Category Archives: Modern Quilts

Auction!

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Remember that quilt I made to donate to the Alliance for American Quilts “TWENTY” contest?  If not, you can see a section of it as the header for my blog, and you can read about it here.Rising Star for Web

In any case, the time has come!  The TWENTY entries have travelled to shows around the country and are now up for auction on eBay.  The group that includes my quilt will be auctioned starting at 9:00 EST (U.S.) tomorrow night.

I’ve been happy to learn about the Quilt Alliance over the past few months.  I originally donated a quilt because I liked the idea of the TWENTY challenge and I’m always donating quilts to various causes—who isn’t?  However, I’ve since learned that the Alliance has several missions I’m especially happy to support:

  • They promote awareness of quilting as a grassroots American art form
  • They document quilts so their stories aren’t lost, and encourage all quilters to document their work
  • They make their information available to the public through various forums, including an association with The University of Texas at Austin (where I went to school)

The Quilt Alliance has numerous projects to further their goals, and their staff are some of the nicest people I’ve encountered.  They have a fun blog that presents quilts from various periods in history, and you can subscribe by e-mail so you get to see different quilts from their records.

Check out the Quilt Alliance website and then check out the Ebay auction.  You may become a Quilt Alliance fan, too!

Oh, yes, and bid on the quilts.  Most of them are by people a lot more famous than I am  😉  You might enjoy going to the Ebay site just to look at the quilts!

Orphan Block Table Runner

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When I looked at my (er, large!) collection of orphan blocks, I found not only single blocks, but groups of blocks all from the same quilt, and several strips of blocks that looked like they had been almost included in a quilt.  The first such strip I came to was from an improvised batik quilt made with Bold Over Batiks and assorted others.  It was almost 24 inches long and 4 inches wide.

I cut the strip into a length of 12 inches and one of a few inches less, then added fabric to the shorter one so both were 12 inches.  I then joined them lengthwise with a black strip down the center:

table runner

Table runner made from a strip of leftovers

I made a backing by piecing together scraps from my current quilt, which happens to be batiks also.  I just put them together semi-randomly.  (You can see the current quilt at the end of this post.)

quilted table runner

The back was pieced from the scraps that happened to be on the top of the scrap bin!

I quilted the whole thing in the ditch and bound it in black.  I think I like the back almost as well as the front!

Of course, if you have individual orphan blocks instead of a strip, you can make a table runner by joining them, either with or without sashing.  I find that sashing is a good idea because it allows for the use of blocks of different sizes just by varying the size of the sashing.  (I made the mistake once of putting together a “group quilt” and it DEFINITELY required sashing individualized to each block, since apparently everybody in the group had a different idea of the size of a 9″ block.)  Sashing can save your bacon (or table runner) in a case like that.  So here’s a quilt design with blocks of 4 different sizes.  The blocks at the ends had extra sashing added.Table Runner

Finally, here’s a peek at the current quilt-in-progress.  It’s made from the FQs that jumped on me at Quiltfest in July and were shown at the end of an earlier post here. The quilt is up on my sticky wall with a label on each piece so I don’t get confused as I sew it together! Scraps from this were on top of the scrap pile, so I used them for the back of the table runner shown above.

Bermuda Sunrise quilt pattern

This pattern is Bermuda Sunrise

Hope everyone has a good week!

Make An Orphan Block Pillow

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Start by deciding what size and shape pillow you want; or start with the block you want to use and decide what size/shape pillow form to buy.

Once you have that pillow form home, measure from seam to seam to be sure it’s the size you think it is.  Add 1/2 inch to each dimension for seam allowances and you have the size to cut (or assemble) the front and back pieces.  For example:  Pillow form here is 16 x 16, so I’ll make the (unfinished) front and back pieces 16-1/2 x 16-1/2 inches.

I stated with an improvisationally pieced log cabin block and added logs to 2 sides to make it big enough.  While I was at it, I added pieces wider than I needed to allow for shrinkage during quilting and squaring up the final top.

I spray-basted and quilted the top with a thin batting and muslin backing.  However, a block will make a perfectly good pillow top without being quilted, like these:

To make the pillow cover easy to remove, I make an overlapping closure in the back.  It’s also fine to add a zipper to one of the edge seams IF you’ve got a zipper, and of course if you know how to put one in.  I do that sometimes, but there are lots of places on the web that show you how to put in a zipper, so I’m not doing it here.

To make the overlapping back:  Divide back width by 2 (16-1/2 divided by 2 = 8-1/4 in my case) and then add enough to each piece for overlap and hem.  “Enough” should be proportional to the size of the pillow, but in this case I added (8-1/4″ for back and one seam allowance + 1-1/4″ for hem + 2″ for overlap = 11-1/2″, which I rounded up to 12″).  So I cut two back pieces 12″ x 16-1/2″, then finished one of the long sides on each piece with a hem of 1/4″ first turn + 1″ second turn.

Next, I layed out the backing pieces with hemmed edges overlapping to make a square 16-1/2″ x 16-1/2″, and basted the overlapped edges together.  Put the front and back pieces right sides together, sew all around the edges with 1/4″ seam, turn right side out and insert the pillow.  Voila!

5 Great Uses for Orphan Blocks

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Orphan blocks (i.e., those not intended for a particular quilt “home”) JUST INCREASE ON THEIR OWN in the dark places where you store your quilt bits…I learned that I have SEVERAL HUNDRED when I started taking pix for this post.

They come from lots of places:

*The sample blocks you made to try out a new pattern before cutting the fabric for the quilt

*The extra blocks you made so you’d have design choices in a quilt top

*The “found” blocks that just JUMPED ON YOU at a garage sale or thrift shop

*The single blocks you made at quilt classes but didn’t like well enough to duplicate for a whole quilt

*And the ones that JUST SHOWED UP and you have NO IDEA what they’re doing there

You get the idea—there are many sources of orphan blocks and many of us have quite a collection.

Therefore, I’m starting a little series of posts about what to do with them.  Here’s my list; I’ll write a separate “how-to” post on each use.  I know I’ll learn things along the way; hopefully my readers will, too!  So here we GO…

#5:  Decorate a tote bag.  You don’t even have to make the tote bag yourself!  These make great gifts.

#4:  Make a throw pillow.  Quilt it or not.  Use to spruce up your couch or as a housewarming gift.

#3:  Decorate a “work shirt”.  Great gift for quilty friends.

#2:  Make a table runner.  Keep on hand for hostess gifts, etc.  And a good build-up to my favorite:

#1:  Make a scrap quilt with an orphan-block focal point—MANY options with this one!

As you can see from the pix at the top and below, I have lots of orphan blocks to use!  I hope you’ll try out some of these ideas as I post instructions for them.

Improving My Quilt Pix

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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Another version of “Turning Twenty Again”, this time with my improvisational border

So, this is what a typical picture of one of my quilts has looked like in the past:  Yes, that’s my husband’s head, and the edge of the rug in the TV room…well, you get the idea.  And in fairness, most of these pictures were taken years before I ever thought of having a blog and publishing them.  Let’s just say they’re less than perfect!

Since I started the blog, I’ve tried to improve the old pictures with editing software.  Most of the quilts are long gone to friends, customers, or both, so I don’t have the originals to make new photographs.  After photo editing, the quilts were a bit easier to see, but the photos still weren’t exactly professional looking!  See below.

This is a slight variation on Birthday Presents, by Atkinson Designs; it made a great baby quilt

This is a slight variation on Birthday Presents, by Atkinson Designs; it made a great baby quilt

I looked at a LOT of quilt pics on Flickr; most weren’t any better than mine.  I looked at books and catalogs.  The best quilt portraits I found were in the Keepsake Quilting catalog.  They showed the quilts in nice settings, not just a straight-on picture of the quilt.  I like this approach because it shows the mood of the quilt, not just the design.

Concentric Squares Batik

I love batiks and love making variations on concentric squares, so I enjoyed making this quilt

I started trying to make better “quilt portraits”, showing more than just a straight-on shot of the quilt.  I’ve found that a picture taken with the recipient is very nice.  This next picture was sent to me by a friend who bought one of my quilts as a gift.  Although it is clearly a snapshot rather than a professional photo, I think it does a nice job of being a portrait of the quilt (and the recipient).  It has personality, which is lacking in the straight-on shots even if they show the whole quilt better.

I’m off to make some quilt portraits of my own, having learned a thing or two that I hope will improve the shots for my blog.  Check back next week and see what you think of my “quilt portraits”.

Modern Donation Quilt

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Donation quilts are a great use for scraps, but they aren’t usually very exciting to make.  I make them more interesting by trying something new with each quilt.  

Most donation quilts are smaller than bed size, which makes them a good place to try new things.  Here’s an example where I “tweaked” the usual quilt design in several ways to make it more modern while still using older fabric from my stash.

First, this is a typical donation quilt. usual donation labelled It’s made 40″ x 40″ as requested by the charity, and it used up a fair number of those 5” charm squares that seem to reproduce themselves while the fabric closet door is closed. I used it to practice some of the quilting designs I’m learning in Leah Day’s Craftsy class, so I did learn something in making it.

And here’s what I decided to do on the next donation quilt for a children’s charity to make it more modern.  Ronald Labelled

I made these changes to made this design more modern:

  1. The blocks are rectangles rather than squares.  It didn’t use up any charm squares, but it did use come cute fabric I’ve had for a while.
  2. I found a nice coordinating almost-solid in my stash.  (Solids are commonly used in modern quilts.)
  3. The rows run vertically and are offset by a half block starting alternate rows.  This breaks up the usual march of blocks across the quilt, making a diagonal zigzag pattern.  It doesn’t hurt that the quilt also is easier to construct because there are no corners to match 😉
  4. The quilt was designed without a border.

If you’d like to make a quilt like this, I’ve made a separate page with instructions; click on this link.  If you make a quilt from this, send me a picture!