Relatively Subtle

The last challenge of the Mighty Lucky Quilting Club 2016 was by Carolyn Friedlander - Project Overwhelm: Organization and Palette Cleansers. Not that one can't always use some improvement, but I feel pretty good about my organization. Between my Quilter's Planner and the good ole OneNote app, I'm able to keep fairly on top of my projects. And honestly, I've long known that Carolyn's idea of a "palette cleanser" project is the best way to both take a breather and refresh before getting back to the to-do list.

I seriously didn't have a spare moment for a palette cleanser during the last couple of weeks, but it was just what I needed once that secret sewing was done, Christmas celebrated, and a short break in the day job opened up. I gathered some scraps and a penciled design from my sketch book, and set to piecing. Super simple, I went through the motions that by now are nearly second-nature. Quilting was done in several colored threads with a relaxing yet satisfying organic straight-line, and happily, I found a perfectly plaid binding in my stash.

 

The entire mini - measuring 17" x 17", just like the rest of my Mighty Lucky challenge quilts - took just a few hours and was like a breath of fresh air, and precisely what I expect Carolyn had in mind.

And with that, my year of Mighty Lucky Quilting Challenges is complete. Whoa. There were a few favorites and a couple where I forced myself to give it a go. But overall, it was a good experience. I'm glad I keep the projects small, and the uniformity of size helped me focus. And there are definitely some techniques that I want to revisit in future work.

Left to Right, Top to Bottom: January - "Pantone Meets Bias Tape" with Krista Fleckenstein ~ February - "Scrap Leather" with Season Evans ~ March - "So Wrong It's Gotta Be Right" with Rossie Hutchinson ~ April - "Worth 1000 Words" with Alison Glass ~ May - "Flutterby" with Amy Gibson ~ June - "just take it one stitch at a time" with Angela Walters ~  July - "Singleton" with Cheryl Arkison ~ August - "A Little Punchy" with Sarah Fielke ~ September - "Space" with Jacquie Gering ~ October - "DIY Embroidery" with Nichole Voglesinger ~ November - "Effective Fabric Selection" with Amanda Jean Nyberg ~ December - "Relatively Subtle" with Carolyn Friedlander

DIY Embroidery

There's no doubt this year's Mighty Lucky Quilting Club has presented me with challenges I would never have considered tackling. Creating my own embroidery pattern certainly fit in that category. In fact, I skipped it when first presented in October, but I reconsidered a couple of weeks ago, knowing I was so close to finishing up the year batting 1000.

Nichole Vogelsinger/@wildboho is an embroidery master for sure, and reading through her challenge a second time enticed me to try the “found” pattern method. Basically you find a pattern that already exists in fabric, and in my case, I settled on a piece of Anna Maria Horner's Loulouthi (why does the selvage say LOU LOU THI?) and fused it on to a fat quarter of Loominous that I actually purchased at Craft South when we were in Nashville last year.

 

And then I just made it up as I went along! My relationship with embroidery actually goes way back - something I used to do alot of. So it wasn't really a stretch to randomly stitch here and there. The 'shape' of the floral piece wasn't ideal, but it was at least interesting enough to give this a go. As with most challenges.... something to think about.

Effective Fabric Selection

October was so full, I didn't get around to even think about doing the Mighty Lucky Quilting Club challenge. but luckily I was able to tackle this month's from Amanda/crazy mom quilts, as it caught my interest right off. The topic, "Effective Fabric Selection," was one I think all of us strive for, right?

Amanda provided several prompts to choose from, and considering I rarely consult a color wheel when planning a quilt, I chose that as my prompt, specifically selecting an analogous color scheme - colors directly next to each other on the color wheel.

 

Including curating a fabric pull from stash, the challenge included arranging fabrics in a variety of ways. First, personal preference (above), totally by random (below)....

And arguably one that definitely felt better than totally arbitrary, random with veto power. I let things be as they may except when exactly the same color and value.

Even with this very simple design, I decided to go ahead and make my customary 17" quilt to represent this challenge, mostly because I loved the colors so much. Yeah, it has some similarities to that made in March, but considering I gifted that one to mom, I'm ok with it.

Quilted with an organic grid and trimmed on an angle.... it'll be a good reminder to consider the color wheel now and then as well as design principles Amanda had us consider. There's so much to ponder....

Linking up with Finish It Up Friday!

Space

September's Mighty Lucky Quilting Club challenge was presented by Jacquie Gering, Space: Your Final Frontier. Though I struggled through it a bit, it left me with alot to ponder, and that's a good thing.

One portion of the challenge was 'seeing space,' and it was indeed interesting to see the differences as the space between design strips was adjusted.

The part of the challenge that really caught my attention, though, involved designing and constructing blocks, then observing the space as the blocks were rearranged.

Here's the 4" block I designed using paper shapes....

and after making four blocks as instructed, the variety of ways I arranged them.

         

     

I was all set to make up the lower right design in fabric, until my 5-year-old grandgirl walked in the room, saw my blocks, and rearranged them to make this:

Oh yeah, my plan changed in that moment. Inspired by her design, I made six blocks in fabric, and filling in the background with more white, gave the piece an entire new look. Since I'd been making my Mighty Lucky quilts all 17" square, I added some black and white stripes to bring the piece up to size.

Admittedly, as I sat down to quilt, I had no idea what I wanted to do, but with a weekend getaway looming, I wanted it done and fast. So making it up as I went, I stitched a mix of straight-line, match-sticks, and randomly-places Xs.

One of those times when no binding seemed quilt right, I opted for a faced-binding. And wouldn't you know, between the quilting and the faced binding, my final piece measures a scant 16 1/2" square. Oh well.

Finished just in the nick of time, I packed the little quilt, and on our last morning in Chicago yesterday, we hurried over to the Riverwalk to take some photos, snapping the last one (above) on a couch in our hotel lobby just before checking out.

So this was kind of an intimidating challenge for me, but it was worth exploring, and the info Jacquie shared, definitely worth revisiting.

Linking up with Finish It Up Friday.

A Little Punchy

Yeah, I wasn't overly thrilled when I saw that this month's Mighty Lucky Quilting Club
challenge was totally applique. But after reading through Sarah Fielke's "Favorite Pieced Blocks as Inspiration for Applique," I was not only intrigued, but interested enough to start in on a plan.

I had just randomly purchased some Kona Punch, and just for fun, decided to build my project around that. The green and aqua were unidentified stash finds, and of course the background is from Latifah Saafir's Grafic.

As much as I whine about applique, it's not that I haven't done it. In fact I've made at least two large quilts in days gone by that were completely applique. But seriously, it's been years.... and for some strange reason, as much as I used to enjoy that kind of slow stitching, these days I'm inclined to sew much faster.

But that wasn't the assignment here, now was it? Applique was the name of the game, and I started in with the method I'd used years ago - drawing shapes on my fabric, cutting a rough 1/4" around them, then pinning to my background with short pins, with the intention of folding under along those lines as I stitched.

But I'd seen daughter dear do something different when she appliqued, and in conferring with her, was reminded to reference Carolyn Friedlander's Savor Each Stitch: Studio Quilting with Mindful Design, and there Carolyn suggested machine basting 1/4" from the edge of each shape, and then turning under 1/8" as you stitched. Similar but different and to me, new-fangled and worth a try. Since I'd already marked and trimmed my shapes though, my measurements weren't quite like Carolyn's this time, but I tried the general method at least.

I chose to remove my basting as I sewed on each shape, and without those little pins, the whole piece was very comfortable in my hand as I sewed. The finished piece is 17" square, just like my other Mighty Lucky challenge projects. A slightly askew quarter log cabin block, with logs separated somewhat, I quilted it with an equally wonky quarter-log cabin design. 

Though overall a pretty simple little quilt, it was a very good reminder to me to keep trying new (and including old) techniques in my work. And that applique? Thanks to a recent road-trip where I couldn't access my machine at all, I found it most enjoyable, and much like riding a bike....

Singleton

Ok, this was really fun. July's Mighty Lucky Quilting Club challenge with Cheryl Arkison was "One Fabric, One Quilt," and from the first block I enjoyed it immensely!

It was actually quite serendipitous, as I'd been thinking of trying a quilt using just one fabric. It was fun to try that using Cheryl's guidance, including her handy fabric-selection and design tips. I chose to make just a few sets of the suggested quarter square-triangle blocks and then filled in around them to create a basic design while still letting the overall piece do its own thing.

Quilting was done with Aurifil 50wt #2021 (Natural White) and I really enjoyed it, making a couple of spirals, and other random patterns, all trying to highlight those stripes.

As with all of my Mighty Lucky challenges, this one finished at 17" square - small in size maybe, but not in experience. Lots to think about with this one, and plenty to consider in the future.

Linking up with Finish It Up Friday!

just take it one stitch at a time

In the spirit of the challenge, this one isn't even going to get a binding. The instructor for June's Mighty Lucky Quilting Club challenge, Angela "quilting is my therapy" Walters, suggested since 'practice is key,' that's exactly what we should do.

The topic, Say Something with Free-Motion Quilting, wasn't really something I thought I'd use on my quilts, but then, I decided it certainly wouldn't hurt to at least do the challenge, because you never know. I cheated just a little by combining the two assignments into one 17" piece. But I did try both cursive and block letters, so there's that. And, I used up some scraps making my quilt sandwich, so there you go.

 

I felt like I did pretty good connecting my cursive letters and backtracking on the t's and dotting those i's and that j. But the movement between the block letters was much trickier, and I'm not too keen on what I did. But it's practice, right?!

Live and learn. Or at least try. 

You can see all my Mighty Lucky Quilting Club challenges here.

Flutterby

I can't say this is my favorite finish ever. All the components going into it were just fine; it's just the end result I'm not that fond of. 

Using Adrianne/Little Bluebell's darling Modern Butterfly pattern, I started in on this month's Mighty Lucky Quilting Club challenge: Building Blocks of Effective Contrast with Amy/Stitchery Dickery Dock. It began with 12 Contrast Studies, which were very interesting and gave me alot to think about. I had purposely chosen a block design that I thought met the basic criteria of the challenge yet was small and fairly quick. The further I got into the challenge though, the less compatible my block and my fabric pull proved to be. The block was a tad too simple, and since I'd pulled fabric from stash, in some instances what I had didn't really fit the bill. Still all a good learning experience, but.



I used half of the 6 1/2" blocks I made for my final 17" quilt top - the ones I liked best and showed off the butterflies. You may notice that not all of the butterfly blocks have that accent stripe that is so unique to Adrianne's pattern. That's due to the contrast study for that particular block. Anyway, I tried to make the best of things by tilting the blocks ever so slightly, using my favorite Essex linen in natural as a filler, and quilting with organic wavy lines to add some movement. 

So yeah, I'm saying "mission accomplished" on this one and moving on. End of story.

Linking up with Finish It Up Friday.

Worth 1000 Words

In 2009, hubby and I went to Europe for the first time. In contemplating how to celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary, we realized we were the only ones in our family who hadn't been. Both of our kids had, our parents, all of our sibs, nieces and nephews. Yup, everyone but us. It was time to rectify that. fast forward . . . .

After 15 hours of travel, we arrived in Florence, Italy, and after dropping our bags in our room, of course we headed out exploring. Just a half-block away, we turned a corner, and saw this.

I'm not exaggerating when I say I immediately, involuntarily, stepped backwards around that corner. It took a few moments before I could catch my breath and peek around the corner again. And ever since, I've considered that moment I first saw Il Duomo di Firenze my first meaningful glance of Italy. The next morning, we hurried back over to the Duomo and climbed to the top (463 steps!) and were once again mesmerized by what we saw.



Florence was a perfect introduction to Europe, and that photo of the Duomo came to mind as I read about this month's Mighty Lucky Quilting Club challenge: Using a Personal Photo as Inspiration for Piecing with Alison Glass [alisonglass].



I shared much of my beginning process in a previous post, but I'll back up just a bit to tell about the materials I chose to use. Fabrics for the front were mostly shot cottons from stash and one scrap of Essex. I loved the feel and bit of sheen, and had the perfect colors for the dome of Duomo. For backing, I thought a print from Angela Walters' Drift was the perfect choice, and reminded me of so many windows we'd seen in Italy.



I knew when I chose the shot cottons that they would be really lovely to quilt up. I used five Aurifil 50wt threads - 2000 (light sand), 2250 (red), 2314 (beige), 2600 (dove), 2730 (delft blue) - each to emphasis an element of my 'fabric photo'. And I went out on a limb and chose to free-motion quilt this one - totally not my norm, but in this case seemed worth the stretch.

I attempted to add more of the photo's detailing, and overall I think that worked. I especially like how the dome turned out, and the 'windows' on the right side. I'm a little disappointed with what I did in the sky portion, but I was on a roll, and while I was quilting away with those feed-dogs down, I figured I should practice something other than straight lines. So there ya go.

Overall, I found this project to be very challenging improv-wise - not the curves, but the 'corners'! But I think I learned something important in my decision to 'crop' my photo for the final quilt, which is only 17" square. I actually think the lack of detailed piecing in the buildings allowed that dome to remain the focal point and the overall piece, an uncluttered look. It seems in the challenges so far, there is the obvious stated challenge, but always something more to learn, and I think that's my been my favorite part.

Linking up with Finish It Up Friday.

Process

Eventually, you'll hear more about this photo and why I chose it for my April Mighty Lucky Quilting Club challenge, Using a Personal Photo as Inspiration for Piecing. But for now - I have had a few inquiries about my process as I've been posting progress photos over on Instagram, so will share a bit of that today. 

Honestly, I'm still new enough at improv that I rarely know exactly where I'm going with it. But with this piece, it at least made sense to start with what seemed the trickiest part - the dome of that Duomo - a cathedral in Florence, Italy. Often when I work in improv, several 'sections' are created, then they are puzzled together, so that was my starting plan here.

I used a technique I learned in this basic tutorial for free-hand curves, an 'overlap' technique to cut and join the two pieces indicated below. There's really no specifics - I just glanced at the photo, then cut a similar curve. I stitched, pressed, cut a new piece, and continued on to finish the dome. If things needed trimmed and reshaped as I went, that's what I did. Next were several strips of blue 'sky,' each with a bit of detail from the top of the dome.

Once I got the dome and sky pieced, I worked on the base as well as the surrounding buildings, keeping them pretty simple. Piecing like this isn't straight-forward for me. There's always fiddling to see what will give me the look I'm after. So I keep my seam-ripper handy, to tweak things as needed, sometimes it's as little as opening a seam end to add another element.

I realized pretty quickly that my scale was larger than I'd intended, considering I'm doing all of the Mighty Lucky challenge pieces at 17" square. So I decided to 'crop' my photo, knowing that would eliminate some of the detail I might otherwise have included. It was at that point that I decided adding more detail with the quilting was the way to go - maybe not quite the original challenge, but it's improv, and that's the way it happens sometimes.

So now the top is done, and I'll be quilting for a while now. . . first time free-motion quilting on my Juki! Hopefully in a few days I'll have a finished work to show you! Meanwhile, if you have any questions about what I've done so far, feel free to ask!