Tropical Garden, a rail fence quilt

Last week, I found new inspiration with a unique color combination and a simple rail fence pattern:

I love this pattern. It reminds me of some of the Amish quilts I’ve seen, both at the remarkable exhibit this fall at the De Young museum, and in a number of books, including Amish Abstractions and A Treasury of Amish Quilts. More on those books in a future post!

The Amish have a genius for taking a straightforward, geometric pattern and turning it into abstract art their their use of color and line. I tried using their thinking and applying it to a more tropical, Asian-inspired palette from Connecting Threads’ “Sweet and Sour” fabric line. I was happy with the result.

I hope the one-year-old recipient will like it, too. I made it for a great friend/terrific crafting buddy’s baby son for his birthday. I’d been itching to find the right colors and pattern that would be sophisticated enough for his mom’s tasteful home but fun for baby, too. Kids tend to enjoy saturated colors (more than we give them credit for with the prevalence of pastels!).

I experimented with the use of contrasting and matching thread for my free motion quilting here. I think I liked the way the matching thread (green on the borders) turned out, but the contrasting purple in the center of the quilt was interesting, too, because to me, it looked like a deep, dark river running through this geometric jungle:

My sewing machine found this quilt a little too much to handle for some reason and had to take a little “vacation” in the shop. So I’m going to take a break from quilting until she’s in tip-top shape again. Time for some more easy knitting!

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More fabric on my floor

My quilting ideas have proceeded at a manic pace the last few days. I had these strips lying around from a project I’d decided not to do. Background: it was a “mystery” pattern revealed at a club event, and I realized I’d need a massive design wall – not just my floor – to make it work, and even then I was not sure I’d like the results. I elected to rethink. I came up with a pattern that I found in this book:

I’ve already done one pattern from this book, Garden Trellis. At first I wasn’t sure about it because it looked so busy. Later, I decided I loved it, and made two little play quilts for my daughters out of the blocks:

The 1930s fabrics are incredibly cheerful. Now I smile when I see them, despite the flaws that I made as a brand-new quiltmaker. (For example: in the corners of one quilt, I trimmed too deeply before I finished quilting the layers, and the back fabric wasn’t enough to cover up to the binding. So, I just added a patch there and in another corner, so batting wouldn’t pop out!) The girls love them for their beds, the couch, the floor, and around their waists as “mermaid tails” every now and then.

Now, I’m planning to turn my new red/pink/blue (carefully augmented with a few creamy neutrals) jelly roll into the Spiral Strips pattern.

The construction is similar to the Garden Trellis, but a little funkier. You sew four strips together (dark fabric, light fabric, dark, light – more or less!), then cut into squares containing four strips. Then each square is cut into two triangles (“half square triangles,” as they’re usually called). After that you pick 4 triangles from the pile you’ve cut and sew them together to create a large square block. The darks and lights contrast and the effect is almost like a kaleidescope, depending on fabric choices. It could look very busy, but I think it should be pretty.

One warning the book gives: beware bias edges. When you cut the squares into big triangles, you get edges cut on the bias, which can stretch and generally misbehave. Handle with care.

Also: dogs and fabric do not mix, as anyone in their right mind would know… I think last night our Corgi got a little too friendly with some of the strips and her shed fur is tell-tale evidence of this midnight rendezvous. I need to get these off the floor quick!

More pix will follow once I make a block or two!

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Bags completed. On to next projects!

I finished the last teacher-gift bag and here it is. We gave them out at my daughter’s preschool “graduation” last week and I was complimented as a “great seamstress.” It made me laugh- I’ve pictured myself as great at a lot of things, but never as a “seamstress”! Luckily, I’ve noted that the more “modern” term is “sewist.” I think I like that better, though it does sound a bit made-up.

Now I can move on to a few other projects. I recently got into the “strip club” act at my local quilt shop. It’s not what you (might) think – it’s a monthly club for making quilts from 2.5 inch strips, or “jelly rolls,” and also from other pre-cut fabrics. Getting your fabric cut for you saves a ton of time, of course, so I decided to give it a whirl.

This month they’re doing pre-cut 5 inch squares. This project spent an afternoon on my living room floor:

Call me crazy, I now have 256 squares to put together. Hm. Maybe making a queen size quilt was NOT the most brilliant idea in the world. I’ll still need to attach sashing and cornerstones once I finish the four patch square units, so this will be a VERY long project. I have promised myself I will not do the quilting part myself – I’ll just complete the patchwork top and send it off to a long arm quilter to finish it for me. There is no way my little Kenmore could fit this monster under her arm! This quilt is destined for my bed, if it’s ever finished.

I also am brewing up a quilt with a jelly roll that I keep having to add to, because of the colors I found inside it once I opened it up. It’s another strip club project, but I’ve decided to get funky with the fabric and do a different pattern than the club suggested, one with lots of cutting and rearranging. More on that soon.

And I have vowed to finish the quilting on my rainbow quilt this week, too. Perhaps I could even bind it by next week. Fingers crossed, if it’s not too swelteringly hot and the kids are happy playing and doing art without provoking each other’s wrath, a little more progress will be made!

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