Sunday, January 20, 2019

Mondrian 1


Introducing "Mondrian"!

  This quilt gave me a little lesson in art history.  We visited my Aunt and Uncle a few years ago in Montreal (2015, I think).  They have this blue/red/yellow/back/white motif around their home in various incarnations: little coasters, it's painted on their garage door, and a few other things scattered around their home.  I figured it would be fun to do as a quilt for them and parked the idea.  

Meanwhile, late 2017 - early 2018 I started doing some research for my Art Deco quilt.  And guess what?  This motif started popping up!  It turns out the Dutch artist Piet Mondrian popularized this motif in his artwork back in the 1920s - 30s.  So without knowing it, this quilt was initially inspired by the art of Piet Mondrian!  

I will be publishing a Mondrian quilt pattern that will be almost like this one in the next few months (goal is to have it ready for Heritage Park Festival of Quilts and hope that at least one of the local stores will agree to carry it).  However, this quilt will go to my Aunt and Uncle as planned.  It has one partial seam.  I decided that doing a pattern with one partial seam when it really doesn't need to be there is just silly.  So the pattern will not have any partial seams and I'll make another one for the cover pix and test the pattern at the same time - and yes, I will be asking for other testers!  I should add that the black sashing is actually pieced.  I know it looks a bit like a stained glass quilt where the black would typically be appliqued, but this one is not like that.

Mondrian has lots of big areas to quilt.  My thinking was that I would do a distinct motif for each colour then fill in around said motif in the larger squares.

I ditched all the sashing around the blocks first (used black Decobob) to anchor the quilt to the backing - then I could roll up and down without worrying about things shifting.  Glide thread for the rest of the quilting - matching each colour.

Here are some pix of the quilting.  


Quilting doesn't show up much on black so I created a one inch grid and filled in every other square, to give the black some texture.  It's fast, easy and (I think) cool!



(Above) - you can see the motifs for each colour.  Although there are exceptions, a motif went into each colour block.  The minimum size blocks are 6" x 6" - anything bigger would get the motif and something else.  Also, as per the white above, in the larger squares/rectangles, I would mimic the six inch blocks by stitching in a 1/2" virtual sashing.

If you're a quilter, this kind of quilt is great fun to quilt.  You can try out new ideas without having to commit to a whole quilt and you can practice things you've done before.  There's a little of both those things in my quilting here.































Paris Art Deco


This is possibly my favourite of the four Art Deco quilts I've made.  It was my demo for the class I taught out at Forestburg in September.  I finally got it quilted and put a facing on it instead of a binding.  


The quilting is mostly the same as what I show in the pattern, although I have changed it a bit in each pattern to suit the feature fabric.  For this one I did all but the background with Glide Sand thread.  I used Glide Cream in the background.  I also did the background decal with Sand.  Two colours - makes it easy! (Go to the Art Deco tab for a detailed quilting tutorial.)

The grey and cream fabrics are sparkly although I don't think that shows up much in the pix.  As usual, I need better pix.










Wednesday, November 14, 2018

Clipper Wind

My long-time friend Judy and her hubby live in North Vancouver.  We stay with them from time to time if we are out that way.  Judy's favourite colour is blue and she has a lot of it in her home.  Greg loves boats.  I've had the marine themed fabric for a few years with them in mind.  Then when I was at the Calgary Creative Stitches show in the fall I spotted the panel of ship drawings.  I thought "perfect - it will go with the fabric I have".  And it does.  Perfectly!  So I dug up a few more darker blue shades - some Tula Pink and some batik and voila!  Enough for a quilt.  


I wanted "simple" but also something that would suggest movement and boating.  I did a bit of Googling and came upon a little HST quilt, which gave me the idea for this one.  The triangles are like sails - they are all "moving" in the same wind direction.  I drafted it in EQ8 and I was off to the boat races!  😎😎


The prints have whales, gulls and tall ships.  I thought of calling the quilt Nantucket, but then that conjures up images of whaling, which is rather grim.  So I did some more Googling - I'm not familiar with boat types other than the well known ones like schooners and tall ships (which I think is a catch all for the tall-masted ships of days gone by).  Then I came upon "clipper" - a speedy schooner type boat.  I also know there are "clipper winds" - so that's what I decided to name my quilt: Clipper Wind.



I will gift this to Judy and Greg the next time we see them.


Mystery Quilt

We are always learning something, right?  Well...  a few years ago I did a "Mystery Quilt" class with a couple of friends.  They'd done a few and "loved" them.  So I thought - just for fun - why not?  Well I did have a fun day with my friends - but never liked the quilt top I ended up with.  It is just not a quilt that I would choose to make.  I used fabric that I actually do like - some Laurel Burch horses in a quilt that - well, I don't like so much.  

I learned that I absolutely need to know what I'm going to be making.  No more "mystery quilts" for me!

As a result of me not liking it so much it's been languishing at the bottom of my "to be quilted" box for a few years.  I figured it was time to get the darn thing finished.  I present to you - my "Mystery Quilt".




Monday, November 5, 2018

Lori's T-shirt Quilt


Lori asked me to make a T-shirt quilt for her 18 year old daughter.  She brought me a couple of bags full of Daughter's T-shirts from when she was a little girl to now.  There were too many to use, but I managed to fit about 50 into the quilt.  There wasn't too much space left over for "fillers"!  I believe it is to be a Christmas gift.