Monthly Archives: May 2016

More Inspiration

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I bought two of Gwen Marston’s books some time ago…

and have been channeling her in my designs for over a year (you can click on the pictures below to see their captions):

“Gwen Visits the Farm” is the quilt I made for the Quilt Alliance contest this year
I made a bunch of Gwen Marston-style blocks at a recent retreat

Recently I saw that the (relatively) new iQuilt platform had two video classes taught by Gwen Marston.  The class I chose was quite short–a little over 2 hours–and I decided to watch the class over a weekend and make several little quilts using her techniques.

I’d already made a refrigerator quilt in Gwen’s style for an upcoming guild challenge,

art quilt, gwen marston

Refrigerator quilt inspired by Gwen Marston. Bev Manus came up with the idea for refrigerator quilts.

so I decided to make the new quilts 12″ x 12″ as well.  This is a great size for trying new things because there isn’t too much commitment of time or materials.

The first quilt was composed of half square triangle blocks, so I was able to try out the (fairly expensive) Loc Bloc ruler I recently bought to make trimming these blocks to size easier.  The ruler worked great with just a little practice, and I got to practice my machine quilting on the finished quilt.

refrigerator quilt

Quilt Front

Gwen’s instruction was to pair the triangles up into squares just as you picked them up, with the caveat that the pairs should have contrast between the fabrics.  Then the squares were to be sewn together into rows just as they were picked up.  She did allow that it would be OK to lay the rows out and look at them before sewing them together, but advised against spending a lot of time fussing over the exact layout.

Refrigerator Quilt

Quilt Back

I was pleased with this result.  The class doesn’t really cover anything that isn’t in her books, but I was happier watching a little and sewing a little than I am to just sit down and read a book.  I made a couple of other quilts, too, and I’ll show them next week.

 

Fixing an Oops

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I’m quilting a lap size quilt on my home machine. I’m not fond of the process, but custom quilting isn’t in my budget, so here I go. About half way through the process, I discovered a loose seam where, despite paper piecing, one seam allowance had been TOO small and the seam had opened up.  There wasn’t enough fabric to allow me to just overlap and top stitch the seam.  The edges barely met and, while one was a folded edge, the other was a raw edge.

fixing a quilt mistake

The opening was about an inch long

Luckily, I have a tool from garment sewing I used to fix it.

using stitch witchery to fix a quilting mistake

Stitch Witchery is a heat-activated glue in a strip

I used the Stitch Witchery to bond both sides of the seam to the batting.  This also stabilized the edges so they won’t fray.  Then I zig-zagged across the place.  Thank goodness it was a black-to-black seam so there’s no problem of one side of the zigzag showing on a colored block.

Fixed with minimal fuss

Fixed with minimal fuss

I’m not glad it happened, but I’m satisfied with the fix.  I will NOT be pointing it out to anyone looking at the finished quilt 🙂

Now I’m back to the quilting.  The piece is about half done.  I’ll show it to you when I finish.

Refrigerator Quilt

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A very artistic quilter in one of my guilds is making a series of “refrigerator quilts” as a challenge to herself. They are 12” x 12” and intended to be displayed on her refrigerator for one week, until she finishes the next one!
The guild took her idea as the challenge for May, so I’ve been making a little refrigerator quilt myself. I took my inspiration from Gwen Marston (again) and made a bunch of little freeform stars.

art quilt, gwen marston

Refrigerator quilt inspired by Gwen Marston. Bev Manus came up with the idea for refrigerator quilts.

The best part is that, because it is small, it was made almost entirely from scraps. I had enough scraps to make all the stars different yellows and all the backgrounds different blues.
The back is a piece of fabric I dyed in a class many years ago.

hand dyed fabric

Quilt back. This was dyed with Setacolor dyes

And I used it to practice my circular quilting.
Done!

Outdoor Quilt Show!

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Two of my guilds participated in the “Airing of the Quilts” yesterday. This is an event to attract tourists to our area, and it certainly does!

There were a number of guilds there, as well as several shops with tents. I just walked around and took pictures.Unfortunately, the makers were not identified since this isn’t a “real” quilt show, so I have all these lovely pictures of unidentified quilts. However, since they were on public display, I think it is fair to publish them. A few are mine 🙂Franklin NC

outdoor quilt showFranklin1Franklin8Franklin7Franklin6scrap quiltmodern quiltsmodern log cabin quilt

airing of the quilts

modern quiltMary J Puckett quiltMary J Puckett quilt

raffle quilt

This is the Smoky Mountain Quilters raffle quilt this year

Alison Glass fabrics quiltmodern wall hangingI hope you enjoyed these, even though you didn’t get to walk around in the beautiful spring sun to see them!

Quilt Alliance Contest

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Here’s my entry for the 2016 Quilt Alliance contest, “Playing Favorites “. The design is inspired by Gwen Marston’s work, and the piece is titled “Gwen Visits the Farm”. The black fabric has animal sounds printed on it: “peep” etc.

improvisational quilt

“Gwen Visits the Farm”

The “Playing Favorites” theme of the 2016 Quilt Alliance contest is intended to capture a picture of quilting in 2016 by asking contestants to make quilts using their favorite techniques.  I love improvisational quilting, and Gwen Marston was doing it long before anyone thought of the “modern” quilt movement!

In addition to making the quilt in Gwen Marston’s improvisational style, I quilted it using decorative stitches.  I’ve used several of the decorative stitches on my machine for quilting for a long time now.  However, I recently took a Craftsy class in which Jackie Gehring suggested using even more of the decorative stitches.  I think the stitching reflects the state of the art of quilting in 2016, as well.machine quilting

I’ve been thinking for YEARS of doing a series of quilts in the styles of my favorite quilt designers, so this is the first in that series. Please stay tuned!