Madrona Road Challenge- An OLD WIP, finally finished!

 

If you are a member of the Modern Quilt Guild, you are probably familiar with the fabric challenges they do. I used to love them! I would get so excited and sign up right away for my free fabric. The problem is there are deadlines. You are supposedly to make a quilt using their fabrics within a certain time frame… I had a problem with staying within that timeline… A bad problem..  Does anyone remember the Madrona Road Fabric Challenge???

In 2012 (yes, 7 years ago now, see what I mean??) The Modern Quilt Guild announced their Winter Fabric Challenge. You signed up and then got the fabric around the first of Decemeber that year and were supposed to finish the quilt by January 31st. This fabric bundle was the Madrona Road line from Violet Craft for Michael Miller.

I had originally design this quilt to be a rainbow of hexi’s, but when I got this fabric, I decided to go with this designing using the Madrona Road to make the hexi’s. I started these hexi’s the summer of 2013. See, I was already behind. Way behind! Violet Craft had already selected her favorites!

I finished the top and back in January of 2014! And that’s when this quilt went into the pile of WIP’s. Wishing to be quilted… Yelling at me from the shelf… See, these pictures even have my old ‘logo.’

Then in 2017, this photo made it’s first appearance in the Finish A Long posts that I was participating in. (still am, though missed the last one!) And it’s been showing up every couple of months since then. Sitting basted, waiting to be quilted….

And then last year it finally got quilted! What a long story for this little quilt!

I just quilted it in straight line quilting with accent quilting around the box.

Of course, the other thing with the challenges is they don’t give you much of the fabric, so you pretty much have to buy more if you want to make more than a mini. and I did. I used the yellow flower fabric on the back.

And you know I love a label shot!

So this quilt started back in 2013 and had a long journey of 5 years before I finally finished it last year about this is same time. And I guess you could call it 6 years, if you count the year it took to actually blog about it! I finished it and put it in my son’s school auction. His best friend’s family purchased it and it lives on their couch just a block away! We went over to take care of their cat and I saw it sitting out. I was like, that looks familiar! Ha!

And needless to say, since I can’t keep up with the deadlines of the fabric challenges, I no longer participate in them.

It does feel nice getting a WIP finished and then to know it’s being loved by someone.

 

 

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House Mini Challenge

I’m typically not a fan of mini quilts! Being honest here! Ok, I should say, I’m not a fan of making mini quilts. When I make a quilt, I like them ot be big enough to use as a quilt.

But recently I’ve started participating in the Curated Quilts mini challenges that they have for each issue. Have you made any?? This mini was for their House mini challenge.

I also have never made a house quilt block or a house quilt. Oops, I take that back. I did make some house blocks for a do.Good Stitches quilt. But I haven’t made any on my own. When I saw this challenge come up, I pretty much said nope. Not going to that one! In the end, I couldn’t not play along.

Do you ever google vintage mid century house plans? If not, you should! Every now and then I do because the drawings and ads and plans are just so cool! Being an architect, I knew that if I was going to do this challenge, I would have to do a floor plan. So I went back to my google searches and found a design I wanted to make into a quilt.

I took that plan and then laid out how I was going to break it down into a mini quilt.

And this is what I got! Walls, windows and planters. Originally I had planned to hand quilt in the pavers in the patio. I finished this right before I headed out on summer vacation last year, so the plan was to finish it on the road. That didn’t happen. I really think it would be more dynamic if it did have the hand quilting, but oh, well!

This quilt did not make the cut! And I totally see why. It’s not my best work, but it was still fun to make it!

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????

 

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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

Seattle Modern Quilt Guild Giving Committee 2018

Another trip down memory lane, although this lane isn’t that far back! Today I want to share the giving quilts I helped coordinate as a co Chair of the Giving Committee with the SMQG!

Does it kinda look like the same quilt twice? We didn’t start with that plan, originally for 2018, Debbie and I decided to make three quilts with the guild. One using the 2018 Kona Color of the Year, Tigerlily, one using a bunch of green fabric we had from Clothworks and the QuiltCon Quilt. For both of the first two quilts we ended up with two each from all the blocks we received!

Let me introduce Tic Tac Tigerlilly! I’m not sure why, but this one totally reminds me of a tic tac toe game! Do you see it?

Having a co-chair like Debbie meant we were going to have to use one of the colors of the year in a quilt! She’s a pro at making a quilt using the Kona and Pantone colors of the year each year. She has inspired me to do the same thing, but I buy the fabric and have yet to make a quilt on my own with the colors of the year! Anyway… For these March quilts we knew we wanted to use Kona’s Tigerlily fabric.

We really enjoy improv, but knew some of our guild members weren’t as excited for improv as we are. So for this one, we decided to skip improv and go with something a little more structured. A Log Cabin. But of course, it’s not a simple normal ‘ole Log Cabin. We added a twist!

We started with a red square for the center. Instead of each side being made of one strip, two sides of the block are made of groups of two strips of fabric and the other two sides are each made of one thick wide strip. You can follow the tutorial here.

We didn’t know how many blocks we’d get or how big the quilt would be. But we did know how we wanted to lay it out and that we’d need at east four groups of four. We got more than enough for four groups fo four!  I took the 16 that were the right size, the correct layout and the requested fabrics and put those together to make this quilt. The quilting was done by Cindy Krafft. Love how the swirls work with the straight lines!

For the back I found this great orange circle fabric that I love! And of course, I really love to use extra blocks on the back and we just happened to have some extra blocks and an unfinished block to bring it all together!

Quilt Name: Tic Tac Tigerlily

Quilt Size: 66” x 66”

Blocks by: Seattle Modern Quilt Guild Members

Quilt Top Pieced by: Louise Wackerman

Quilted by: Cindy Krafft

Quilt Binding by: Louise Wackerman

Recipient: Northwest Breast Center

Organized by: 2018 Giving Committee Chairs, Louise Wackerman & Debbie Jeske

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Remember how I mentioned we had more than enough blocks for Tic Tac Tigerlily?? Let me introduce you to Scatterlilies!

For this one we used the more ‘scattered’ blocks. The ones that weren’t quite the right size, or colors or color placement. I added a little bit here and there to fit the blocks together.

A special shoutout to Pam Cole for doing both the quilting and the binding on this one.

Quilt Name: Scatterlilies

Quilt Size: 48” x 66”

Blocks by: Seattle Modern Quilt Guild Members

Quilt Top Pieced by: Louise Wackerman

Quilted and Bound by: Pam Cole

Recipient: Greater Seattle Intergroup of Alcoholics Anonymous

Organized by: 2018 Giving Committee Chairs, Louise Wackerman & Debbie Jeske

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For the May Giving Committee quilt, we started the design around a bunch of green cuts of American Made Brand solids given to the Guild by Clothworks. Then we added solids from member’s stash solids.

We started with making squares using the green as the dominant color in the blocks. We could use any colors except bright white. We tried to keep the colors the relatively same value as the green.

Once you had your squares using the green, we asked members to start filling in with their solids until they had created a 14 1/2″ block. You can find the whole tutorial we used here.

Kinda like with the Robbing Pete blocks, I had a moment that I didn’t know if I was really liking these blocks or not. I don’t know why I was second guessing the design idea, but I was! But then, WOW! It really excited me as Debbie was piecing the blocks! I fell back in love with the idea!

Again! I love it!

Quilt Name: Bein’ Green

Quilt Size: 56” x 72”

Green American Made Brand Solid Donated by: Clothworks

Blocks by: Seattle Modern Quilt Guild Members

Quilt Top Pieced by: Debbie Jeske

Quilted and Bound by: Jana Royal

Recipient: Northwest Breast Center

Organized by: 2016-2018 Giving Committee Chairs, Louise Wackerman & Debbie Jeske

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And last but not least! It’s the second quilt that started from the quilt above!

Once we had all the blocks laid out, there was a natural divide between the blocks based on the stash fabric choices. So again, we got two quilts out of one design! For this one, Debbie held out the blocks made with more brown fabrics and white linen blocks. And they just go perfectly together!

 

Quilt Name: GreenSquare

Quilt Size: 42” x 51”

Green American Made Brand Solid Fabric Donated by Clothworks

Blocks by: Seattle Modern Quilt Guild Members

Quilt Top Pieced by: Debbie Jeske

Quilted by: Jana Royal

Bound by: Debbie Jeske

Recipient: Northwest Breast Center

Organized by: 2016-2018 Giving Committee Chairs, Louise Wackerman & Debbie Jeske

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Seattle Modern Quilt Giving Quiltcon Quilt for 2018

Here’s another flashback post for projects unblogged about… It’s just been patiently waiting in a folder on my computer to be shared on the blog!

For the Seattle MQG Quiltcon Charity quilt, the Giving Committee decided to do a little something different this year.

 

Instead of just one guild member designing the entire quilt, we decided to have a design challenge for the guild’s 2018 QuiltCon Charity Quilt. We put it out to the guild that we were taking submissions and received about 10 fantastic designs. Our main goal was to pick a design that would be the most feasible to create and one that we could involve as many members as were interested in participating. Deciding on just one was tough. We ultimately chose a design submitted by Cecelia Lehmann‘s and then we put a bit of an improvisational spin on it.

We used the color palette chosen by the Modern Quilt Guild, with fabric generously donated by Paintbrush Studio – beautiful Painter’s Palette Solids in (from bottom, below) White, Rice Paper, Purple, Tangerine, Tomato, Daisy, and Fuschia.

And then we mixed the colors and handed out 56 adorable little bundles to all the members that wanted to participate. Debbie wrote an easy to follow tutorial and we were off!

The timing was great because we got to work on it at our annual fall retreat. All the bundles that had not been claimed were found and transformed into blocks.

I took the blocks home and played with the layout. Over and over. Until, with Debbie’s help, we agreed on a layout.

Excuse the horrible pictures. I couldn’t turn the light on or risk waking up my husband in the middle of the night, so I didn’t turn on the light! But I came up with quite a few ideas.

The layout that we ultimately went with, really shows off the fan blocks and they really pop! Its’ almost a little art deco to me.

Once again the quilt was handed off to another guild member for quilting, Dionne. And WOW! What an amazing job she did. I thought the blocks popped before she got it…. Now, it’s even more fantastic! Each row has a different pattern and each row is quilted in a different color thread to match the challenge fabric colors!

And I love a fun back. While piecing the back, I also had all the scraps from everyone’s blocks, so I pieced them together into blocks and added them in. The colors are so fun!

I love the ring block the most. I almost snuck it into the front when no one was looking! But I figured everyone might notice soon enough, so I left it on the back. And I think it’s right at home there after all!

We’re also very lucky to have Dionne make our Giving Committee labels. It was truly a collaborative, group effort for our Seattle MQG contribution to the Quiltcon Charity Quilt Show.

Quilt Name: Frannie’s Flashy Fans

Quilt Size: 68” x 87”

Block Design by: Ceclia Lehman

Blocks by: Seattle Modern Quilt Guild Members

Block layout by: Louise Wackerman and Debbie Jeske

Pieced by: Louise Wackerman

Quilted by: Dionne Matthies-Buban

Binding by: Louise Wackerman

Recipient: Northwest Breast Center

Seattle Modern Quilt Guild Giving Committee 2017

And the next installment of quilts from my second year as Seattle Modern Quilt Guild Giving Committee Co-Chair with Debbie Jeske!

The Guild made a total of 7 quilts for the Giving Committee this year. A couple of them, like in 2016, other members took the lead on. Today, I’m only sharing the ones Debbie and I took the lead on.

image via A Quilters Table 

First up, Doing the Pink Flamingo! Pink Flamingo was the Kona Color of the Year in 2017. A lovely peachy pink color. Circa15 Fabric Studio was very kind and supplied the Guild with the enough fabric to share with those wanting to make a block. We gave the guild members 9″x11″ and they added their own gray and white fabric to make improv blocks.

I made three blocks!

First up, a funky log cabin! I love funky log cabins!

For the second two, I made a strip set and was able to use it in both blocks! Do you do improv quilting? I love how sometimes it can come so easy and fast!

image via A Quilters Table 

I collaborated with Debbie on the design and fabrics for this one and then I made my blocks and that was about it. The rest of the guild really did the work on this one! Debbie arranged the blocks roughly from light to dark and then pieced them into an awesome quilt top. The backing is Rhoda Ruth Wide Back by Elizabeth Hartman for Robert Kaufman in smoke, also donated by Circa15 Fabric Studio.  Pam quilted it for us and Matt added more Pink Flamingo for the binding. 

image via A Quilters Table 

 Quilt Name: Doing the {Pink} Flamingo

Quilt Size: 72″ x 72″

Blocks by: Seattle Modern Quilt Guild Members

Pieced by: Debbie Jeske

Quilted by: Pam Cole

Binding by: Matt Macomber

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image via A Quilters Table 

Next up is Playing it Cool! This was another improv quilt, but with a little more direction than Doing the Pink Flamingo. This one is inspired by Anne//Play Crafts’ Crayola Sunset. You can find the original tutorial that Debbie made for the Guild here. We made 6 1/2″ x 18 1/2″ or 6 1/2″ x 24 1/2″ blocks. We asked the guild members to use all solids in cool blues, greens and purples.

The blocks I made look like they have black in them, but it’s really a dark blue! Trust me on this one! This is a super fast way to do improv! And really having everyone’s different stash colors come together in one quilt, makes for an awesome combo!

image via A Quilters Table 

Debbie pieced the slabs together and Dionne quilted it using an all over Baptist Fan variation that adds great movement to the quilt! Guild Member Deborah Christensen stepped in to do the binding and used a scrappy green mix that plays up the improv!

image via A Quilters Table 

Quilt Name: Play It Cool

Quilt Size: 48” x 60”

Blocks by: Seattle Modern Quilt Guild Members

Pieced by: Debbie Jeske

Quilted by: Dionne Matthies-Buban

Binding by: Deborah Christiansen

Recipient: Northwest Breast Center

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image via A Quilters Table 

For the third quilt, I thought it would be fun to use a Modern Quilt Guild Block of the Month. Every month the MQG shares a quilt block on their site with a bunch of ideas of how to use it in a modern way! For this quilt, we used a creation of one of our global members Rebecca Burnett of the Toronto MQG. The Robbing Pete block is a variation on the Robbing Peter to Pay Paul block.

image via A Quilters Table 

Like the Playing it Cool quilt, we asked guild members to use their own stash of cool blues and greens to make some blocks. The curved pieces were to be blue and the background green. Solids and prints were ok to use on this one!

Using this design idea was my idea. I thought it would be fun! And of course a learning opportunity to sew curves! But as I was putting it together, I hated it! Seriously, I hated it. I didn’t even want to wrok on it anymore and swore I’d never show it on my blog! But then, once I started actually piecing the blocks together, it all started to come together! By the time I finished the top, I liked it again. Once it was quilted, I had completely done a complete turn around. I love it! It’s not my usually style, but it turned out quite nice!

image via A Quilters Table 

I used some of the extra blocks to make a pieced backing for this one. Dionne and her husband make our awesome quilt labels for us!  And Rachel, who just happens to be one of the new Giving Committee Chairs, did the quilting. and Amy added on the binding.

image via A Quilters Table 

Quilt Name: Cyan

Quilt Size: 48” x 48”

Blocks by: Seattle Modern Quilt Guild Members

Pieced by: Louise Wackerman

Quilted by: Rachel Singh

Binding by: Amy Steed

Recipient: Northwest Breast Center

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And last but not least, Icebound!

For this one, we were inspired by the Berry Icy Ice Bar block from Jodie of Persimmon + Pear. Another improv! Again, we used fabrics from the our own stash of magenta, medium pink, dark teal and light to dark gray to make 12 1/2″ blocks. Once again, Debbie pieced this one in rows and added a bit to each side.

The quilting and the binding was done by Judy White.

We are lucky to have such an awesome active group of members to help put these quilts together!

Quilt Name: Icebound

Quilt Size: 48” x 60”

Blocks by: Seattle Modern Quilt Guild Members

Top Pieced by: Debbie Jeske

Quilted & Bound by: Judy White

Recipient: Valley Breast Center

 

Seattle Modern Quilt Guild Giving Committee 2016

Well, there’s a few things I haven’t done much of lately and one of those things is blogging about my Giving Committee Chair role. And there’s a lot of things I have been doing! Including being Co-Chair of the Seattle Modern Quilt Guild Giving Committee, with Debbie Jeske, for the last three years!

I realized that I haven’t blogged about many of the awesome quilts we coordinated! I’m going to start way back in 2016!

This one we called Sunset Strips! I was totally inspired by Debbie’s Bacon Quilt and thought it would be a fun one for the group. A little improv, but not too improv! We didn’t have a lot of participation in this one. I am a huge fan of ‘white’ space and this lends itself quite nicely to not a lot of color and plenty of white space.

The directions that we gave to make the quilt can be found here if you’d like to make you’re own!

For the back I went crazy with the white space and turned it pink!

Quilt Name: Sunset Strips

Quilt Size: 60″ x 72″

Blocks created by: Seattle Modern Quilt Guild Members

Pieced by: Louise Wackerman

Quilted by: Jeanell Murphree

Bound by: Debbie Jeske

Recipient: Nurse Family Partnership

Organized by: 2016-2018 Giving Committee Chairs, Louise Wackerman & Debbie Jeske

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image via A Quilters Table 

When we took over the Giving COmmittee from the lovely ladies before us, they mentioned that they had talked to a couple of pet rescue organizations to make a quilt for a fundraising item, but it had never come to fruitition. We decided to start our time off, we’d close that gap. For our first one, we worked with Homeward Pet Adoption Center.  (can you find the dog block?) They requested that we design something that represents their organization so we agreed that the quilt would be made using the colors of their logo – blue, purple, brown and white. Enter Clothworks of Seattle, who generously donated beautiful American Made Brand solids for the project.

image via A Quilters Table 

Guild member were asked to make original improv blocks as they wished using only the fabrics in the bundle they received. They could use some or all of the colors, with blocks being in one of three sizes: 6 1/2″ square, 6 1/2″ x 12 1/2″, or 12 1/2″ square. I thought I’d point out (get it…. ha!) the block I made. It’s an improv log cabin with super skinny lines. I love it and keep saying I’m going to make a quilt like that one day!

image via A Quilters Table 

The quilting was done by guild member Emily Steed, who had fun with the quilting and gave each block it’s own design!

Quilt Name: Finding Home

Quilt Size: 58″ x 70″

Blocks created by: Seattle Modern Quilt Guild Members

Pieced by: Debbie Jeske

Quilted by: Emily Steed

Bound by: Debbie Jeske

Recipient: Homeward Pet Adoption Center

Organized by: 2016-2018 Giving Committee Chairs, Louise Wackerman & Debbie Jeske

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image via A Quilters Table 

Next up is another quilt inspired by Debbie’s work! This one I was so excited about that I did blog about the beginning’s of it here. For this one we used Debbie’s X Marks the Improv tutorial and asked the guild to use their stash fabrics to make 12.5″ x 24.5″ blocks in solid reds with yellow accents.

image via A Quilters Table 

image via A Quilters Table 

One of my favorite things about guild or bee quilts is the variation in colors. It’s hard for me to that on my own. For one you’d have to have that many different variations on the same color all in your stash! And once the blocks all went together it turned out to be a really striking quilt!

Quilt Name: eXmark

Quilt Size: 72″ x 72″

Blocks by: Seattle Modern Quilt Guild Members

Pieced by: Louise Wackerman

Quilted by: Dionne Matthies-Buban

Binding by: Susan Pray

Recipient: Nurse Family Partnership

Organized by: 2016-2018 Giving Committee Chairs, Louise Wackerman & Debbie Jeske

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And the last one I want to show today is our version of Little Tents! I love this improv tent triangle block! The colors look like little lit tents on a warm summer night! The pattern is inspired by Ants to Sugar and you can find our details here in case you want to make your own!

This quilt was made from member’s stash and everyone was asked to make 6.5″, 12.5″ or 18.5″ blocks. The blocks all fell into place just right, but in order to achieve a more random placement effect, I did have to add in a couple of inset seams!

We had a few blocks that didn’t quite fit on the front, but that always helps ot tie together the back. You can see I have done that in a couple of quilt backs for the group! And we are so lucky to have our fantastic quilt labels thanks to Dionne .

Quilt Name: Little Blue Tents

Quilt Size: 44” x 63”

Blocks by: Seattle Modern Quilt Guild Members

Pieced by:  Louise Wackerman

Quilted by: Jaci Bartol

Binding by: Debbie Jeske

Recipient: Nurse Family Partnership

Organized by: 2016-2018 Giving Committee Chairs, Louise Wackerman & Debbie Jeske

 

And a huge thank you to EVERYONE that helped! these are in no way completely my work! These were all a huge team effort by more people that I can count! Although I’m only sharing these four from 2016, we did help facilitate others, including an improv log cabin and a baby star quilt.  And we also had some other guild members with sharing ideas that the group took on. You can see all of the 19 quilts that the guild did in 2016 here!

A Christmas Quilt

It’s been a while since I shared a finished quilt!

It’s my Christmas Quilt! I have a Halloween quilt and I have a ton of amazing Christmas fabric, so I knew I needed to make a Christmas quilt! I’m a huge sucker for both Halloween and Christmas fabric. especially Cotton and Steel Christmas fabric…. I can’t get enough so I had to do something with it!

The only problem with Christmas fabric is that it isn’t solids! It’s prints, hence the Christmas theme, right! And I’m not real good with prints! I get totally pushed around by print fabric.

Quilts pictures here are by Katie of Sew Katie Did, not my work! 

In October 2017, the Seattle Modern Quilt Guild had one of our members, Katie Pedersen of Sew Katie Did, come teach some classes. One of the classes was her Split Personality Class. I signed up! But I didn’t want to take solids. Katie is so good with prints, so I was trying to let that rub off on me during this class. But what to take??? Christmas!

I love describing what I do as a quilter to non quilters! So basically the technique involves cutting up fabric, sewing it together, cutting it, mixing the pieces up, sewing it back together, cutting it again, mixing again and sewing it back together again! Yep, that about sums it up! You do that and end up with lovely little improv pieced blocks!

But then what to do with the blocks??? 

I decided to use one of the designs I came up with from the Quilt Design a Day challenge. I forget what the picture was that inspired this design. Anyway, I thought it would be a fun design inspiration for this quilt. 

I also used another technique that I don’ tthink I have ever used before. Fussy cutting… Well, sewing with solids doesn’t lend itself well to fuzzy cutting, does it now?? Ha!

And another technique… Pattern matching my fabric for the back!

Did you know those reindeer came in flannel? So soft! and adorable!

I liked how the blue binding didn’t totally scream Christmas for the quilt.

I really like it turned out! And I’m loving watching the family curl up in on the couch this holiday season!

 

 

In the Magazines, a Mini and an IG Giveaway!

Last month I was in two magazines! It was so exciting to come home from vacation and have both of the magazines waiting for me!

Which one should we talk about first??? Let’s go alphabetically… Curated Quilts! Have you seen this magazine? It’s so beautiful! And I got to be a part of the 3rd installment focusing on Minimal Quilts!

Each issue of the Curated Quilts magazine has a Mini Quilt Challenge gallery in it. They give a theme and a color scheme and then you make a mini and upload to their website and they choose about 25 minis to be featured in each issue. I usually don’t do mini quilts. I can’t don’t get them. To me quilts are a work of art, but they are also meant to be cuddled with. So mini’s have always kinda confused me! But then when I saw the color palette for this challenge, I had to play along!

I loved the neon colors and I just happened to have them already! And I just happened to have an office meeting doodle that I wanted to turn into a quilt, so I put them together and look what I got! 

The little triangles are about a half inch tall. Pretty tiny!

For the back, I used another little strip of triangles and a big patch of pick! Ignore the lovely polka dot label. That’s totally NOT a design feature! Ha!

And of course the little label, but I love how the quilting stands out in this picture.

I didn’t get any quilts in the QuiltCon Show last year, so I was a little bummed! Until I walked into the Curated Quilts booth and what to my eyes should appear?

But a bunch of mini’s right there! With mine smack dab in the middle! So I kinda did have a quilt at QuiltCon after all!

And next up… Modern Patchwork!

How funny! I just realized as I am writing this that both of the quilts involve triangles! This one is flying geese, but triangles none the less! My Left and Right quilt was published in the May/June issue of Modern Patchwork. I love this quilt! This was a Nurture Circle do. Good Stitches quilt. The variety of fabric colors from all the different members is what made this quilt so exquisite. In my opinion.

image via Modern Patchwork

Are you wondering about the giveaway by now???

I’m going to give one reader, who is also an Instagram follower, one copy of each magazine! Be sure to go to my IG page and follow the directions!

Thanks for reading! Can’t wait to share these awesome magazines with you!

 

 

Nurture Circle Quilts of do.Good Stitches

I haven’t been around for a while and I’ve missed the ‘ole blog! It’s also been even longer since I’ve shown the quilts I’ve taken part in with the Nurture Circle of do. Good Stitches group! As you may or may not know, I have been a part of this online quilting bee for years! I’ve shared the quilts I’ve made with the awesome women in my group. But it’s been ages since I’ve shown off what they have done!

As a reminder, this is an online bee with 10 members. 5 of us design and make the quilts. All 10 of us make a least 1 block per month, usually 2 or more, for the quilts. Then once they are done, they are donated to one of our group members who runs the quilt Charity in Texas, Covered in Love.

This quilt was the August 2016 (see, it’s been a while!) group quilt designed by Briawna at Purple Poppy Quilts. We were asked to make 8 paper piecing kaleidoscope blocks  with solids and low volume fabrics. The block we used were from The Quilter’s Cache website. And then she took our blocks and made this awesome rainbow quilt!

Next up, the 2016 September quilt…

This one was designed by Carla from the Modern Bias blog.  We actually used the Crosscut Block from one of my best quilty buddies, Debbie, over at A Quilters Table. Carla just changed the size of the blocks.

photo via Carla’s Flickr

Not only did we send her our blocks, but we also sent her our left over pieces. We ended up having two quilts that month!

photo via kat and cat quilts

The one on the right is one of them. The one on the left is one I sent that i had done earlier, the Modern Sampler Quilt.

photo via Kat’s Flickr

The second on we got from our extra blocks was a group effort with Carla piecing it and Gabrielle quilting it!

Next up, January 2017!

This one was design by our Texas friend, Kat, from Kat and Cat Quilts. And yes, the one who runs our quilt charity! This one is a stitch and flip block and we made a mini strip and flip block. Instead of ROY-G-BIV our rainbow was only a OY-G-B rainbow! You can find the tutorial on our group Flickr page.

photo via Kat’s Flickr

And it came together beautifully!

And in February, Dhia, from Peach Patch Quilts, chose hearts!

You can find the directions to the big heart, based on Michael Miller’s Cupid’s arrows quilt, on Dhia’s blog here. The little ones are from a Cluck Cluck Sew tutorial.

photo via Dhia’s Flickr

This one reminds me of warm Nordic sweater (I think they are called something else, but I’m blanking on it!)! I love it!

And our last one for today is the March 2017 block.

March of 2017, Briawna chose to use a tutorial from Andy Knowlton for scrappy flying geese. We made two blocks, one with gray on the right and one with gray on the left. Then I asked them to keep the tiny scraps for an upcoming quilt!

photo via Briawna’s IG

And there we have it! Five Nuture Circle quilts to show! I need to get on quilting the Nurture Circle quilts I have finished in my pile. There are more to show, so stay tuned!