Fractions

If you've been reading my blog for a while now, you've read about my friend Angela Walters several times. She is quite the superwoman: amazing machine quilter, author, teacher, and now fabric designer!  Her first line with Art Gallery is called Textures.  The line has some great basics, like this crosshatch.  It also includes a very cool panel called the Right Angles Panel.
Angela gave me the challenge to make something with just the panel and one other fabric from Art Gallery.  I knew immediately what I wanted to make.  The panel is perfect for a particular technique I have been wanting to try by Yoshiko Jinzenji from her book Quilting Line and Color.  Doesn't Angela look like she approves of my choice?  That's her ad for Handi Quilter in a quilting magazine I picked up this weekend.

This mini quilt looks complex, but it is actually just a 16 patch with one piece added to an asymmetrical border.  By fussy cutting the panel, using Jinzenji's technique, I was able to play with the way the negative space flows into and around the blocks.

I quilted the mini with straight lines about 1/4 inch apart.  I bound it in the same Art Gallery solid as the background to keep the focus on the pops of color in center.

This was such a fun challenge.  I'm really looking forward to seeing what other quilters create with the panel.  Check out Angela's blog to see the results.

Horizon

This quilt was inspired by a 1957 photolithograph of a music program designed by Josef Muller-Brockmann, a Swiss graphic designer, teacher, and author (you can spend hours browsing through MOMA's online archive of images, so be forewarned).  I was struck by the effect of distance he achieved with such a limited use of shapes and colors. 

This is a quilt I didn't have time to make, but it just sort of flowed out of me, which I think is always a good sign.  It's certainly a great experience, when it happens that way.  I decided to make the quilt quite small (30 x 42), as an experiment for a larger quilt in the future.  If I get to come back to this design, I will change the proportions and quilting somewhat, but overall I am happy with what I was able to create improvisationally.

The binding, a text print from Mama Said Sew, is a nod to Muller-Brockmann's frequent use of typography. I used half inch straight line quilting across the whole quilt, changing direction to emphasize the illusion of a horizon line.

The back is a kind of psychedelic ombre dot. I think it echoes the feeling of depth from the front.

I hope to carve out some time to experiment with a few more ideas inspired by mid century modern art.



Blog Readers

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I assume most of you already use a reader of some sort to follow blogs you enjoy.  You will also likely know that Google Reader, which I had been using, is going to disappear soon (oh the dependency we have on free online tools!).  I'm trying out Bloglovin as my new reader.  So far, so good.

If you don't use a reader and manually check blogs for updates, you should definitely try out one of the readers available.  It will show you when blogs you like have been updated, so you won't have to check daily.  It's a big time saver!

I am working with these fabrics today.  I'm thinking something angular and masculine.

Low Volume Quilted Pillow

I finished my quilted, lumbar pillow, which is based on a pattern in Malka Dubrawski's Fresh Quilting.  There's an affiliate link, if you click the photo below.

I used strips from my scrap bin, slightly larger than the pattern indicates, so the pillow ended up being 16 x 35.5 inches.

I quilted the top with simple straight lines to emphasize the zigzag pattern created by alternating the direction of the print and solid rectangles.

I backed it in cream linen with a lapped zipper, using this favorite tutorial again. The edges are bound in Kona Glacier for a pop of color to help the pillow stand out on my friend's cream couch. I stuffed the homemade pillow form firmly, so this lumbar pillow should be very functional. I hope it fits into the elegant, understated decor of its new home.

And Now For Something Completely Different

Low volume scraps, precise cutting, and following a pattern.  It's good to change things up sometimes.  I pulled some light prints from my 2 1/2" strips bin to make a project from Fresh Quilting by Malka Dubrawsky that I earmarked "long ago" as my boys would say.  This project may have started the current low volume trend, or maybe she was ahead of her time.  Either way, there is something very restful about working with these fabrics.

The project pairs solids with low volume prints to create a simple zigzag, but the slight variations in values of the fabrics give it a subtle interest I love.

I'm doing some straight line quilting, and then I'll need to buy a bunch of filler for a home made pillow form.  My strips are bigger than those in the pattern, so this is going to be giant.

Therapy from Scraps

If you have a problem with rainbows, you should look away now.

Recently, my bin of scrap strips began to overflow, but really, let's not pretend this long term project is simply a way to remedy a surplus of scrap strips.  No, I'll own up to it.  I enjoy sewing monochromatic strips sets so much, I have gone so far as to accept additional scrap strips from friends, even buying them at times!  In the grand scheme of things, it is an inexpensive form of therapy though, and it's productive too. Right?

When I need a break from the sewing I should be doing, I grab a handful of strips, snip them a bit longer than required, piece, and trim each block into a 5.5 x 10.5 rectangle.  What's not to love?  I get to pair lovely fabrics, do some mindless chain piecing, and rainbows appear.

I don't have a plan for these blocks just yet, although I have in mind two quilts from Scrap Republic  that could be adapted to work.  Lots of possibilities...

For now, I'll keep sewing strip sets. 

A Pleasant Trip

I thoroughly enjoyed my many trips around the world quilt.  You can find out more about the pattern and quilt along in my previous post.  It was a complete pleasure to make this quilt from start to finish.  I was excited to pull scrap strips in my favorite color palette of the moment.  I ended up raiding my stash as well, but it was worth it. I made 25 blocks; the quilt finishes at 60 inches square.  

The colors are moody and wintry, and the rich teals are a new obsession for me.  It is a hard color to find in fabrics.  I want it rich and saturated, without white accents that disrupt the value.  If you have a favorite dark turquoise or teal, let me know!

The Anna Maria Horner pastry voile I chose for the binding is the perfect teal.  And let me tell you, if you have not hand sewn a voile binding, you are missing out!  It was such a pleasure.  I will definitely be using it again.

I decided to try out  a new free motion quilting design.  I thought the busy quilt top would camouflage any imperfections, which thankfully seems to have been the case.  I picked the concentric circles design from Angela's first book.  The design is really quick and easy, although next time I will make the circles on a smaller scale (less than four inches across would be good I think), as the large circles were hard to keep even on my tiny machine.  I really love the texture they create, almost like raindrop ripples in a puddle.

The back is a text print from the Mama Said Sew line.  I saw it on lucyandnorman's gorgeous scrappy trip along quilt and had to have it.

You can find the throw sized quilt in my etsy shop.