Fissures On the Road

After her win in the Modern Quilt Challenge, good ole Common Affection is currently somewhere between Des Moines, Iowa and Phoenix, Arizona.

Well believe it or not, she'll have some familiar company when she makes the pit stop for the next exhibit on the tour. Fissures has been accepted in the "Wall Quilt - Modern" category of the 2014 AQS QuiltWeek® Contest in Phoenix, Arizona in February.

Have fun, you two!

Time to Travel!

Pretty excited about the email I just got!!! "Congratulations, your quilt has been selected to travel with the Modern Quilt Challenge exhibit! Your quilt will need to be available for all AQS QuiltWeek® events through August 23, 2014." See ya next year, Common Affection!

2013 Finish-A-Long: Q2 Finishes

Back in April when I made my Q2 FAL list, I basically was standing there holding a bunch of blocks I wasn't quite sure what I was going to do with.

First up were the Hugs & Kisses blocks from the Mid-Century Modern bee. I had 13, and was thinking of making a couple more, and then somehow pull them into a quilt. 

Thanks to the thoughtful suggestions of others, I moved away from my standard 'row' quilt, turned all 13 blocks on point, and made something quite unexpected, which I named Common Affection.


Next up were the first five blocks from don't call me betsy's Lucky Star BOM.

Trying to be a little improv-y, I came up with Auspicious Sky, which was a stretch in more ways than one. My favorite part was using the mix of shot cotton (the main background fabric) accented with bits of Essex Yarn Dyed Denim and Kona Nightfall. With all of them and the Architextures in the stars, I was working with some of my very favorite fabrics.

And finally, there were those x and + blocks, which I'd been swapping and collecting for ages!

And whew! Just in the nick of time, I finished up Crossex!

So that's that! And wouldn't you know, I have whole new stacks of blocks to add to my Q3 list!

Common Affection

Some projects turn out exactly as you had imagined them, and others . . . Well others just take on a life of their own. This project was one of the second variety.

March was my month to choose a project for the Mid-Century Modern Bee and I chose the Hugs & Kisses block by Little Miss Shabby. And then I dug into the stack of charms I had gotten in the Low Volume Swap last summer. Without even realizing it, I even used the fabric I had swapped in my sample block - the blue/gray/white circles (Quilt Blocks by Ellen Luckett Baker for Moda Fabrics) in the bottom right-hand corner.

The blocks came in right on schedule, and one day I put them all on my design wall and began mulling over what to do with them.

I posted a picture in the flickr group, and my bee-mate Carla/Grace and Favour made the quilt-changing suggestion to put them on-point. Oh yeah.

 

At that point, I was talking filling in around the blocks with solid grays when bee-mate #2, Linda/Flourishing Palms suggested matching up with the skinny bits to make all those block conjunctions squares. Good idea! But when I started adding those pieces up on the wall, it dawned on me that I really needed to link up the skinny bits out on the edges too. So that's what I did, using three different grays in the process - Kona Ash and Iron plus Michael Miller Couture Stone.

 

Things were getting a little more complicated . . . 

If I'd known all along what the outcome would be, I would have pieced things just a bit differently, but I made it work, and was pretty pleased with the result.

If I had it to do over, I would have used more low-volume prints for those squares inside of the 'border' line, but then again, I didn't really 'see' that till I was done. Anyway, I forged ahead, quilting with Aurifil Light Beige (#2310). I did a straight-line coil, starting off centered in the upper-left of the quilt and echoing at 1" increments. Binding was scrappy solid grays with a couple of snippets of gray prints.

To be honest, this quilt is as much a collaboration as any I've done. The block was designed by Little Miss Shabby, my Mid-Century Modern Bee joined me in making blocks, Carla suggested the layout, Linda gave me the idea of continuing the accent strips, and I ran my quilting and binding thoughts by daughter dear before moving forward. So yeah, it's small (45" square) but for me, there's alot wrapped up in this quilt.

As I finished it, I started mulling over a name for it, and I came up with "Common Affection" - common for the cooperative effort of my bee in working jointly towards a goal, and affection as a nod to the Hugs & Kisses block. 

Weather wasn't really conducive to a decent photo shoot, but hubby was willing to run out during a break in the rain and let me take a few shots. I loved the one against the blue building (a random smoke shop!); he liked the one below against the brick. So I figured I'd share them both . . .

This project is on my Q2 Finish-A-Long list. Also linking up with Fabric Tuesday.