Art Deco Meets Dapper

Another Art Deco quilt.  This one features Moda's Dapper fabric designed by Luke Haynes.  Joe and I went on a little road trip to do some birding (Joe) and explore some country quilt stores (me).  We stopped in at The What Not Shop in Forestberg,  Alberta.  This is one of those charming quilt shops that is in the basement of the owner's home.  June was there and I really enjoyed chatting with her.  Her store is amazing - tons of really great fabrics.  I bought some Tula Pink and this Dapper fabric (and I think one or two others!).  I needed to make another sample for Art Deco and Dapper seemed like a  perfect choice!   June has asked me to teach Art Deco on Sep 29 in her store so if you're in the area and want a fun day - please join us!!!!

It doesn't show in the pix, but the blue is actually metallic so sparkles in the right light.  Obviously this is not the right light!

I've used the same quilting on each of the three Art Deco quilts I've done.  So it is repeatable - the diagram is in the pattern and there is a tutorial with pix on the Art Deco page (tab at top of this page).  However, on this one, I forgot to "frame" the large motifs in the corners.  I noticed this after I had the first quadrant all done but at that point I wasn't going to rip it all out - so, they all went in with no framing.  I like it better with the framing as the motif pops.  Here, not so much, even though I did the motif in a different colour thread (neon blue Fabulux).

Bethlehem Star

Last year a made a quilt for Joe's nephew and his wife.  Pat commented that they argue over who gets to use it so I thought I'd make them another one.  I don't want to be responsible for family fights!  😎

I'm still chipping away at my stash so this was an excuse to use a group of fabric that I like but just hadn't found a good project for.  It's mostly flowers so I decided on the Bethlehem Star block, which I've seen used in other quilts and liked - it sort of looks like a flower.  I don't often do standard block quilts, so this is a bit of a change for me.  I get bored making the same block over and over again!  

I drafted this out as a 12" block, cut most of the white bits and a lot of coloured bits then made the first block.  It turns out they take well over an hour to make - at least for me - maybe I'm slow.  But they are fussy.  I thought if I hadn't cut so much out, I would have reprinted in a larger size (it's easy to do with EQ8).  But I had so much cut I just kept making them.  I put a 1 1/2" sashing between the blocks and around the outside but I wanted it a bit bigger so added a border rather than make any more blocks  - 20 was enough!

In the end, I'm really happy with the way it turned out.

I did a facing instead of binding on this quilt and I really like the way it looks.  I've done a few minis with facing just for practice and I think I've "got it" now!  I did this one simply because I didn't have a suitable binding fabric.  I actually was going to use the striped fabric for binding but decided to make the quilt bigger so used it as a border instead (a really wide binding!  😎).  I used the backing fabric for the facing.

In the beginning.... there were blocks.

And then there were more blocks....

The blocks consist of HSTs, FGs, squares and a "house" block (square with two corners cut off).  I used three Studio 180 tools - the Tucker Trimmer to do the HSTs, the Wing Clipper for the FGs and Corner Pop for the houses.  They produce really nice blocks quite easily.  (I'm not on the payroll, but like the product, I have it, so use it.)

I  took this pix (above) once I hit the bottom row after stitching-in-the-ditch  - I went around all the blocks between colour and white - and between the border and white using Wonderfil Decobob thread.

Above, ditching is complete.  So, time to start actual quilting (below).  I switched out to Glide thread.

Between the "flowers" this secondary design element emerged.  I didn't know how I wanted to quilt it.  In fact, the only thing I knew when I loaded it was that I wanted the horizontal and vertical lines between the "flowers".  Didn't know how I was going to quilt the flowers or this open area.  (If I waited until I knew how I would quilt a quilt before I put it on the frame, I'd never get any quilts quilted!)  I did know I wanted to "frame" it so it would stand out as a separate design element.  As I went across this first row doing the vertical/horizontal lines, I drew out some design ideas for the secondary space using my air erase purple pen.  The one above is a "no". (I don't always do it this way - sometimes I sketch on paper - sometimes I just start quilting.)

This one (above) - also a "no" - looks too much like a military medal - don't want that.

Above - "maybe".  In the end - this is  the one I went with - you'll see it stitched out below.

Above - "Maybe"

I actually stitched this one out - that's when I didn't like it.  I think the idea is a good one but I would want to make a template and carefully stitch it so it's all  as "perfect" as I can get it and I didn't want to take that time.  Not for this quilt.  So I ripped it out.  You'll see the one I went with stitched out below.

Here is a "frame" for the secondary design.

More quilting and I'm back to the top (ditched top to bottom and rather than roll back up, simply started quilting from the bottom and worked back up to the top).

Here we are with a stitched out secondary design.  I like it.  I used my trusty circle rulers - very fast, everything is "perfect" - symmetrical.  Just the way I wanted it to be.

This is what went into the partial secondary spaces along the border.

And I had to work out how to stitch the flowers.  This is what I settled on - I opted not to quilt the printed "house" sections.  I used my large "boomerang" ruler to do the centres.  I wanted a smooth curve, but it had to be relatively flat.  Using a section of this ruler worked out well.

This will be gifted in September.

Twins!

My friend's daughter had twin boys back in March 2017.  I made them each a quilt.  I did say they'd probably be toddlers by the time I got them done and I was right. 😎

I was told they will be raised "gender neutral" - whatever that means.  I took it as a big hint not to make the standard "baby blue", which I would not typically do anyway (boring!!!).  Or trucks or things usually associated with "manly boys".  I happened to have some "science" fabric, and I think that's pretty "gender neutral".  We need more scientists of any gender.  

I whipped up a couple of little quilts and named one "Science Fair" and the other "Beakerhead".  And before you get all steamed up thinking this is an insulting name - Beakerhead is actually a big science oriented event that is held every fall in Calgary billed as a "a smash up of art, science and engineering" - I think it's aimed at kids to get them interested in science.  Anyway, now that we have all the politically correct stuff out of the way, here are the quilts.

I found this irresistible fabric at a Calgary LQS and since I couldn't make up my mind which one I like best, I got 0.5m of all of  them.  

I cut as many 6" squares (5.5" finished) as I could out of each 0.5 m then make two piles - each with half of each of the four prints.  I decided on a quilt 7 * 8 squares.  I didn't have quite enough squares for each entire quilt so added some random fabric from my stash to make the extra squares. Then I separated them with a 2" sashing (1.5" finished) with cornerstones at each intersection (easiest way to keep the rows straight).  I used the leftover ends of the science prints then added in some of my random additional fabric for the cornerstones.  Quilted them both in one load (I love it when I can do that!) using wide backing.

I decided to try out my EQStitch program that Joe gave me for my birthday over a year ago.  I drew out some embroidery designs using motifs from the fabric.  I was able to transfer the designs to my Janome 10000 to stitch out.  I still have a lot of learning to do on this program but I was pretty happy with the results for these little quilts.  (Joe helps me with all this computer stuff otherwise I'd be stuck back in the Stone Age.)

I bound them a couple of days ago.  I usually finish my bindings by hand but since these are going to little kids and will be used and washed to death (at least I hope so!), I finished by machine.  I used my new Juki and man - what a great machine!  It zipped through those bindings like nothing.  And fast!  I would have had to argue my way through it on my other machines.  I see more machine bindings in my future!

They will be going in the mail in the next few days.

Cottages

This is Joan R's quilt.  Joan is one of my "special" customers.  She is legally blind and makes amazing quilts.  Although I have been declining most requests for custom quilting, I still have been doing her quilts.  She is a sweetheart - brings me baking (I don't bake so love that!).