Finishing up slanty rail fence

I recently finished up a small quilt (36x36) that I started a while back, something fun to piece to take a break from a large piece I was quilting. This small quilt was done from scraps of solid fabric that I had on hand. I am pleased with the color work here. Though it may look like a huge range of virtually all colors, it actually took some significant selection, which I was able to do without agonizing. I couldn't have done that a couple of years ago--nice to feel the progress in working with color.

Quilting is still a big challenge. I did many samples on extra, individual blocks before deciding on a simple wavy line through each "slice." I'm fairly pleased with this, both in terms of ease of sewing and in the final look.

Here's the back of the quilt. I first made a simple line-up of fat slices that went across the whole back, but that arrangement looked boring. So I cut it into four pieces, moved the pieces around, and came up with this. I like it.

The quilting on the back looks like fat noodles:

Working with large-scale prints

This is a quilt I finished recently. I was interested in using some large-scale prints, not something I'd not done much of before. I used a very simple pattern of rectangles to show off the prints--"Carousel," by Kim Shaefer, Cozy Modern Quilts (C& T, 2009). I'm pleased with how this turned out.

This detail shows the two different fabrics I used for the binding; I had assumed I would use green, but the light teal looked much better. The very nice quilting was done by Mary Walck, a long-arm quilter in Galesburg.

And here's the back--most of it a large piece of sage-colored Kona cotton that I over-dyed with greens and brown, and then an extra piece of hand-dyed yellow-green to complete the back.

Working with magenta and friends

I had a stretch of four full days of quilting with friends in the Chicago area, and was able to work from start to finish on a half-square triangle quilt top like this one by Katie of "Sew Katie Did." Since not all my fabric dyed up well enough to use, and because I wasn't sure how the quilt would look in such a different color palette, I just made a small baby quilt (38x44). I'm pleased with how it turned out. I love the quiet palette Katie used for her quilt, but I think the format works well with these highly contrasting bright colors with black as well. I was also pleasantly surprised that the improvised placement of the triangles went very quickly. I made squares of each color with each color, and then I just started putting them up on the design wall. After placing all the squares, I spent perhaps another 10 minutes or so making small adjustments, and that was it. It helped that a couple of the other quilters took a look also, and confirmed that the arrangement was fine. I think if I'd been by myself at home, I might have kept fine-tuning longer.

Back from the retreat, I'm finishing up some projects. First to be done is this quilt, made a year ago with my friend Kay, when she was visiting me from Boston. We made the blocks together, and then I did the quilting some months ago. But what color binding to use? I saw Kay last weekend, and she decided on red. I think it looks great!

Dyeing a new palette: Magenta and friends

Last summer I dyed fabric in what I think of as my "pine grove" palette. I was very pleased with the results. Not only did I get the colors I wanted (thanks to the workshop I did with Carol Soderlund), but I also got a very nice solid using the flat-dyeing technique of Robin Ferrier. But this time I cut a couple of corners, and much of the fabric is mottled with water spots:

Well, now I know more about what I need to do to get the look I want!

This palette originates from a small piece I did a few years ago with commercial fabrics:

Then I saw a concert by Sweet Honey in the Rock, and they were wearing costumes in these colors, but with green and orange added in. Even better! I bought Kona cotton in these colors and did a couple of small pieces, including this one:

I don't have a photo of the finished quilt, but here's a close-up of some of the quilting I did:

So, I'd like to have a stock of these colors in hand-dyed fabric. For a first project, I'm thinking of a half-square triangle quilt like this one by Katie of "Sew Katie Did."

Two baby quilts

I enjoy making baby quilts, both because of the pleasure of giving something special to new parents and because of the satisfaction of working on something small--a lot easier to finish! It's also a way for me to practice machine quilting. A quilt this size (about 36x36) is a lot easier to handle on my sewing machine than something larger. But even with something this small, doing an overall design as I did on this quilt does not hold my interest. Having recently completed "Big Dots," where the quilting was varied from circle to circle, and then with something different in the background, I can see that doing variation is much more engaging. But on this quilt, I wanted to soften the linearity of the rectangles, so I went with an overall design. Here's a close-up of the quilting (click on photo to see it larger):

The quilt was made from the "Circus" pattern from Blue Underground. See all their great patterns here.

I can only machine quilt for about 30 minutes at a time, so I set up a small piecing project to do in between quilting sections. I'm thinking this will be for another baby due later in the year.

This was a pleasure to make. I had a lot of solid scraps, added in some strips from yardage, and then just put two strips together. Then those two with another two, and either a 5th or 6th strip to finish. Something very satisfying in this very simple color work.

maybe this blue?

In the top photo, I'm trying out a darker blue for the flowers--still not as dark as the leaves and stems, but dark. The second photo is the same as in my previous post--flowers are a medium blue, but a little too grayed out for my taste.

A detail of the dark plus darker blues:

I will let this sit for a while. I think I'll still try to find another medium blue, but if I can't find something, I think this dark blue will work.

Appliqué decisions

Here's the decision I made about the colors for the narrow inner border and the applique, incorporating helpful suggestions from Cookie and from Mary Beth. I knew I wanted to include more red/orange somewhere, and kept trying it in the applique flowers, but Mary Beth's idea to go more monochromatic in the applique (so as not to compete with the center of the quilt) led me to move the red to the inner border (Cookie's preference). I wanted more variation than all dark blue for the applique border, so tried out medium blue flowers with everything else darker blue. I'm happy with this. Except that even with visits to two quilt stores, I didn't find a medium blue that I'm entirely satisfied with; I only have a few scraps of the fabric from the one medium blue block. I think I will hold off on cutting the shapes until I have a chance to try another store or two. This will hold things up, but I'd rather wait and get the color right. Oh, the other helpful suggestion from Mary Beth: "Is it for yourself? If so, please yourself!" Yes, I've decided to keep this for myself, and choosing so that I like it is, indeed, easier than choosing "what is best."

When putting the blocks together for the quilt, I had a couple of extra blocks. One I was happy to just put aside, as it wasn't a very interesting or appealing pattern. But the one below didn't belong for a different reason--the pattern was too different in style. But definitely a keeper. So, I decided to make it into a small wall-hanging, just adding a narrow inner border and a wider grey border.

I think I'll hand-quilt this, as well as the larger quilt. If you like this pattern, check out Garden City Gateworks--it's one of theirs.