangle Quilt from the Midnight Quilt Show featuring Angela Walters.  It was a very quick sew. I made it to use up a jelly roll of African fabric that I had and to use as a demo quilt for some ruler quilting.  I called my Limeaide.

Houndstooth - a pattern found on Craftsy.  I made this one to use up a bundle of fat quarters and to play with some quilting ideas.  Always playing with quilting ideas!  

Pattern called Whisper by Toby Lischoko.  I called mine Lava Lamps.  Using up some "left over" from a previous quilt, which was a gift.  This one will eventually be gifted but it's presently on the quilt storage bed.

Above - this is the result of the first Mystery Quilt class I took.  It will also be my last.  I just do not like the quilt - although it's a lot better now that it's quilted (which didn't happen until several years after the top was made).  I was persuaded to take the class with some friends, but it turns out that I really need to be in charge of all aspects of my quilt making.  That way if I don't like the end result (and yes that happens) at least I'm the only one I can blame!  Anyway, for the moment, this one is on the quilt storage bed, but is has been designated as a gift to a friend so the next time I see her she'll be getting it.

This is Faith Jones Lemon Squares block patterns.  I had a fat quarter bundle to use so this one got the vote.  And of course it got the quilting practice treatment.  

Terrace - made for the Calgary Modern Quilt Guild's group display for 2019 Heritage Park Festival of Quilts.

This is in Boo Davis's book Dare to be Square - I called mine Time Machine (it's an alarm clock - get it?)  It's one of my very early quilts.  Just a meander on my first long arm - proving that we all start with a meander!

The Fabriculous Viking Pattern - I called mine Vikings!  Go figure.

This is one of the Hunter Star layouts in the Hidden Treasures book by Deb Tucker.  I called mine Stella Venandi, which is Latin for Hunter Star - because I couldn't think of anything clever.  

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And what do you do with those panels???

I bought the little batik panel long before I ever took up quilting thinking I would just frame it and put it on a wall.  But of course I never got around to doing it.  So when I did start quilting, I thought I'd "frame" it in a quilt.  This is what I ended up with.  I spent hours out on the deck applying beads and I did all the quilting by hand.  This is one of my very early quilts.  And of course it has never spent any time on any wall, but it resides very comfortably on the quilt storage bed.  I called it Africa Jazz - maybe that's not PC?

My daughter-in-law, Rhonwyn, loves Minions so I picked up a couple of Minions panels a few years ago.  I asked Craig which one she'd like and he thought the other one, which left me with this one.  I made the other one into a quilt and sent it to her.  Finally, a year or so ago, I made the second one to get it out of the project box and it still is on the quilt storage bed.  

This is one of the Mr. Chillingsworth panels.  I'd been stockpiling some Steampunk-ish fabrics so made them into a wide border around the panel.  The quilt is loosely based on a pattern I saw somewhere on-line.

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My Very First Quilt

Above - my very first quilt.  I had absolutely no idea what I was doing but I did it anyway.  No pattern although I did have a book from the library that showed how to make the wavy blocks and the wonky corner blocks.  But I didn't know how to figure out the borders and of course its so friggin' easy it's a face slap now but I went through contortions to get them on back then.  You can tell from the fabric and the blocks that I really wasn't interested in making conventional quilts and I haven't made too many.  😎

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Of course I've made many other quilts since I started quilting in late 2008 (thanks to Kristie - I blame her 😎 ) but I've gifted many of them and sold a few.  

As I said at the top, if your group is interested in seeing them up close and personal, I'd be happy to come out and show them to you.  Many of them have a detailed post in this blog somewhere so you may be able to check them out there.

Daisy Chain - Quilting Step by Step

Disclaimers: 1) the pix are not excellent - apologies for that. 2) these are the steps I took - someone else doing the same designs would probably do them entirely differently - there's always "more than one way to skin a cat", as my Dad used to say! 3) explanations will be for the pix above the text. 4) Click on the pix and they will enlarge so you can see the detail a bit better.

Sew - let's get started.  This quilt is the "Curved Nine Patch"  from a book titled "A Quilter's Mixology" by Angela Pingle.   I'm calling mine "Daisy Chain" for no reason other than it's the first thing that popped into my head and the design reminds me of a flower chained together.  I really like this book and will probably make a few more of the quilts in it.  I added an extra row to make mine 60"*72"

I try to stitch out my designs in the most efficient way, which means the fewest number of thread stop and starts.  Sometimes I can figure out a really good way to do this, other times it's not so easy.  But that is one of the big things I think about - try to do a design with the fewest number of stop-cut thread-reposition-start agains.

How do I decide what to quilt?  There are so many things that go into that decision process - fabric design, quilt design, desired end look...  In this case I want to show the various design elements of the quilt, So I am going to show you how I quilted each element.  I used a light grey thread - it was a toss up between pale yellow, grey or white and I settled on grey because the background prints had a lot of grey.   I could have used white, but decided I wanted my quilting to show a bit.

Before I started the detailed quilting, which is what I'm showing in this blog post, I loaded the quilt, pin basted across the rows, baste stitched the top, bottom and sides, then went in and stitched-in-the-ditch around all the basic shape elements.  So my starting point is is after I did the SID.

Shape One: Curved Plus Sign

Here it is finished.

And here it is before quilting.

I wanted to "frame" it so started by marking the 1/2" lines on the straight edges using a ruler and marking pen.  I prefer to use the purple air erase markers whenever possible.  On this quilt I ended up using that and the blue water soluble markers because one of the fabrics would not hold the purple - it vanished almost as soon as I marked it.

Mark the diagonals.

Mark a 6" inch square on point and then a 1/2" "frame on the inside.  Result is a 5" box in the centre.

Time to start stitching.  I used my small Quilter's Apothecary arc and my trusty straight edge ruler made by Joe.

Here we go.  First reminder: remember hopping foot is 1/4" radius from needle in the centre.  Rulers need to be aligned to take this into account.  Needle down at starting point - I used intersection of bottom left curve and left side straight edge.

Stitch the curve.  Needle down at the next intersection point.

Stitch the straight edge.  Needle down at the next intersection point.

And repeat until back to starting point.  Tie off, thread to top, snip.

Here is the finished "frame" around the plus sign.

Needle down on the top point of the square - outside line.

Stitch all the way around, then travel down to the centre of one side (doesn't matter which side - on this example I went down the top right side).  Stop at centre point, on the line, needle down.

Begin "feathers".  As Claudia Pfeil would say - "start with a pearl" in the centre.  Work out to one side making sure your feathers are between the outside and inside "frames" and stop at the square's diagonal, which is also the seam line for the block.  

When the space between the centre and the box corner is filled, travel back to the centre on the inner frame, then add feathers to the other side of the edge. Stop on the frame - needle down.

Travel down to the centre of the next side.  Stop - needle down,   As before - pearl, feathers toward the finished side, travel back to centre pearl, feathers to the other side - stop on the frame, needle down.  Travel to centre of next side.

Repeat until all sides are feathered.  

A note about "travelling" or "backtracking" for new quilters.  I have been told by a number of "new" quilters that they have taken free motion quilting classes where they have been told to NEVER go back on where you have quilted before.  This is a BAD RULE.  FORGET THIS RULE!!!  The only time you should "never cross the streams" (from Ghostbusters and I always think of this when I'm meandering) is on a meander - which by definition does not cross itself.  In every other kind of quilting it is perfectly acceptable to go over previous stitching.  And often it is necessary to complete a design.  When you have to go back or over previous stitching it is called "Travelling" or "backtracking".  Perfectly acceptable and I wouldn't be able to quilt this stuff without doing that.

From the corner where the feathers are finished, do a 1/2" diameter pebble into the 1/2" frame right in the corner.  This gets the needle to the inside frame.  Stop - needle down on the inside frame corner.

On this one, I did the inside first - using two of my circle templates.  

A word about circle templates.  I have a set that with circles in one inch increments from 2" to 12" (also from Quilter's Apothecary).  I find that I can usually do what I want with one of them - just need to play a bit to get the right size.  Here I started off with a 3" and 5".  

Starting in the corner where the pebble is set, stitch the first side of the "petal" along the diagonal to the centre of the box (using large circle).  Stop - needle down on centre.

Continue with stitching the large petals along the box diagonals - stops with needle down are on the diagonal at the inside frame line and then on the centre point..  

Here is the circle positioned to stitch - note the ~1/4" set back from the centre point.  The needle will stop right on that centre point.

See!  There it is - dead centre.  Don't finish the first petal - that's the "back door" to get out.

Switch to the small circle.

Stitch the small petals on the shorter half way lines, which are the diagonal lines that were marked at the beginning. 

Switch back to the large circle and finish that last side of the first petal.  This takes you back to the pebble and corner point.

Stitch the inside frame (this could have been done before going in to do that flower and I probably did it that way on the rest of the quilt)...

Finish pebbles between the inside and outside frame lines.  Stop - needle down on inside box corner.

Now travel back to the centre of the flower - use the circle to stay steady and on your first line of stitching.

Add the curly things into the large petals. 

Et voila - the first shape element is quilted with only one stop and restart between the outside frame of the plus sign and the outside frame of the box.

Shape Two: Grey Square

I used the small arc and 6" circle.

Needle down in the corner.

Stitch a slight curve from corner to corner using the arc.

Again - remember to set the ruler in 1/4" from where the stitching line will be.  Arc from corner to corner back to starting point - stop - needle down.

Switch to 6" circle and stitch a slightly higher arc.

All the way around to the starting point - stop - needle down.

A note about circles - between the same two points, a larger circle will make a flatter arc - a smaller circle will make a higher arc.  

Stitch from starting corner to opposite corner across the diagonal.

Using trusty straight edge - which is marked in 1/4" increments.

Convenient since I want to make a 1/2" grid inside my arcs.   Work down to the point by travelling down the inside arc, stitch 1/2" line, travel, stitch.  About three lines will fit before hitting the corner.  Travel the rest of the way down to the corner - stop - needle down.

From that corner (bottom right in this case) stitch to the opposite corner on the diagonal.

More lines, but perpendicular to the first set of lines.  Travel, stitch, travel, stitch, travel stitch to the top right corner.  Look what we have - partial cross hatch, partial 1/2" lines and a quadrant of open space.  We want it all cross-hatch so....

Travel, stitch, travel, stitch and fill it all in.  

There it is - finished grey square.

Shape Three: Cross-Hatched Squares

Next up are the four adjacent blocks on the sides of the grey (or yellow) square.  I decided to do a 1" cross-hatch then fill in every other 1" square with matchstick quilting.  First I marked off the 1" grid.  I like to mark even though I have a ruler with markings on it - I find in the long run this is faster and more accurate.  However, I didn't mark on the grey square.  For that, the ruler markings work well.  What's the difference?  Hard to explain - it's just a personal preference developed from experience.  If you are trying this - try both ways - with 1) only ruler and 2) by marking first and see which one you prefer.

Start at the top left - needle down.

Stitch down, travel in the ditch to the next 1" increment,  Up the next line, travel, down, travel up - stop, needle down in the top right corner.   When I did these pix, I did the grid on all the squares by working around the grey block.  Once the vertical lines are stitched, travel up one square and start with the horizontal - and no - it doesn't have to be vertical first, then horizontal - it can be the other way around.  There are no rules about these things!  This is just the way I happened to do it on this particular set.  Also - after I did this set, I tried the next set doing one block at a time start to finish - which I found worked better than trying to go all around and do them all at the same time.

If you click on the pix for an enlargement, you should be able to see that I've started to fill in the 1" squares with matchstick quilting.  

What I tried to show in the above and below pix is how to move from one square to the next.  Because they are alternating, I work two rows at a time.  Do one square, end it with your needle on the corner where the next "fill" will start.  So in this case, I ended in the bottom left corner, then...

Slid into the square that is one over and one down from the one just filled.  Continue with this until all the alternating squares are filled.  

A note about alternating fill.  Remember to start in the same spot on each block so that the "fills" line up across the entire series.  I started filling on the top left square each time.

Shape Four: Yellow Square

OK - now we're on to the yellow blocks.  I decided to put a flower with my little curly thing.  Start by marking the diagonals.

Needle down in the centre.

Using 3" circle, stitch the petals on the diagonals and then do the curly things.  Stop back in the centre and tie off - snip - done!

Shape Five: Yellow Petal

 The ruler and marker suggest it needs marking.  Yes!  Mark the half way points of each curve and the diagonals (which I failed to show in this pix).  

I did the two arc trick again - this time with my extra large arc and 9" circle.  Same principle as the grey square.  Needle down in one corner, place the arc ruler so that the stiched arc starts in the corner and ...

ends at the marked centre point of the adjacent curved edge.

Move arc to next section, stitch, stop, move ruler, stitch, stop, move, stitch, stop, move until back at the starting point - stop - needle down.

9" circle - same deal - stitch, stop, move ruler , stitch, stop, move ruler  until all the way back to the starting point- stop - needle down.

Now matchstich quilting under the shallow arc between the arc and the edge - all the way around.  Once back at the starting point, tie off, snip thread.

Needle down in the centre.

With 3" circle, stitch a petal (as in the yellow square) on the diagonals, then a curly thing inside each petal.  Tie off, snip thread.

This is what it looks like finished.

Shape Six: Grey Petal

Stitch in the two arc sets as per the yellow petal.  Stop - needle down in starting corner then travel up the inside arc to the centre seam line, which should also be the center point of that arc.

SID between the two opposite arcs, stitch 1/2" vertical lines in the top right quadrant.  SID along the other seam line and stitch horizonal 1/2" lines in the top left quadrant.  Travel and stitch hor and vert lines in the other two quadrants such that the Hor and Vert lines alternate.  Look at the pix close up to see the design - not sure if I explained that very well....

Once all the lines are in, travel back to one of the corners or centre points - stop, needle down.

Stitch in "crazy eights" between the outside arc and the edge of the block - all the way around.

Done!

The "Half Shapes"

There are half petals on the ends of the rows and quarters in the corners. I wanted to keep the same design so how to do it on only half a shape?  Not so hard...   

If you look closely, you can see a couple of blue dots off the edge on the left.  those are where the other curve centre and corner would be if they were there.  I used those dots to line up the rulers - then just stitched half a design on each of these blocks.  The same principle applies for the corner quarters.

Done!  I took a lot of pix on this because it was actually the first segment I did, but thought it should probably go last in the post.  But I left the pix is as they show the ruler placements.

As they say - rinse and repeat - quilting done!!!!  And as a bonus, here's a shot of my front garden this morning.  The sunflowers are all "volunteers".  Turns out our local birds and/or squirrels are pretty good at distributing seeds!  But they are pretty so we left them.