Magenta Crush- COTY Quilt 2023

For the last three or so years, I have always had the intention of playing along and making quilts out of both the Kona Color of the Year and the Pantone Color of the year fabrics. I’m good at buying the fabric, but not so good at following through! I did use the Kona COTY 2019 in my Begonia Quilt. It seems like there were others, but… The good news is that I followed through this year!

This year I ordered both the Kona COTY, Crush, and what I ventured was going to be a good match for the Magenta Pantone COTY, Cotton Couture Fuchsia. I ordered them both from one of my favorite shops, Fabric Bubb. I didn’t have any intention of using them in the same quilt, but when I opened the package, I fell in love with the colors together. I considered adding in a third color, but in the end decided not to!

I grabbed my pile of quilt sketches to find the right one! (you may even notice the sketch that led to the last quilt I posted, Subtraction!)

Then set to piecing the Quarter circles for the front and made the opposite quarter circle blocks for the back.

In all the good quilting design classes, they always tell you make sure you have the right amount of contrast in your blocks, to move blocks around to get the right amount of contrast to keep the eye moving across the quilt. One way to check this is to take a black and white photo of your quilt. I have barely any contrast in this quilt and I love it. For fun, I did the black and white test. Not so much contrast here!

And this is what I ended up with. Low contrast and all! I’m still totally struck by how much I loke the colors together!

My quilting plan started with two bends, one starting at then curving with the quarter circle out the side. The second bend coming in from the other side and curving down to the bottom. Then the four corners and lastly the space left over!

And the back is the opposite color scheme. Using the left-over quarter circle shapes from the front, but played with in a different way. And with the Kona Crush as the main color.

I tried to enter the quilt into the Pantone Quilt Challenge on IG hosted by @Saroy and @elizabethkray . I got the top and back done and basted, but wasn’t able to finish it in time. Luckily for me, they had a ‘Just the Top Category!’ And I won first place! I was a bit shocked!

And I won three packages of batting from Quilters Dream Batting! Yea! Again, so excited!

For this one, I tried the binding necklace technique that I had seen on IG. It looks super silly, but it really does work!! And helps keep the binding from falling on the floor and twisted.

I had a great time breaking the quilting ‘rules’ on contrast and winning the Pantone Quilt Challenge award with this quilt! Are there quilt rules you like to break??

Subtraction- A Mini Quilt turned Pillow

This is an oldie! Like I’ve said before, I sometimes forget to post quilts. Instead, I just move on the next ones!

This one was made for the Curated Quilts HST Mini Quilt Challenge back in 2020! The call for entries asked for ‘quilts that use subtraction as a design feature,’ with a color palette using soft pink, orange, golden yellow, and frosty blue, along with neutrals in the silver to graphite range.

I had this design brewing about in my mind for a little while. I turned it into a paper piecing pattern and got to work! My original idea was just the rings with the HSTs.

Since the theme for this challenge was subtraction, I pulled a few of the HSTs out of the ring. As if they were being subtracted from the ring! I thought it was quite clever, but it did not get chosen for the magazine.

Maybe it was because the HSTs weren’t actually squares? I doubt it, but… The distortion of the HSTs are actually my favorite part of this little design I came up with!

Although it was a mini quilt, I made it into a pillow. I quilted the top, but before adding on the binding, I attached a zipper back to the mini quilt so it could be used as a pillow.

I’ve made quite a few minis for the CQ’s mini challenges that have been selected for publication. I’ve made a few that haven’t been selected. Usually, the ones not selected I totally understand why and they aren’t favorites of mine, either. But this one was different. I really like this reject!

Hot or Cold Mini Quilt

Hot or Cold is a few things. It’s a scrap quilt, a stripe quilt and a quilt that plays with the traditional HST block.

Back in 2016, I made a bee quilt called Sunset Dreamin’. It’s one of my favorite quilts that I have designed. This quilt was one of my first quilts to hang at Quiltcon at Quiltcon 2017 and was also featured as a tutorial in Curated Quilts.

For this quilt, I asked my bee mates to make long striped blocks. The striped blocks were cut at 45 degree angles to piece them all together. This left a bunch of different sized striped triangles scrap pieces. Scraps too good to toss.

Originally, I had planned to make these scraps into a pillow to go with the quilt. But then in 2021, a group of Finnish quilters (@nordiccrafter, @organisaattori, @tilkkunen and @tilkunviilaaja) hosted a quilting challenge, “Connected Stripes 2021” on Instagram. When I saw the challenge, I knew I had some striped blocks! So 5 years after making the original quilt, the inspiration came to leave them just as they were and turn them into a modern take on the traditional HST block, infilling as needed to make all the different sizes fit together. 

I looked at mixing up the warm and cool blocks, but in the end I liked it best as having the cool and warm blocks grouped together.

The back! Back in the day of doing the bee quilts, I found that for each set of blocks I requested there was usually one that wasn’t just quite right. Usually, they fit in despite being slightly off. I needed the striped pieces on the front of the main quilt to be very straight. I had one block that was curved. It was curved too much to use in the original quilt. But for this one, it worked perfectly for the back of this one! I love the swoosh on the back!!

The label really matched this back of this one!

It took me a little while to get this on the blog, but in the meantime, it’s been being enjoyed on the dining room wall!

The STAR Block!

I had a fun response to my Star block that I posted on IG last week, so I decided that as a Christmas in July (last minutes of July) gift, I’d share it with you for free for the rest of the summer!

I’ve made the pattern quite a few times so far and it’s a quick and easy pattern for a foundation paper piecing pattern.

You can see the sewing lines in the solid versions easier than in the improv pieced version! There are 3 main sections. The top and middle sections only have 3 pieces and the bottom section has 5 pieces.

Last winter I made this as a gift for a Holiday party. We play the White Elephant game and each year we have a theme. Last years theme was to look up. Stars were the first thing that came to mind, so I whipped this up! For this version, I improv pieced larger sections of stripes, then use those pieced sections as the background and star sections in the pattern. The pattern does not have the stripes included!

For the back I mostly used left over scraps from the improv stripes on the front!

I finished this one off as a wall hanging, just like I did the heart Valentines I made last year! A little piece of leather, some metal cap rivets and a wooden dowel make for a fun wall hanging!

You can download the pattern here for free!

There are so many options of how to make this block! And enjoy the Christmas in the last few minutes of July gift! And be sure to tag me if you make it and share on social media! Can’t wait to see what you create!

Ferris Wheel- A Mini Quilt

I’m currently trying to NOT start new quilts and only finish ones that I’ve started… I know. I know. Typical quilter comment… My rule is to not start anything new unless it’s a Quilt improv Studio challenge, a class, or a Curated Quilt Mini Challenge. This is one of those! This was for the Curated Quilts Mini Challenge from last fall. The theme was Paper Pieced.

I decided to go back to my stash of quilt designs from my Quilt Design a Day days. This one was from way back in 2016 I think!

I took my original design and played around with a bunch of different color ways based on the mini challenge. Obviously, I ended up with the top left color scheme. Which one is your favorite?

I made a little mistake in piecing in the beginning. I had to go back and remove one of the corner pieces of each block. The way I had put pieced them they just sat together in a square, but I was looking for the Ferris wheel effect! No biggie! I just took that corner of and pieced them back together!

I just used a solid piece on the back. It really shows the quilting. And this is how I hang my minis. I put triangles in the corners and use a wooden dowel for hanging. Super easy!

This one did not make the Mini Challenge cut to be featured in the magazine. My InsideOut Pineapple Quilt did make the cut for the full size quilt gallery, though!

It was a fun little challenge. Will I make it again? I don’t know!

Sunset Dreamin’ is Famous!

My Sunset Dreamin’ quilt has been featured as a tutorial in the Stripes issue of Curated Quilts!

I’m always honored when I’m selected to be in an issue of Curated Quilts! The company of quilters that I get to share the pages of the magazine with all very talented and inspiring artists!

If you haven’t already purchased this issue of Curated Quilts, feel free to use this link for a discount code of 10%!

Bats and Boos! Quilt Blocks-Now in Etsy Shop

Remember these pillows? They are made with my Bat Quilt Block and my Ghost Quilt Block.  I so love getting them out every year when Halloween rolls around!

But this year, I started getting emails about the link to them. I was super excited to find that Aurifil had featured my bat pillows on their FB page and their blog, with their Five for Friday- Halloween Pillows!! Featured along with some other very cool patterns is super exciting!

I really love the paper pieced Coffin Pillow by Jeni Baker!

What wasn’t exciting is finding out that the patterns were no longer on my Craftsy site, which is now Bluprint. I’m sure a lot of you know that Bluprint bought out/took over Craftsy and a lot of not so good changes took place. They closed down a lot of shops. And in turn, a lot of other shops closed because of the changes. I somehow received a letter that my shop had made the cut and it would be staying. I understood that to mean it was staying as is. I can’t find the email now to reread exactly what they said. ANYWAY… I have been meaning to go back and take it down, because I wasn’t happy with the changes either. But as you can tell, life has gotten in the way of my blog and my etsy shop, etc… (Working full time really cuts into the creative time around here!) Well, it turns out that Bluprint removed all the patterns that I had for sale in the shop and never notified me that they had done this! I had noticed that I wasn’t getting many sales, but, um, I had no idea they were gone! The only pattern that remains is my Inside Out Pineapple block.

So the good news is that the patterns are moving to my Etsy Shop!

Now comes the debate about one or two Etsy shops! Do I mix quilt patterns in with Birthday Party Supplies? Or separate them into two shops? So many decisions! Due to timing on this one, they are currently being sold with party supplies… I hope you don’t mind!

The Bat Block started way back in 2014 with my Halloween Quilt!

Then it evolved into patchwork pillows! Notice all those PRINT fabrics I used!

And then came the Ghost pattern in a pillow! Check it out and see how I made it glow in the dark!

I hope you enjoy the patterns! And be sure tag them #thebatblock and #theghostblock and tag me too! @imfeelincrafty I can’t wait to see what you make! Happy Halloween!

Curves Issue of Curated Quilts

I’m so excited to be featured in Curated Quilts!

I’ve been lucky enough to have had a couple mini quilts featured in Curated Quilts, but this issue I have a pattern in the magazine! I made a mini for this one too, but it didn’t get a trip to the photo lab! ha!

A quilt I started with the my do. Good Stitches group, and finished up way too late, was featured in the magazine!

I love this magazine and the talent it features, so you can only imagine how excited I was to see my quilt and name featured amongst some amazing quilters!

Each quarter the magazine puts a call for articles and patterns around a selected theme. When I saw the call for curved quilts, I was super excited to submit my Falling Stars quilt.

The magazine took some really great shots of the quilt, you should really check it out. And of course, there’s the tutorial to make your own! I don’t want to give it all away, so be sure to get the magazine to see more!

I actually had two quilts in this issue! My Raindrops on Wildflowers quilt was featured in the main gallery!

 

 

Seattle Modern Quilt Giving Quiltcon Quilt for 2019

With three years of giving quilts under my belt as one of the Seattle Modern Quilt Guild Giving Committee co-chairs, I think this is my favorite giving quilt! OK, I love it! Really love it! Like want to steal it kinda love it….

 

Introducing our quilt for the Modern Quilt Guild QuiltCon Charity Quilt Challenge, The Last Hurrah! If you’re at QuiltCon right now, be sure to take an up close look at our quilt!

 

The basic layout of our QuiltCon Charity quilt was inspired by an antique quilt made of hand pieces diamonds from our guild President, Matt Macomber’s, antique quilt collection. From this quilt layout, I designed the layout colored diamonds, white on white diamonds and the solid diamonds.

 

For our quilt we jumped right in and embraced the Modern Quilt Guild small piecing challenge. Between the two of us Seattle MQG Giving Committee Chairs, Debbie Jeske and myself, 18 yards of fabric was cut into 1 inch by 6 inch strips! We shared those strips with the guild in little baggies of 18 pieces each. Guild members sewed them back together into 185 rectangles. Then the Giving Committee Chairs cut the rectangles into diamonds and pieced them into hexagons! I love explaining this process to non quilters and watching their blank expressions as I tell them, ‘We cut up the fabric, then sewed it back together and then we cut it again and then sewed it back together again…. ‘

 

There are a lot of great things about QuiltCon, but one of best things is meeting new people and online friends. We designed the quilt based on a particular size diamond. Instead of using paper as a template to cut 309 diamonds, we wanted a plastic template and we remembered taking a class at last year’s QuiltCon with a woman who owns a company that makes acrylic templates! So we still had her card and looked her up online and ordered our 5″x8″ custom templates ordered from MakeATX!

My co-chair Debbie pieced half of the hexagons and I did the other half. The quilt plays on a very traditional quilt design, but makes it modern. The diamonds are pieced into a group of 12 to make an 18″ hexagon. The placement of each of the striped pieces and solid pieces are laid out to break out of the hexagon to blur the lines between hexagons and stars and where one hexagon starts and stops. I love how it looks in the end, but I did confuse myself once or twice when piecing the top together!

 

 

The amazing quilting was also done by Matt with a mix of machine and hand quilting. Again, he drew from his antique quilt for the quilting inspiration. And a special thanks to Kathleen for putting the finishing touches by binding the quilt!

 

With the design taking inspiration from the antique quilt, the color inspiration from the MQG, and the design goal of small piecing, we created a truly modern quilt.

 

You may have noticed the name of this one…. The Last Hurrah! This one really is our last hurrah being the Guild’s Giving Committee Chairs! We think it’s a great one to go out on. Debbie and I would like to thank every single person that took the time to make even a single block for any of our Giving Committee Quilts for the last three years! To everyone who made a block, quilted a quilt or added binding, we appreciate it! We think all the quilts turned out fantastic! I had my doubts about some of them, but when it all came together, I loved them all!

Seriously, do you really think anyone would notice is this quilt ended up at my house????

 

*******************

Quilt Name: The Last Hurrah

Design by: Louise Wackerman, @imfeelincrafty

Quilt Size: 70″ x 90″

Blocks by: Seattle Modern Quilt Guild Members

Top Pieced by: Debbie Jeske @aquilterstable and Louise Wackerman, @imfeelincrafty

Quilted by: Matt Macomber @odditease

Bound by: Kathleen Munns @quiltmunnster

Inside Out Pineapple Bed Runner

And you guessed it, another quilt!

Another one to mark off my Finish Along to do list! This one I am in love with, but for some reason wasn’t able to photograph it as wonderful as it really is!

My stepmother told me she wanted a quilt made with my Inside Out Pineapple quilt pattern. I love the pattern, of course. You’d hope I would since I made it… But it’s so time consuming! So I was contemplating how long did she really want to wait on this project! And luckily before I asked that question, she clarified that she only wanted a bed runner. Oh, yes! I can do that without taking forever!

A bed runner… It does look pretty, but I’m still curious about why… You’ll notice I don’t make many mini quilts. A couple of reasons… I don’t have wall space to hang them. And If you aren’t hanging them on the wall, what is the point of them? They don’t really serve a purpose. People make awesome mini’s and I love seeing other peoples minis, but for some reason when I quilt, I think it needs to be able to be used…  I don’t know why I think this way… So I’m still kinda miffed at the bed runner concept. But it turned out great!

Her other request was for it to coordinate with the cross stitch pillow I made her a couple of Christmas’s ago. So that narrowed down the colors! And you know me and my white backgrounds! I was trying to figure out how to incorporate the white background and still coordinate with the pillow. Then my friend Debbie asked where the white was in the pillow! Ummmm…. there isn’t any. So what was I doing. Then I tried it with the grey background and, OH YES!

The grey is my favorite staple, Sprinkle by Cotton and Steel! Love it!

Besides the grey, I used a combination of yellow, green and teal solids and prints. Prints! Another quilting concept that I don’t use much! Yes, it still kinda reads as a solid, but I did branch out and use prints with my solids!

Throwin’ in my label picture!

And here it is in it’s new home! It looks quite nice and does coordinate with the pillow. My step mother was very excited and put it on the bed as soon as she got home from visiting us! I’m glad to know it was well received and will be well loved!

This was a great project to use the Inside Out Pineapple Pattern for! I got really quick at making it, but I also didn’t get burned out with having to make too many!