9 Quilts from AQS Paducah

Posted on May 10, 2015 by zippyquilts

Many quilters consider the AQS (American Quilters Society) annual show in Paducah, Kentucky the top of the heap among quilt shows. So, I just had to go see for myself this year.

For Tanya, by Emily and Miriam Coffey, won first place in the Modern Wall Quilt category

Here are some of my favorite quilts from the show. If some of them look a little wonky, it’s because they hang the quilts in 3-sided booths and then don’t let you into the booth! The result is that, unless the quilt you want to photograph is directly at the back of the booth, you can’t get a straight shot of it. Enjoy the pictures anyway!

Flowers and Gears, by Robbi Joy Eklow, won a ribbon in the Longarm Quilted Small Wall Quilt category

I had a great time in Paducah, because I had a friend with me and we found COOKIES! Luckily my friend knew where to find good food and a good place to stay 🙂

It Takes the Case, by Karlyn Bue Lohrenz, won a ribbon in the category of Large Wall Quilts–Pictorial

I have pictures of a few of my favorite quilts here, but on the whole this show had fewer quilts that I really loved than any show I’ve attended in the past year. Probably because of the emphasis on “show quilts”.

In the Marsh #2, by Carol Bryer Fallert-Gentry

However, there were some outstanding quilts like the ones above and below. I suppose they are “show quilts” too, but they are not so heavily quilted that they appear 3-dimensional, and they don’t have rhinestones!

Canola Fields, by Leah Gravells, was made of 199 strips 3/4 inch wide–and she got them all straight!

One of the reasons I go to shows is to be inspired, and these quilts certainly were inspiring!

Boardwalks of Asilomar, byt Jody H. Rusconi, was one of the few improvisational quilts in the show

Playing It, by Pam Beal, was another nice improvisational quilt

Windows #1-Antigua, by Brenda S. Wall

Rainbow Play by Brenda S. Roach

Rhythmic, by Karen Neary

One Quilt, Two Lessons

Posted on April 26, 2015 by zippyquilts

Check out these fabrics!

Alison Glass Handprint fabric and neutral linen

A friend gave me the FQ (fat quarter) bundle of lovely Alison Glass handprint fabric and I combined it with a neutral linen fabric I’d been saving for something special. I started with Karla Alexander’s instructions for a quilt, but (as my friends all know) I never really follow instructions so it diverged…

The blocks were lots of fun to make. I followed the instructions for a while, then started cutting the blocks up and inserting strips. Then decided NOT to trim all the blocks to one size. I adjusted the sizes of the linen sashing so that all the rows came out the same length, and made the rows of different heights to allow for the different block sizes.

And I slashed the sashing and inserted some strips in that, too.

When I had the top all made, I basted it with spray basting as usual. BUT I didn’t have enough of the first can. Then the SECOND can was a different brand and almost empty as well!

Determined to get the doggone thing basted, I resorted to some spray-on stuff that was supposed to bond the fabric to the batting when I ironed it. This last stuff left SPOTS on the handprint fabric, which is light weight (almost like voile). YIKES!

Lesson 1: Be patient until you can get to the store for a can of basting spray.

Finally (after buying basting spray) it was basted and I started quilting. Enter Lesson 2: this linen is a loose weave of large fibers and doesn’t play well with a tight weave of small fibers. YIKES AGAIN! No matter how I changed the pressure on the quilting foot or otherwise fiddled with it, the quilting distorted the top and the backing.

The finished quilt

Now it’s finished and I like it. I appreciate the texture of the linen, but I’m not sure I’ll use it again. I took this to my last modern guild meeting and people were positive about it, but one of the more experience sewists told me linen is usually stretchy, so at least it’s not just me!

Here’s the quilt back–that column was straight when I started!

Well, I try to learn something new every day, so I’m calling this a SUCCESS! 😉

Tessellations! By Jean Larson

Posted on February 15, 2015 by zippyquilts

As promised, my friend Jean Larson has written a tutorial on tessellation quilts. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did! –MJP

Tessellating designs make me happy. Tweaking those designs is even more fun. I want to share the joy of starting with a very, very simple design and watching it blossom. My inspiration comes from this web site: http://gwydir.demon.co.uk/jo/tess/

Start with a simple gridded block and create a light/dark design. Here, I’ve started with a 3 x 3 grid. Then re-color the same block with the lights and darks reversed

.The grid lines are only for design purposes, and each block can be constructed with a single square block with 2 corner triangles attached using any method you prefer.

Here are some design possibilities…A simple “cat head” quilt using only 2 colors.

Different looks can be achieved with variations in the color placement.

Blocks can be inverted and turned for even more quilt designs.

Just imagine all the possibilities with color in these!!!!!

It’s even more complex when you design with a 6×6 grid. Here are the positive and negative versions of another block.

These blocks can be constructed using half-square triangles integrated with larger fabric pieces. If these blocks were to finish at 6 inches by 6 inches. The center column on each block would be a single 3.5 inch wide by 6.5 in long piece of fabric. The side strips would include some half-square triangles.

A couple of the quilts that can be made:

Looks like spools, some gray, some white, all standing up. Same quilt with alternate blocks turned a quarter turn yields a different clearly recognizable tessellation. Reminds me of tessellating doggie rawhide chews 😉

Now back to the spool quilt from above. The “thread” areas have been colored in. No blocks have been turned.

This shows the power of color and value (lightness and darkness). The colored part, being next to the gray and being closer in value to the gray, unites those parts of the block, and gives the illusion that we have all gray spools on a white background, some standing up, some lying down.

I hope these examples can be the seeds to sprout some design experimentation with tessellating shapes.

Start with 2 square grids
Create a positive design, and its negative design
Alternate them in a quilt layout
PLAY!
And play more with color!

Happy Quilting (and Designing)!! –Jean Larson

Year End Review

Posted on December 28, 2014 by zippyquilts

For better or worse, I published goals at the beginning of the year, so here’s the review of my progress:
I met all the goals! (Does that mean I didn’t set them high enough?) I retreated with my buddies THREE times instead of just two! I attended 3 big national shows as well as 2 local ones (all were excellent). I took a couple of fun and useful classes, one of which I still need to write up here so you’ll know about it. I submitted several quilts to shows/contests and 3 were accepted. The one I donated to the Quilt Alliance even won something, and sold for $300 to benefit the Quilt Alliance! And I had lots of fun, which was really the point of it all.

Here are pictures of a few of my projects from the second half of the year. The pix of projects from the first half of the year are in this post.

Spring Sun, a design by me, using blocks paper pieced from a totally different Judy Niemeyer pattern! It took about 2 years, but it’s now DONE.

Zippy Star Quilt and Pillow as shown in Modern Quilts Unlimited, Summer 2014

Packet of Posy Seeds, done for the Michael Miller spring challenge

Zippy Star I, which sold at the Asheville Quilt Show in September. This was my “practice piece” for the MQU quilt shown above.

Donation quilt for Ronald McDonald House. I’m going to work more on using up orphan blocks next year.

And, despite the risk, here’s what I plan for the coming year:

1. I’ll retreat with my buddies at least twice, probably 3 times again!

2. I’ll attend one big national quilt show, maybe two. I’ll attend at least one local show.

3. I will limit much more strictly the shows and challenges I enter. It takes too much time and effort that could be spent on making what I want to make 🙂

4. I’ll continue to make donation quilts, including one for the Quilt Alliance. Please consider making one for the Quilt Alliance yourself. You can read about their mission here. Click on “2015 Quilt Contest” to learn about this year’s challenge.

5. I’ll continue my blog, and I think I’ll put up instructions for a few easy donation quilts just in case somebody is looking for ideas.

What’s coming up for you?

10 Quilty Secrets

Posted on August 31, 2014 by zippyquilts

Several of the blogs I read have recently revealed “10 Quilty Secrets” and I thought it sounded like fun, so I’m playing along. If you would like to see some other bloggers’ secrets, here are the links: The original post seems to have been at 13Spools.com, and the idea has been picked up by several blogs I follow, including Catbird quilts, wombat quilts, and Christa quilts.

And so, here are my 10 Quilty Secrets:

1. Although I’m participating in Marti’s UFO (unfinished object) finish-a-month this year, I had FAR MORE than 12 UFOs at the beginning of the year. Oops, still do! Here’s the August finish, a quilt for Ronald McDonald House made from orphan blocks:

2. My nearest LQS (Local Quilt Shop) is an hour away, which I take as an excuse to have a good stash at all times 😉

3. If I start a quilt and don’t like it for some reason, I abandon the plan and turn it into something else–another quilt design, a table runner, whatever.

4. And sometimes those I-don’t-like-this projects just become long term UFOs 😦

5. In my world, a good quilt is a fast quilt. I’m not patient enough for the zillions of little hand-pieced hexies, for example.

6. For that matter, I DON’T EVEN LIKE hexies! Yikes!

7. I value good design in quilts and in other useful objects.

8. I LOVE to learn new techniques and try new things, so I take lots of classes Even if they seem like stuff I could do easily without a class I always learn something.

9. We’ve moved a lot, and one of the best ways I’ve found to make new friends is to join a local quilt group.

10. I think every quilt needs a little purple!

So, what are some of YOUR quilty secrets?

6 Orphan Blocks, 1 Donation Quilt

Posted on August 17, 2014 by zippyquilts

I’ve probably mentioned that one of the ways I’m motivating myself to get rid of the excess in the studio is by joining Marti’s UFO finish of the month over at 52 Quilts. As part of my ongoing effort to “clean it up, move it out” I’m making a series of donation quilts out of my orphan blocks.

Orphan blocks from a recent project

I had these 6 blocks that I liked, so I looked for fabric to go with them. The bright turquoise went well, but I had enough to join them only, not to frame them. Searching for something to make it wider, I found a piece of black/white chevron fabric and decided it needed to be used, and FAST.

My daughter recently point out, “When you find chevrons on your mouthwash bottle, they’re on the way out!” 😀

Finally, I had some colorful Michael Miller dots that seemed to fit in:

And WOW! A very “lively” improvised quilt.

I’m going to practice free motion quilting it on my new Bernina, and it will be the August UFO finish of the month. Then off to Ronald McDonald House it goes.

11 Favorites from AQS Charlotte

Posted on August 10, 2014 by zippyquilts

The quilts at AQS in Charlotte were inspiring, and there were more modern ones than at most AQS shows. Here are 11of my favorites. They aren’t necessarily the judges’ favorites; those are available on the AQS website here. I judge mainly on innovative or attractive overall design; the judges have another set of rules. I hope you enjoy my choices!

Joy, by Peg Collins of Colorado

The Modern Design Challenge had loads of great quilts, but I only took pictures of my very, very favorites:

This quilt by Jean Larson won the Original Design award

The Market is Up, another quilt by Jean Larson

Mid-Century Modern II, by Serena Brooks, won the Improvisation award

Canopy by Helen Garland

There was a display of art quilts, including this one by an art quilter whose work I really like:

Artfabrik, by Laura Wasilowski

And I liked this quilt by Miriam C. Coffey, who is in one of my guilds:

This, That, and the Other, by Miriam C. Coffey

And there was a big display of quilts from the Tentmakers of Cairo. I’d heard about them (from you, Bert!) so I was glad to see some of their work:

quilt by Haissan Kamal

And finally, some quilts I just liked for various reasons:

Jane As A Teenager, by Anya Tyson

Out of my Box, by Kathy McNeil

Fiesta Fireworks by Julia Graber

Excitement x 3!!!

Posted on July 13, 2014 by zippyquilts

Woo! It’s been an exciting week!
My entry in the Quilt Alliance “Inspired By” Challenge won 3rd place! Here’s a picture of it, and below that is a link that will take you to a short video showing all the winners! I am SO excited!

Whirlwind, my 2015 Quilt Alliance challenge quilt

And HERE is a link that will show you all the winners in a very short youtube video.

The quilt will now tour with the other entries and will be auctioned on Ebay next fall to benefit the Quilt Alliance.

And here’s a picture of the second excitement: [photo] I finally finished my quilt for the Michael Miller challenge. It’s a packet of flower seeds with the new scanning code I now see on items at the nursery, composed of multiple colored triangles. I don’t think you can scan mine; I designed it based on the code but didn’t copy exactly.

Packet of Posy Seeds

Finally, I had a “very significant birthday” and my husband gave me a new Bernina

Bernina 550 QE

for the occasion! I’ll be reviewing it after I’ve used it for a while. For now I’m just enjoying trying out all the features!
So, as they used to say on the radio, listen in next week…I’ll have pictures from the Vermont Quilt Festival, which was really good.

The year so far…

Posted on June 29, 2014 by zippyquilts

Oops! It’s the end of June already, so half way through 2014! Therefore, here are pictures of a few of the things I’ve done so far:

Quilt Alliance Challenge 2014

Detail of a quilt I submitted to an IQF contest

Next is the June “finish”. I’ve been sending a finish every month to Aunt Marti at 52quilts because I need the motivation of her challenge to get some of my UFOs (Unfinished Objects) cleaned up! As you can see, this is pieced but not quilted; Aunt Marti let’s YOU decide what qualifies as “finished”! And after 2 years staring at these HSTs (half square triangles), I think putting them together into a top for a donation quilt qualifies as “finished”! So if you need motivation to finish some of your UFOs, click the link above and head over to her blog 🙂

Donation quilt top is the finish for June!

In Fairyland, entered in the Vermont Quilt Festival

Swap Block–88 little squares!!!

Swap Block

Improv 9 Patch for Ronald McDonald House

As always, 20% of the projects took 80% of the time! So it’s good to have the little pouches and swap blocks to be done relatively quickly! What have you been up to?

Three Reasons to Love Pinterest

Posted on June 22, 2014 by zippyquilts

Delightful quilt from CutToPieces.blogspot.com

I started using Pinterest a while back at the urging of my daughter, and have found it invaluable. It replaces at least 3 scrapbooks/notebooks that have been floating around my house for years.

First, of course, Pinterest is great for quilting ideas! When I find something I love, I don’t have to bookmark it or add it to favorites to be able to find it again. I just pin it to one of my Pinterest boards–maybe Quilt Ideas, or Good Quilt Photos, or Design. Then when I wonder, “Now where did I see that great quilt?” I can flip through my Pinterest boards and find the picture, which in turn has the link to where it was found. This saves a LOT of fooling around looking for things on the internet and replaces the lists I had to keep previously. It’s even partially replaced the notebooks full of clippings I’ve kept for years.

T-Perspective by Linda Rotz Miller

Second, Pinterest is great for finding other quilters, their blogs, etc. For example, I found the Cut To Pieces blog shown above because I admired one of the quilts from the blog I found on Pinterest. But there’s more! When you find someone whose taste is similar to yours (based on the pins you find from him/her), you can “follow” that person or just some of that person’s boards on Pinterest and get lots of great new pictures that he/she found. For example, I found the picture here on the Pinterest page of Tricia Royal, a quilt artist from Chicago, so now I follow several of her boards. You can also follow your friends’ boards to see what they’re pinning. In fact, if you see something they’re pinning it may give you an idea of what they’d like to have for the next birthday!

Terrific design from Melody Johnson Quilts

Finally, you can simply search Pinterest when you need inspiration. By putting “modern quilts”, “colors”, “art quilts”, or whatever into Pinterest’s search box, I’ve found many, many fun ideas. It’s a great amusement in waiting rooms, while enjoying a second cup of coffee, or when in need of new ideas. As a commercial for a product I’ve long forgotten used to say: “Try it–you’ll like it!”

Zippy Quilts

Modern Quilts With A Twist

Tag Archives: improvisational quilting

9 Quilts from AQS Paducah

One Quilt, Two Lessons

Tessellations! By Jean Larson

Year End Review

10 Quilty Secrets

6 Orphan Blocks, 1 Donation Quilt

11 Favorites from AQS Charlotte

Excitement x 3!!!

The year so far…

Three Reasons to Love Pinterest

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