Aurifil Artisan - April Challenge

Each month, the Aurifil Artisans have a fun challenge, this month it is favorite Aurifil thread weight.  I am joining in by showcasing a quilt made with my favorite weight, 50 wt.

50 wt is my most used and favorite weight.  It is perfect for piecing, machine applique, and quilting.  For the quilting, if you use a matching thread color, the 50 wt is thin enough to blend in with the fabric well to leave a great texture.  On the other hand, it is thick enough to stand out when wanting to make a statement while quilting, like in this mini quilt.

I made this mini quilt as part of my Modern Design Lab group.  Each month, a member selects an image or object and then we make a quilt using that as inspiration.  For this quilt, Paige (Quilted Blooms) picked a picture of the Library of Birmingham in England.  The library is very cool as it has an orange peel like grate covering the outside of the building.

You can see the inspiration photo here.

I pieced the mini quilt using Aurifil 2024 (white) in 50 wt and then I got to the star of the show, the quilting.

I took one of my cups from my kitchen and used it to mark the orange peel design all over the quilt top (this was very doable as the quilt is only about 15" x 18").

Next I used Aurifil 2692 (black) in 50 wt and my free motion foot to trace around each orange shape about 3-4 times. I normally go for quilting thread that blends into the background but am so glad I went bold on this quilt.

What is your favorite thread weight?

Feathered Kaleidoscope ++ mini quilt

I recently participated in a South Carolina Modern Quilt Guild mini quilt swap and I would love to show you what I made and the mini i got in return.

The mini swap was between members of the of the three Modern Quilt Guilds in South Carolina, Greenville MQG (my guild), Palmetto MQG (Columbia) and Charleston MQG. The rules were that the mini had to be less than 24" on each side and no extras were allowed to be included.

I was given my swap partners name, Leesa (from the Palmetto guild) and her preferences. She was really open to most designs and colors.

A feathered star has been on my bucket list for the longest time so I figured this was the perfect opportunity to make one (and with it being a mini, I only had to make one block :)

I wanted the points to match well, so I designed a feathered star that was paper pieced. The block measures 18 ½" square and then I added 2" borders for a finished quilt size of 22 ½" square.

I kept the quilting simple because there was so much going on with the piecing.  I simply echoed the seam lines in the star and the background using 50 wt Aurifil thread that matched the fabric.

I used a larger scale Anna Maria Horner print for the backing.  I really like this print and would love to have a shirt or dress made of out it (another thing for the to-do list :)

Take a look at what my swap partner Whitner (from the Charleston guild) made me, I think that I was the luckiest swap recipient!!  I love it!!

I had not done a swap in so long and I had such fun, many thanks to the quilters who organized the swap!

Do you like the paper pieced Feathered Kaleidoscope block?  Would you like it to be offered as a pattern?  If yes, besides a quilt mini, what other quilt sizes would you like the pattern to include?

Ruminate ++ Mini Quilt Finish

It's that time of the year again...each fall, Amy, who blogs over at Amy's Creative Side, hosts the Blogger's Quilt Festival on her blog.  We are allowed to link up two quilts and have the opportunity to visit and be inspired by other blogger's wonderful quilts.  

My first entry to the festival is my latest finish I have named Ruminate.  Ruminate is a verb meaning to think about seriously and I think that it fits my latest quilt finish very well.

I started this quilt back at QuiltCon 2017 (a year and a half ago) in a workshop on improv by Densye Schmidt.  In the workshop, we were supposed to start with a traditional block and after making a few regular blocks, we started playing with shape, scale, and size.

I started with the L Block which is shown below.  My L blocks become long and skinny, teeny tiny, and lopsided. I had fun at the workshop, but was totally stumped as to how to fit all of these odd sized blocks together into a quilt top.

So I left my blocks in a bag to age like fine wine for about 18 months until I was cleaning my sewing room and decided to either donate the blocks or get them sewn together.

I started by sewing pairs of like sized blocks together and then piecing the pairs together, sometimes adding an extra piece of fabric, sometimes trimming the blocks to fit.

My finished quilt top was about 24" x 30" and I wound up using almost every block I had made in the workshop.

Once I basted the quilt, I ruminated on the quilting design for a couple of weeks. Eventually I decided to use three main groupings of lines that intersected randomly across the quilt top and then added echoing lines around these groupings.

Unfortunately, because my quilt top was a little wavy (due to the blocks being cut without rulers and how the blocks were sewn together), as I quilted the straight lines, I wound up with more and more quilt top excess and was starting to get puckering of the quilt top.

I changed my quilting design after I had the initial three groups of lines and instead quilted a small bear claw design in the remaining areas. This helped to take up the excess quilt top fabric and prevented any tucks in the quilt top.

For the quilting I used a variety of Aurifil thread weights in black, white, gray, and yellow. I used 50 wt, 28 wt, and 12 wt. The 12 wt makes a bold statement on the quilt top and really stands out again the busy, print filled quilt top.

Framing the quilt with a binding did not seem like the way to go so I used a facing instead. I am thinking of hanging this quilt somewhere in my house. I am pretty happy with the way it turned and how much I learned along the way.

Thank you for stopping by through the Bloggers Quilt Festival, I hope that you stick around a bit and check out the rest of my blog :)  Here are some links...

Free Quilt Alongs

Tutorials

Pattern Writing 101

2018 Quilt Finishes

Meadow Mist Designs Etsy Shop

Subscribe via Bloglovin

Subscribe via Email

I am also linking up with the fun new linky party that Michelle @ From Bolt to Beauty is hosting called Brag About Your Beauties.

Flew Away ++ Mini Quilt

I have a fun mini quilt to share with you today...Flew Away...

I made Flew Away for my local modern quilt guild's, the Greenville Modern Guild Guild, mini quilt challenge.

The challenge was to take a traditional quilt block that started with the same letter as your name (first, middle, or last) and modernize it.  The quilt had to be a mini size, no larger than 36" on any side.

I was looking through my favorite quilt block book Jinny Beyer: The Quilter's Album of Patchwork Patterns to find a good block when I stumbled on the beggars block.  It worked as my last name is Brickey.  The beggars block is a 9-patch block with butterfly-like units in the outer 8 squares.  Here is one full block:

 
To modernize the design, I started with a full design of 9 blocks, 3 blocks x 3 blocks (so 81 butterfly units) and used my Subtracting for Minimalism technique (which I will be teaching at QuiltCon) to selectively remove some of the elements for a more scattered, minimal, and random looking design.

I thought the design looked like some of the butterflies flew away and that is how the quilt got its name.

Each of the butterfly units finished at 3" square so I used paper piecing to get all of the little points to match.  I added a 3" border to help the design float on the negative space.  The quilt top measured 33 ½" and the quilt (after quilting and blocking) measured about 32".

For the quilting, I wanted to make a plaid using thread.  In each "stripe" I used Aurifil thread in 12 wt., 28 wt., and 80 wt.  I marked the center lines through the blocks (the thickest 12 wt. thread) and then used my walking foot to space the other lines.  It was a lot of straight line quilting but luckily the quilt was pretty small. 

All total, there were 15 mini quilts submitted for the GMQG mini quilt challenge and I got 2 ribbons :)  I won a judge's choice ribbon and the viewers' choice ribbon.  You can see all of the entries for the challenge here.

Four Mini Quilts

For the last two years, I have been the president of the Greenville Modern Quilt Guild (and vice-president for two years before that).  It has been a joy to see our guild grow and flourish and I have built strong friendships with some wonderful women.  I am happy to step down at the end of the year and hand over the reins to our new president.

During my presidency, we grew from 7 members to 54, became a non-profit, and joined the Modern Quilt Guild.  We were a new guide so we did not have much money to bring in speakers and therefore relied on our own members for our content.

I am in awe of the talent that we have in our group and so grateful for them to have shared their talents and their time for our guide.  I wanted to make a special thank you for each member that contributed to the group that held a chair position and/or presented a presentation, tutorial, or workshop in 2015 and 2016.

Today, I would like to share four mini quilts that I gifted some of our members.

The first mini quilt went to a member who (in addition to many other things) taught a paper piecing workshop.  I used the pineapple block I made for the free pineapple block template I have up on Craftsy and finished it into a 6" x 6" finished mini.  I straight line quilted the mini following the seams in the block.

The next mini quilt went to a member who taught a gentle curves workshop and a tutorial on facing a quilt.  I used the block I made in the workshop to make this mini adding some gentle walking foot curvy lines and some facing.  It finished at about 10" x 14".

I made a mini for our vice-president who also had taught a tutorial on raw edge appliqueing while quilting.  She likes bright colors and whimsical details so hopefully she likes this 6" x 8" mini made using the technique.   

The final mini I am sharing today goes to our secretary and webmaster extraordinaire.  For this 8" x 10" mini I used a block I had made in Bill Kerr's modern quilt design class from QuiltCon 2015 along with some of the fancier stitches on my Bernina.

I hope that my gratitude for our wonderful Greenville Modern Quilt members comes through with these little gifts.

I am linking up to Link a Finish Friday, Whoop Whoop Friday, Thank Goodness Its Finished Friday, Finish It Up Friday, Fabric Frenzy Friday, and Show Off Saturday @ Sew Can She.

MQG 10 x 10 Challenge

I saw back in September that the Machine Quilting Unlimited magazine was hosting a challenge to celebrate their 10 year anniversary. The rules were to create a 10" x 10" (finished) mini quilt that referenced the number 10 in some way.

I have been working on a bunch of secret sewing projects and was happy to be able to create this mini to break up the larger sewing projects.

Being that the theme of the mini quilt revolved around time, I felt that the hourglass block would be a fitting starting point. I modernized the hourglass by forming the block from random solid stripes and by the orientation and placement within the quilt top. 

 The number 10 is represented in the mini quilt by the use of the 10 colored stripes that make up the deconstructed hourglass block. I used paper piecing to sew the block to maintain the alignment and spacing of the strips.

I quilted the quilt by echoing two interacting curves.  I just traced the curve of a plate onto the quilt and then echoed the line.  I auditioned a bunch of alternatives for the binding and thought that the striped binding really added a fun detail. 

Alas, I was not one of the ten finalists, just a had a great time making the mini!

I am linking up to Link a Finish Friday, Whoop Whoop Friday, Thank Goodness Its Finished Friday, Finish It Up Friday, Fabric Frenzy Friday, Show Off Saturday @ Sew Can She, and for the first time Finished or Not Friday @ Busy Hands Quilts.

Crush With Eyeliner - Quilt Finish

My local Modern Quilt Guild, the Greenville MQG, recently had a challenge to create a mini quilt (no more than 36" on a side) using white, gray, and black fabrics (solid or print) along with a pop of just one color. The reveal was last weekend and I would love to show you the mini and take you through my process of making it.

I have been in sort of a minimalist kick recently, wanted to play with the petal shape, and wanted a chance to try out Lara from BuzzinBumble's Crafted Applique technique (that she teaches in her Crafted Applique book).

With those parameters, I started with some Kona black and some petal shapes I cut out of construction paper. I cut a bunch of different sizes of petals to play with them and decide on number, size, and orientation before cutting into actual fabric. I was originally going to cut the petals using a template, but I really liked how my slightly imperfect paper petals looks so I decided to cut the fabric petals freehand too.

To make sure that there would be no black shadowing through the petals I used two layers of white fabric (each treated with the crafted applique technique). The petals were really stiff so I would not do this on a lap or bed quilt, but for my small wall hanging it was perfect and no black showed through the white.

Now for the pop of color - I had some Timeless Treasures white and black striped fabric and loved how it looked with the white petals and black background. I needed a pop of color and tried a bunch of other prints and solids, but kept coming back to the striped fabric.

Just for fun, I decided to paint the fabric to color the white part of the fabric a color using my children's Crayola washable water color paints. I had a great time "creating" new fabrics and tried out a bunch of colors until I settled on a dark teal/blue color. I will admit that I was not thinking about longevity of the colors (more on that later in the story).

So I painted a bunch of the striped fabric with the teal/blue paint, let it dry, applied the crafted applique technique, and then cut out some petal shapes.

I attached all of the petals onto the back fabric by machine stitching along the outer edge of the petal, then layered the quilt top to prepare for quilting. I outlined the petals and then filled in all of the negative space with pebbles. Because the quilt was so small (18" x 22") the quilting went pretty quickly.  I used a black Aurifil 40 wt (number) for the background quilting to match the Kona black. The 40 wt is just a little thicker than my usual 50 wt and helps the quilting show up more.

I was originally going to face the quilt, but when I had basted it and saw the batting behind the quilt top, I really liked how the quilt top looked framed so I bound the quilt using white fabric.

After the quilt was bound, I noticed that the petals were getting pretty wavy due to the fact that the background was heavily quilted and the petals were not quilted at all. So after the quilt was already bound I went back and added the extra quilting in the petals using white Aurifil 50 wt (2024). I used the 50 wt because I did not want the quilting to overshadow the petals.

At this point, I was way ahead of schedule and then quilt sat for about a month. The day before the quilt meeting (and challenge reveal), I noticed that my pop of color no longer had the same amount of pop as it once had, the blue had faded to a much lighter blue. So I sat in my kitchen and recolored in all of the blue parts with paint again.

If I were to remake this quilt I would have quilted the entire background before applying the applique and would definitely have looked into more permanent coloring options designed for fabric to add the color.

We had a great turnout for the challenge with 10 mini quilts being submitted and I got 3rd place for my quilt.

I love that challenges, they are a great reason to try something new (design, technique, etc) and for someone who is not an applique lover, Lara's Crafted Applique technique is awesome and makes applique much quicker and easier!

I am linking up to Link a Finish Friday, Whoop Whoop Friday, Thank Goodness Its Finished Friday, Finish It Up Friday, Fabric Frenzy Friday, and Show Off Saturday @ Sew Can She.

Mini Mini from Yvonne of Quilting Jetgirl

I want to show you my first mini, mini quilt I received from Yvonne @ Quilting Jetgirl, I love it!

Yvonne recently started a Quilting Jetgirl Patreon page and had asked me to give her proposal a read through before it went live. Patreon is way of having pledged monthly continued support. I mentioned that I would be interested in supporting her blog, but I really disliked monthly bills (just another thing to keep track of and make sure I enter it into my financial software). Yvonne created some Etsy listings for one time support and I was happy to be the first purchaser :)

As part of the etsy support purchase, I got the mini mini quilt.  Yvonne had asked what I would like in a mini mini and after telling her that I love everything she makes I told her that my favorite color was blue and that I loved her free motion quilting.

What do you think?  I think that she nailed it, I love this mini mini (it is my first one) and it is going on my wall by my sewing machine so I can see it each time I sew!

Thanks Yvonne!

Valentine's Day Mini Quilt

Happy Valentine's Day!  Today I am sharing a quick Valentine's Day mini that I just finished yesterday. The quilt pattern is by Diane Bohn of From Blank Pages and is a free download from Craftsy.

I finished the top about a week ago as an example to show at the paper piecing program for our February Greenville Modern Quilt Guild meeting.  I had no plans on what to do with the top after the meeting, but decided that I should finish it into something useful instead of it going in the ever-growing WIP pile.

With a little cross-hatch quilting and binding, the mini was quickly finished in time to enjoy for Valentine's Day :)  For the quilting, I marked two diagonal lines on the quilt top and used the edge of my walking foot for spacing so the lines are about 3/8" apart.  The mini finished about 9.5" x 9.5".