Tag Archives: quilt design

Three Reasons to Love Pinterest

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modern quilt

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.

pieced modern quilt

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!

modern quilt

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!”

What to do with Beautiful Fabric?

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I’ve been a fan of Moda’s Wildflowers collections of fabric for quite a while, not only because they are beautiful florals, but because they look just like spring in central Texas, where I used to live.Drunk-detail

Although this picture was taken to show the quilting done by my long-arm friend, you can see several of the beautiful flowers and get the idea.

But as always when I buy a piece of fabric I really love, the question is what to do with it that does it justice.  I finally had a brainstorm when working on a border designed by Karla Alexander for one of her stack-and-shuffle quilts.  It involved cutting gentle curves through several layers of fabric and then shuffling the layers before assembling the pieces.  Drunk-in-the-Garden

I chose some gold to go with my floral and cut large squares.  Then I cut curves in them freehand, shuffled, and sewed them together.

This quilt is called “Drunk in the Garden” and is intended to give the impression of a moonlit walk through the Texas hill country in spring.  Nature walks don’t go in a straight line, so the golden paths through the quilt don’t go in a straight line.  I threw in “drunk” because that comes to mind before “nature walk” when you see this wiggly path!

Best of all, I was able to use large sections of the floral fabric to show it off.

What have you done with favorite fabrics?

 

Your Inner Designer 3: New Blocks From Old

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There is almost never anything new in design; indeed, the best designs probably are made with a sense of history.  So far we’ve modified overall quilt designs to make new ones; this time we’re going to modify blocks.  So here we go: 1.  Stretch it:

pieced star quilt

Quilt made with Block 3

pieced star quilt

Quilt made with Block 4

2.  Tilt it, or stretch and tilt it:

pieced quilt

This quilt is made from Block 1, tilted, with half the blocks tilted the other way

3.  Cut it and shuffle the pieces; rotate them if you like:

pieced quilt

This quilt is made from block 7, with the blocks rotated various ways to make the pattern

4.  Cut it and insert something.  This will distort the block and you’ll have to trim to make it even:

pieced star quilt

Quilt made from Block 10 and a plain block with strips inserted the same way

All of this fooling around might be a good use for some of those orphan blocks–what have you got to lose?  And If you find some modifications you really like, try them out in a quilt: Please make some designs and send them to me–I’d love to see what you come up with!

Your Inner Designer, Part 2: Many block arrangements

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In our last exciting episode (as they used to say on the radio), we took a traditional-type quilt pattern and tweaked it 3 (or more) ways to make different quilt designs.

pieced quilt design

Large blocks, with the intersections lined up

pieced quilt design

Now we’ll take some combinations of blocks and arrange them to make new designs. As before, your new designs can be drawn on graph paper (or with a computer program like Electric Quilt). It’s your choice whether to make them in cloth or not.

1. Combine two easy, familiar blocks.The usual advice is to combine blocks such that their seams will line up,like that first one on the left. This has the advantage of making more secondary patterns when you look at the combination overall, and the disadvantage of making the construction more tedious. Try it both ways.  My personal preference is for the second design on the left.  The different sizes of the pieces in the blocks make the quilt more interesting; I really don’t notice that the seams haven’t lined up.

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2. Take a quilt made of just one block, or even just one patch, and color it different ways. Here’s one of my favorites.  It starts as the traditional tumbling blocks pattern, but can also be stars, chevrons, or many, many other things. There is LOTS of room for experimentation here.

Tumbling Blocks
Zig-zags
Stars
Chevrons

Some folks make an outline drawing then copy it several times so they can color it different ways.  I can see this going on for weeks if you attend lots of boring meetings where you can take your sketchbook 😉

3. Pick an asymmetric block, make lots of them (on paper or in fabric) and rotate them into different combinations. There are almost endless variations with HST (half-square triangle) blocks, for example.

These options should keep you busy for a LONG time. I suggest you buy a graph paper notebook and some colored pencils so you can keep your designs all together. Next thing you know, you’ll have more quilt designs than you could make up in a lifetime! You can just pick your current favorite next time you want to make an original quilt.

The next blog on designing your own quilts will be the first Sunday in June.  Meanwhile, remember that it can be fun to try out a design by making just a small quilt.  You could make a lot of HSTs and combine them in 4 different ways for a set of 4 placemats, for example.  Have fun!

pieced placemat

This is made from HSTs that finish 3″ square, set 4 x 6 so that the mat is 12″ x 18″

pieced placemat

The same HSTs have been rearranged here

pieced placemat

Using the same fabric in different arrangements is a fun way to make a unique set of placemats

pieced placemat

I recently saw this arrangement touted as an “easy herringbone quilt”

Gallery Show!

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applique art quilt

Leaf, made in class with Laura Wasilowski

The Asheville Modern Quilt Guild is lucky enough to meet in a nice conference room in the building occupied by both the Quilt Alliance and the Handmade in America organization.  Because of those connections (and the quality of our work) we will be having a show of our members’ work at the gallery maintained by Handmade in America.  This is an organization representing craft artists from Western North Carolina (that would be us!) The work they represent is very high quality, so we are thrilled to be invited to display our work in their gallery, located at 125 S. Lexington Avenue in Asheville.  (The entrance is on Hilliard Avenue between Church and S. Lexington.)

I’m including pictures in this post of the works I’m submitting, but I hope any of you whoshow announcement are in the area will come see the show.  It will run April 29 – August 19, with an opening reception 2-4 p.m. on Sunday, May 4.  We have several fine quilters in our group, and they really do make “all kinds of quilts”, as the title of the exhibit suggests.  Please come!

Handmade-3

Improv I, my original design

pieced quilt original design

Bubble Up, my oritinal design

 

 

Pop-up Show

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quilt show

Asheville Modern Quilt Guild Show

Here are some pictures from the Asheville Modern Quilt Guild’s Pop-up Quilt Show, held Sunday, March 16 at the Folk Art Center on the Blue Ridge Parkway.  We had good attendance and gained several new members!  As you can see, we had some members demonstrating quilt making, as well.  If you missed it, the Guild will have a show at the Handmade in America gallery in Asheville from mid-May through mid-August.  Meanwhile, here are some of our members and their quilts:

First, here’s Diana Kantor with her amazing table runner.  It has 3-D folded flowers and leaves in addition to that beautiful quilted design in the center!

quilted table runner

Diana Kantor

And here’s Erica Kilgo with her very fun Bricks and Bubbles quilt:

modern quilt

Erica Kilgo

Here’s Amy Anderson with three of her beautiful quilts:

modern quilts

Amy Anderson

Here is Connie Brown with some of her amazing art quilts:

art quilts

Connie Brown

Emily and Miriam Coffey weren’t able to be there, so I don’t have their pictures, but here is one of their beautiful quilts:

modern quilt

Emily and Miriam Coffey’s quilt

And of course we had our Opportunity Quilt on display so people could take an interest and maybe even buy tickets:

modern quilt

Asheville Modern Quilt Guild Opportunity Quilt

Hopefully you’ve found these quilts inspiring.  If you’re interested in joining our guild, here is a link to our Facebook page.

Next week I’m starting a series on designing your own quilts.

Fairyland to Vermont

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I’ve just submitted my improvisational quilt “In Fairyland” to the Vermont Quilt Festival, and of course I’m hoping it gets in!

improvisationally pieced quilt

In Fairyland

I made the blocks at the top just for fun when I got an EQ add-on called “Town & Country Patchwork” by Cori Derksen & Myra Harder (who have generously agreed to my use of their designs in this quilt for the show).  The blocks are paper pieced and I made them in fantasy colors because those were the scraps I had on the day I decided to make them. Then the blocks sat around for quite a while 😉  Sound familiar?

Eventually I decided I needed to use up some of my MANY scraps.  At least the scraps are cut into strips of standard widths, so when I get a notion to use them, they’re ready to go.  So I just made rows of scraps, putting the sky-type ones at the top.  Below the houses, I arranged the thinner rows in the “distance”.  Finally, I found one of the flower fairies and put her in near the bottom.improv pieced quilt

My friend Joyce quilted the whole thing on her long arm, using a pattern of leaves at my request.quilting on improv quilt

I’m happy to say I’ll be going to the Vermont Quilt Festival this year–something I’ve wanted to do for a long time.  I’m hopeful that “In Fairyland” will be included so I can view my own quilt there!  Anybody else going?

Confetti!

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I’m very excited to be making a quilt for the Summer 2014 issue of Modern Quilts Unlimited.  (Hint:  If you go right over there and subscribe you’ll get not only the issue with my quilt, but the spring issue with a quilt by my friend Ann over at SewMessy.)

fabric stack

Beautiful Fabric from Michael Miller Fabrics

I’ll blog about that project when it’s published this summer, but for now I’ve made a confetti block from the scraps.

The Michael Miller Fabric Company (one of my favs) kindly supplied the fabric for this quilt from their Cotton Couture solids, plus a wonderful print called “Tara’s Fireworks“.

The quilt top is made, and I’m quilting it, BUT LOOK AT THIS:

scraps

Scraps! Lovely scraps!

All those beautiful colors in little bitty pieces just FORCED me to make an improvisational block representing confetti!

I just grabbed those scraps and started joining them any old way, putting in lots of white so the pieces of confetti would stand out.  When the edges came out wonky, I trimmed.  Usually I then sewed the trimmed section onto the next piece!  Some of those bits were TINY:

improv quilt block

The pin is for perspective on these tiny pieces

Eventually some bigger sections emerged.improv quilt blocks

And finally, I had a piece just a bit larger than 12-1/2 x 12-1/2, which I’ll eventually trim to make a block.

Confetti Block, 2014

I can just hear someone saying, “so what is this block FOR?”  Well, it’s FOR FUN!  OK, I do have a plan for this block, but that’s a secret for now 😉  Meanwhile, that was great fun, so if you haven’t tried improvisational piecing yet, just go for it!