Red Cross Meets Very Peri

Scraps. Minimalism. Very Peri, the Pantone Color of the Year. Fabric Play. They all came together in this piece. I hadn't necessarily planned on such a small work (20" x 20.5") for my personal Pantone challenge this year; but when the urge struck, and I realized I only had a half yard of my chosen Peri fabric, I just went for it.

Months ago I had chosen Cotton Couture Crocus as a good match for Very Peri, and rather than cut it into bits, I opted to keep my piece of it in large chunks. I was inspired by a minimalist Canadian Red Cross quilt in Cassandra Ellis' World of Quilts: Reinterpreting Quilting Heritage from Around the Globe. I took Cassandra's advice to "Use any scraps that you have for the 'crazy' cross and enjoy making something beautiful out of very little." So for my cross, I used a handful of red scraps, print and solid, including a small portion of Kona Rich Red.

The quilt was pieced 'straight,' with quilting done in three Aurifil 50wt threads. I started with matchstick-quilting the cross with Aurifil 50wt 2250 [Red]. The bars of the cross weren't all the same widths, but with the quilting, I pretended they were. Then for the periwinkle sections, I used two Aurifil 50wt threads 2520 [Violet] and 4225 [Eggplant]. After attending a trunk show with Audrey Esarey/@cottonandbourbon recently, I loved her way of incorporating thread color as a design feature, and I experimented here by using the lighter thread horizontally in the top half and vertically in the right half; and the darker thread horizontally in the bottom half and vertically in the left half. Does that even make sense? The crosshatch measures 3/8" between each line. Can you see the result of the different threads? 

Just for fun - and since I forgot my plan on my recent Italiano antico - I had trimmed the piece at an angle.

The back was simply pieced using more scraps. 

And then I finished things up with some matched binding in Cotton Couture Crocus and Cherry. I still say that Angled Matched Binding is 150% more tricky than Straight Matched Binding; so yes, I had to refer to my own tutorial.

Simple as it was, I really enjoyed making this one. It was the kind of creative fun this quilting thing should be.

Wave Gap

Well I wasn't sure if I was going to manage an entry for the current Curated Quilts' mini quilt challenge, but space opened up, I had an idea, and I was able to make it happen. The palette - soft lime green, indigo, grape, lotus pink, teal, and aqua - I totally pulled from stash. That was the easy part. It seems lately, there are two separate prompts for the mini challenge, in addition to the palette. This time the overall theme of the issue is Negative Space. But then 'gap' was an additional object of inspiration, so I kept both of those things in mind as I created my mini.

As I often do when I create a mini quilt of a specific size - in this case between 10" and 16" square - I create a square outline on my design wall with masking tape, so I have a rough idea of the space I need to fill. Note that the square was 16" this time, and my mini finished at 13.5" square, so it truly is just a rough estimate, knowing that seam allowances and design decisions will affect the result.

So I began by creating rectangles in three of the palette colors and arranging them with gaps between them and a much larger gap between the groupings. True confession, I had originally intended to quilt some 'ghost' rectangle blocks, but somewhere along the line I forgot about those! Oh well...

But I still had two colors to incorporate in the piecing, and I did that by inserting a skinny aqua line up top, and an even skinnier pink one below. By that time my piece wasn't quite up to size widthwise, so I decided to create another 'gap' by bordering the focal design with side borders. And then it was time for quilting!

I used two coordinating threads, Aurifil 50wt variegated #3320 [Spring Green] and #2784 [Dark Navy]. With the green, I created a 'wave' in the gap between the top and bottom element, and that was really some fun quilting. I'd spent a few minutes gently drawing with my hera marker, until I came up with outer limits for the wave that appealed to me. Then I got to work filling in, basically using my own Organic Straight-Line Quilting method, roughly following and keeping within the boundaries of the wave. It was at this point that I was really happy for the dark blue side borders, as they helped show off the wave in a way that wouldn't have been shown otherwise.

Above and below the wave, I basically did matchstick quilting. Not a huge fan of burying threads, I stopped stitching just shy of the wave, stitched just one stitch over, and then back... over and over again. It definitely created some pretty nice texture.

I'd found a fun stashed print for the backing, and once the quilt was trimmed, I finished it off with a faced binding. 

So this isn't exactly where I expected to end up, but I'm happy enough with it. The time spent working on it was creative joy - especially the quilting for a change - and I'm good with that!

Workaday

Over the last two weeks, I've been working on an entry for the latest Curated Quilts mini challenge, not really knowing if I could make the deadline or not, and I'm here to tell you it was close! But a little window of creative time opened up, and I was able to finish and enter it with a day to spare. 

The theme of this challenge was "Utility," and we were asked to use accessible fabrics for our utilitarian mini quilt design - scraps we had on hand, treasured fabrics, or repurposed fabrics. The color palette was dictated by one fabric - Candlelight Woven in Ocean by Ruby Star Society - though we could use what we had on hand. I chose to do that rather than purchase new fabric, but did find some aqua blue Andover Textured Solids in my stash that felt like a really good match. I don't even think Andover makes this fabric anymore, but I remember liking it - obviously enough to stash a good sized piece!

For some reason, I kept imagining industrial elements, so I started out just creating some pieced components, with just a vague notion of how they might fit together. Besides the textured solid, I incorporated some metallic and natural Essex scraps, a blueish shot cotton and print that seemed to coordinate ok, and a black striped shirt I had rescued from the donate bag a while back.

I began to place the segments up on the design wall, just to envision where I might be headed, plus keeping in mind the size, as my finished quilt needed to be between 10" and 16" square. It was then that I realized I had meant to use more of the darker blue shot cotton on the right side of that curve, so I swapped that out and liked the result much better.

Finally I had a finished top AND randomly rotated it around, deciding I liked a different orientation than I'd been working on all along. Go figure!

For quilting, I used Aurifil 50wt #2805 [Light Turquoise] to quilt a grid - one direction followed a curve in the design, and the other direction was relatively vertical.

And by the way, the 'true' color of the piece is reflected best in the detail photo above, rather than the quilt photo below. Lighting.... always a challenge.

So, the finished quilt measures just 13" x 13" square. It was a bit of refreshment in an otherwise stressful and hectic month, so whether it gets accepted or not, the fabric play was definitely worth it!

Friendship Mini-Mini Quilt Swap

Kudos to Seattle MQG leadership for keeping our guild strong throughout the last many months of meeting virtually. Our monthly meetings have been great, with all the features we've come to love, along with great presentations by talented makers. There have been some 'extras' along the way, too, and the latest was the Friendship Mini-Mini Quilt swap. The whole purpose of the swap was to make a new friend! We have had so many new members join the guild during the pandemic, that long-time members were paired with a newer member, which I think was a great idea!

So now I'm regretting not prepping this post back in June when I actually made my mini-mini, but such is life. Soon after being assigned as partners, Janet Darcher and I connected and chatted it up some. We fully intended to get together to exchange our swap projects, but unfortunately, that didn't work out.

So early on, Janet and I agreed to give free reign on what we made for each other - no color or design preferences, just make something we enjoyed. I was in the mood for improv courthouse steps, and after rummaging though the scrap basket, found a fun motif for the center. Sadly, I don't even remember how the rest of my fabric pull came about, but I clearly remember enjoying the mix I settled on and creating the mini quilt. The fabric that the motif came from also made a perfect backing. The quilting - a dense improv diagonal grid - created the best texture! My mini-mini finished at just under 7" square (50 square inches was the maximum allowed in the swap) and I confess I love it so much. 

So I sent off my mini-mini to Janet and a day or so later, I received what she made me! Surprise, surprise, she sent two minis. I love them both, for different reasons. I'm especially drawn to the hand-stitching on the one, and the different circles on the other. I asked Janet to tell me about them both, and here is what she said:

"I got a circle attachment for my Bernina and it is a lot of fun and I can use so many of the built in stitches." I think Janet's quilting pairs nicely with the background fabric, and the fun placement of the circles.

"The blue one has some hand stitching which I'm beginning to do more of in smaller pieces. And there are samples of my initial efforts at Eco Printing, the leaf and circle. There is a small piece of rust dye (not a new technique but one I love to do)." Cool. The leaf motif is awesome - reminds me of leaf prints I made as a child - and as I mentioned before, gotta love than hand-stitching!

So what a great swap. Special thanks to guild-mates Martha Peterson and Jackie Benedetti for hosting!

Flashback

The countdown on my 50 Days of Scraps is nearing its end, but don't be surprised if I pick it up again after QuiltCon, as I've really enjoyed it. After another dive into the scrap basket, I salvaged a handful of remnants from Vista Toscana, that I made last fall. All pieced from a grouping of Cotton Couture solids from Michael Miller, I decided to keep them together and see what else I could come up with

As sometimes happens, especially with improv, I wasn't happy at all with my first try at piecing a mini quilt. So obviously, I sliced it up and tried again.

And the second time, I was much happier. Plus I was able to find some scrap strips very similar if not actually left over from the previous project. Not really sure, and of course it doesn't matter. But they helped me frame up the arrangement I'd come up with, and I was good with that.

For the backing, I grabbed three lone tree blocks left from Uncommon Forest made a few years ago, also from the scrap basket. They were  Modern Christmas Trees from the tutorial by Amy/Diary of a Quilter. Sadly two of them got trimmed pretty drastically after quilting, but it still felt good to use them.

I used a mix of matchstick-quilting and organic straight-line quilting using a variegated Sulky 30wt thread #4021 [Truly Teal], and then a periodically matched-binding. The piece ended up being pretty little - just 9.5" x 13", but it was fun once I got going, and most importantly, I used up more scraps!

Though I unfortunately did not have a new big quilt to photograph during our recent snowstorm, I at least had a tiny quilt ready for the day of the big melt. I'll take it. 

VOTE!

'Tis the season! The upcoming election and the actual act of voting is uppermost in alot of our minds. I've been enjoying seeing the VOTE quilts folks have been sharing, and had been debating if I wanted to make one myself. Suddenly, last Friday night, with my newly arrived ballot waiting for me on the kitchen counter and my Bee Sewcial mates enjoying an evening of sewing, chatting  and "zooming" together, I suddenly decided I most definitely DID.

Without giving it too much thought, I gathered a variety of stash red solids along with a navy and white stripe. I kept things light-hearted and improvisational, just enjoying the process. By the end of the evening, I at least had the top pieced, so it didn't take long to quilt it up the next afternoon. I used Auriful 50wt #2250 [Red], marking out from each letter with my hera-marker and then echo-stitching in sections. Very fun stitching!

Once I trimmed the quilt, it measured just 16.5" x 22". It was while I was making some binding strips that it came to me to piece an exclamation mark in the binding on the right edge. That was just the oomph needed for my simple message.

Take Away

It feels like it's been a while since I've participated in a Curated Quilts mini quilt challenge, but now definitely felt like the right time. For the upcoming Half-Square Triangle issue, the theme is "quilts that use subtraction as a design feature." To clarify "subtraction," CQ posted Less is More, and in addition to some clarification, it's a nice little quilt show.



I kind of struggled with a plan for a while, then a glimmer of an idea came to me, which led me to create a single block....



It only made sense to make more blocks (which I did). and then play with them till a firmer plan materialized (which it eventually did). 



I actually had the top all pieced when the thought of a ghost block came to me, and that was really kinda fun to execute. For the first time, I used Aurifil 28wt for machine-quilting, and loved the result. I'll be trying that again. 



The spool I had happened to be the same color as I was using on the mini [#2600. light gray], so that was handy. I did go ahead and use 50wt for the quilting, hoping that would help the ghost block stand out, and I think it did. Rather than do strictly matchstick quilting, as was my original plan, I did a dense organic straight-line, which is one of my favorites to execute.



A faced binding became the way to go when I realized I didn't have enough of the light gray solid left, which would have been my choice for a regular binding. I tried Cotton & Bourbon's method for a change, as I'd noticed it was single-fold, and I thought that might be a good option for a mini. And I think it was!



Oh, and for the backing, I used a favorite print from the deep stash with some bits left on my cutting board. Maybe not the most profound use of fabric ever, but it gave me alot of pleasure.



So, this little quilt finished at 16" square, the maximum size for the challenge. I really debated on whether to crop close to the HSTs or give them room to float, and I obviously settled on the latter.

So I'll get this baby submitted, but no matter what, that was just what I needed. This is exactly why sometimes, it's really fun and freeing to work small.

Black&White Challenge

Back in August I decided to make a mini quilt for the Curated Quilts' Black & White Mini Quilt Challenge. At 15 1/2" square, it basically was just a few hours of dabbling, with a pile of black and white fabrics I'd pulled from stash. Inspired by a previous bee block, I had a very slim vision, and that was part of the fun - seeing where it would take me.



Happily, it was chosen to be included with other challenge pieces, and appears in the current (10th!) issue of Curated Quilts. I don't think - or sew - in black and white often, but I'm thinking it might be worth exploring some more!

Black&White

The occasional mini quilt is the perfect remedy for a variety of woes, and for me this last weekend, I knew it would be a brief respite from the larger projects and a welcome change of pace. So of course, I took the opportunity to whip up a little something for Curated Quilts' Black & White Mini Quilt Challenge. I actually took a stack of possible fabrics to the guild sew-in thinking I'd play around with a few ideas, and then decide which to finish. Well that didn't happen. I got going on one - totally inspired by a previous bee block - and just got caught up with it.

I didn't really intend to mix prints and solids, but it added a fun dimension. And part of the challenge was to display a sense of motion, either with the piecing or quilting, and in my mind, I managed both. The general construction of the piece spirals around that smallest triangle, and I echoed that by also quilting an irregular spiral with Auriful 40wt in white.

The back was pieced simply, combining a stash find with some remnants from the quilt top, and that was especially quick and satisfying at this small size, 15 1/2" square.

So that was fun! It's been a while since I've done this kind of impromptu sewing, and as always, it was a very good thing.

Linking up with Meadow Mist Designs' Favorite Finish Monthly Linkup!

confluence

Well that was fun! When Curated Quilts announced January 2 as the deadline for their next Mini Quilt challenge, I knew it would be tight. I mean with my frenetic holiday sewing and the actual holiday activities and all, I got a really late start. But that's the great thing about mini quilts.... just a few hours does the trick.

The theme was Curves, and the color palette white, spring green, moss green, burgundy, fuchsia and teal. It had been a while since playing with improv wavy curves, and they were calling me, so that's the direction I headed.

When it came time for quilting, I was in a real quandary about what color of thread to use and finally opted for Aurifil Monofilament, which I'd used with success earlier in the year. At first, I was regretting my decision, not really liking the look. But the farther and denser I quilted, the more I liked it, and crazy enough, it kind of sparkles in the light. My only real frustration was that almost every time I used my automatic thread cutter and lifted the presser foot, the filament unthreaded from the needle! With my old eyes, this isn't at all helpful! I finally got into the routine of grabbing the top thread immediately after cutting, before lifting the pressure foot, and that little trick saved the day.

It's not an exaggeration to say that this little bit of sewing over the weekend was seriously refreshing, and a great way to close out the year. A faced binding seemed a good finish for it, and in the end, my entry, confluence, measures just over 12" square.

Remembering that my smallest quilt of the year will be hanging at QuiltCon, I just want to remind you that everything we make doesn't have to be huge. In fact, making small - impulsive yet focused - can be really, really good.