What is a Liebster award?

Posted on November 1, 2015 by zippyquilts

Turns out the Liebster award is a tag game for helping readers discover new and under-read blogs. Wanda over at Wanda’s Life Sampler tagged me. So thanks to Wanda, and I’ll be passing it on to some other bloggers. You can check them out at the end of this post.

Here are my answers to Wanda’s questions, but I changed some of them! The next folks in the chain might change them, too…

1. What one thing do you believe with your whole being?

It’s important to learn something new every day. It may be positive or negative, but all knowledge is useful eventually.

I learned to make a sample block before cutting out the whole quilt!

2. What have you made lately?

I’m glad you asked that question! This month’s finish is the top for a “Black and White and Red All Over” quilt for which I’ve been collecting fabrics for some time.

This was made from a pattern called “Lemon Pepper”, but of course mine is more red pepper!

I also sent 5 donation quilts to the Cincinnati Ronald McDonald House. Three were finished this month, 2 previously. Here are some of them:

Design by Cindy Williams

Simple quilt from a recipe on Craftsy

The “New! Improved!” quilt

3. Are you a cat person or a dog person? Or neither?

Presently neither. Though I do miss having a cat right in the middle of every project and cat hair everywhere 😉

4. Where do you hope to be in 10 years’ time?

Retired from my “day job” and in my quilt studio full time!

5. Favorite dessert?

German Chocolate Cake!!!!

6. What is one thing you wish you were better at?

Always saying the right thing.

7. Describe your Dream Vacation?

The next one! But I did recently have a great trip with my husband to Clingman’s Dome in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

View from Clingman’s Dome

8. Why do you blog?

To promote modern quilting, and North Carolina quilters in particular. If you’re a North Carolina quilter and I haven’t featured your work yet, please contact me!

9. Your best sewing/quilting advice?

Do what you enjoy. I used to make all my own clothes, but then I figured out it’s a lot easier to get a quilt to fit a bed than to get a garment to fit my frame!

10. What else is new?

Here’s a picture of Pat with her FINISHED table runner, started in a class I taught recently!

Pat finished her runner in time to give it as a gift

And here are some bloggers I’m passing the “Liebster Award” on to. I think you might enjoy them!

My Imperfect Life

The Accidental Hayseed

KnitNKwilt

Narrow Accents!

Posted on October 18, 2015 by zippyquilts

Modern Quilts Unlimited just published my article on how to add narrow accents to your projects. It’s a very easy method for sewing crisp, even accent strips from 1/8″ to 3/4″ wide.

Notice the Narrow Accents article featured on the cover, along with the beautiful quilt by Bev Getschel

There are so many uses for narrow accents! Here are a few of mine:

narrow accents, Modern Quilts Unlimited magazine

This is a corner of the piece I made to illustrate the MQU article

These blocks from my modern sampler all include narrow strips:

The samples I made for my improvised table runner class all include narrow strips, as well. Here is one of them:

Here is one of the samples for my improvised table runner class

Here’s a Mondrian-style block I made several years ago with narrow inserts

There are options too numerous to mention! Go get the magazine and make some accent strips, then please send me pictures of your creations.

Sandi Suggs: Finding Her Way to Modern

Posted on October 11, 2015 by zippyquilts

Sandi’s work was featured in a special display at AQS-Chattanooga, and I was lucky enough to get to interview her. I took some pictures, and if you want to see more of her work, check the links at the bottom of this post.

Sandi designed this nontraditional arrangement of split 9-patch blocks

While I was waiting to interview Sandi, I heard her tell someone, “Any time I make a quilt, I do it to learn something.” My sentiments exactly!

Sandi made this quilt from a pattern, adding modern colors to the design

Sandi started quilting over 25 years ago, using cereal box templates because rotary cutters weren’t yet used for quilting. She still uses templates when appropriate, but a lot of things have changed! For one thing, she now uses freezer paper when she needs templates so she can cut several layers of fabric at once.

Sandi designed and made this quilt using her own quilt-as-you-go technique

Sandi teaches several classes, including her own version of Quilt As You Go. (I’m going to keep an eye on her website because I’d like to take that class if she teaches it anywhere near me 🙂 )

The AQS exhibit included both quilts Sandi designed herself and quilts she has made from designs by others. This was a round robin quilt; Sandi made the final arrangement of sections and did the quilting:

Round Robin quilt by Sandi Suggs and friends. Look at Sandi’s quilting!

A couple of hints from Sandi: she likes to use the multi-stitch zigzag (stitch #4 on Bernina machines) in her quilting. She starches all her fabrics before cutting to make them smoother and less likely to fray. She says starching also equalizes the weight of the various fabrics. She likes to wash her quilts after they are finished to achieve a crinkly look that emphasizes the quilting.

Sandi does her own quilting on her home machine. This quilt is called “Roy G. Biv”

Sandi also has her own way to successfully select fabrics for a mystery quilt! I’ve only done one mystery quilt and was unhappy with the result, so I asked her about it. She showed the quilt below, designed by Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr as a mystery quilt, and told me how she selected her fabrics.

Mystery quilt designed by Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr demonstrates Sandi’s successful fabric selection

Sandi looked at the fabric requirements for the quilt and figured the largest fabric requirement was for the background. Once she had chosen gray for the background, she decided she would need bright fabrics to contrast with it. I think her decisions were very successful!

You can find Sandi’s blog at: www.FrogPondStudio.blogspot.com

She has many more pictures of her quilts there, including these five posts that show all her quilts from the AQS exhibit:

Finding My Voice

Finding My Voice, Two

Finding My Voice, Three

Finding My Voice, Four

Finding My Voice, Final

10 From Chattanooga Quilt Week

Posted on September 27, 2015 by zippyquilts

Despite a change in plans, a friend and I got in a quick trip to Quilt Week in Chattanooga to see the quilt show. No time for classes this year, but we had a great time. I was especially happy that there was a large section of modern quilts. Here are 10 of my favorites.

Celebrate, by Jean Larson of the Chattanooga Modern Quilt Guild

A Slice of Pi, by Connie Griner. This quilt has the numerical value of pi quilted into the border to umpteen decimal places!

Love in the Digital Age, by Kristin Shields

Motik, by Mary Ramsey Keasler of the Chattanooga Modern Quilt Guild

Tiki Dilemma, by Jodi Robinson. She says her “quilting designs were chosen to add interest without overwhelming the overall design of the quilt”. I like that!

Door Into Summer, by Joni Morgan

I see that gray backgrounds are still very popular! (You KNOW who I’m talking to!)

Forgotten Chicago, by M. A. Cramer. She asks whether the object shown here is rising or falling!

Pink Flamingos with Lemonade, by Connie Brown of the Modern Quilt Guild of Asheville

Through the Open Window, by Amy Anderson of the Modern Quilt Guild of Asheville

Initial Inspiration, by Vista Scruggs Mahan of Rising Fawn, Georgia (just outside Chattanooga)

Of course, we had a little time for chocolate as well, but what’s done at Quilt Week stays at Quilt week 😉

Later on, I’ll have an interview with Sandi Suggs, whose quilts were a special exhibit at Chattanooga Quilt Week.

Blocks 11 and 12, Modern Sampler

Posted on September 20, 2015 by zippyquilts

Probably have enough blocks now for my usual size “cuddle quilt”, about 55″ X 70″. I have enough ideas and fabric for at least 2 more quilts, so the project may continue anyway.

Doodle block inspired by Sherri Lynn Wood

Block 11 was inspired by Sherri Lynn Wood’s “Doodle” quilt. I had a couple of scraps and decided to just cut them and see what happened, and this is it. The block is only about 6″ wide. I quit without adding anything else in an attempt not to “overdo” and make it too complex.

The next block is certainly improvised, having turned out rather different from my original idea. It started with equal amounts of these fabrics. I thought I would stack them, cut arcs, and shuffle–Karla Alexander’s quilts are among my favorite inspirations. It all started out as planned…

Arcs cut, colors shuffled

But, as sometimes happens, I felt the need to change it as I went along. The final quarter actually was made using templates (gasp!) because I had a particular look in mind. Now I surely have enough blocks for my sampler. The question is how to arrange them. I’ll be looking for your input in a week or so!

Happy Squares

Posted on September 13, 2015 by zippyquilts

This quilt was what I designed when I got bundles of two of my favorite collections a while back: Alissa Haight Carlton’s Modern Solids (sadly, they seem to be no longer available) and Allison Glass’s feather-like prints.

Happy Squares

I started with 9-patch blocks composed of 3 inch (finished) squares. Of course I couldn’t stand to make all the blocks alike. I made some half-square triangle patches to add to the 9-patch blocks. Then I made some big 4-patch blocks from 4-1/2 inch (finished) squares so that they finished the same size as the 9-patch blocks. Finally, I made some 36-patch blocks from 1-1/2 inch (finished) squares to finish the same size as all the other blocks.

When it came to laying the blocks out, I separated some of the 9-patch blocks to fit the 4-patch and 36-patch blocks in at interesting places. Finally, I inserted a 1/4″ strip before adding the last row of squares on each side to make a sort of border.I did the quilting freehand on my home machine. This means I did not mark the diagonals but sewed “sort of” straight from corner to corner in the squares. I like the less-rigid feel of this technique, but it’s a good example of why it may be unwise to enter modern quilts in traditional quilt shows. Here again, if I wanted machine-like accuracy I could hire someone to do this on a longarm or even have a machine-generated pantograph design. In fact, I like both those techniques for some things, but I didn’t want my “happy” quilt to be too-precisely quilted.

This is bright and cheerful, so I’m calling it “Happy Squares”. What have you been up to?

My Modern Sampler, Blocks 9 and 10

Posted on September 6, 2015 by zippyquilts

Channeling Gwen Marston, I made a couple of “liberated” quilt blocks for the sampler. This means they were cut without a ruler and the pieces are deliberately “wonky”.

Liberated Hole in the Barn Door blocks finish about 5″ square

Some current authors are making a big deal of cutting without a ruler, but Gwen Marston has been doing it for years.

I DID use a ruler to make the original background square. Here are the steps:

I cut the big square using a ruler, the subdivided it into a 9-patch freehand

Pin triangle where you plan to sew it

Flip triangle over the pin to be sure it will cover the corner

Sew the triangle in place, then trim triangle to match background

Corners done, time for the sides

Sides done using method similar to the corners: pin, check, then sew and trim

Ready to be sewn together!

For Block 10, I cut my scraps into strips.and lined them up.

Scraps cut into strips and pieced with black and white background

The widths of the colored strips and the white strips between them are semi-random. The sashing between the columns finishes 2″, and the block finishes 12″ square.

A few more blocks and then I’ll have to decide how to set them! Here are the previous posts about My Modern Sampler:

My Own Modern Sampler–It May Take a Year!

My Modern Sampler, Block 8

Posted on August 23, 2015 by zippyquilts

Here’s a picture of the blocks made to date for my modern sampler. Links to the posts about each one are at the bottom of this post. Some are designed by me, some not.

These are the sampler blocks I’ve made so far

It’s time to look at all the blocks together and think about what this quilt needs next.

So far I’ve made 7 blocks; it needs 7 or 8 more.
The blocks will fit together in multiples of 3″, with some solid strips to fill in spaces. The blocks are generally “busy”, so I think those solid strips will be important.
There are a variety of colors and a lot of white and bright. I like the bright, but I want some more black backgrounds.
All of the blocks except one have some text fabric. I need to either save the one block with no text for another purpose or make 2 more without text. I can use some text fabric as background strips.
That orange and turquoise block with all the random trapezoids doesn’t fit with the others, so I either need to make more like it or modify it in some way. I may cut it up and re-make it altogether. Suggestions?

Meanwhile, here’s one new block to add to the sampler.

The Modern Scrap Block will finish 12 inches square

And here are the steps for making it. I just sewed together my scraps and then framed them with triangles.

I made sets of strips left from other blocks.

These strips varied in width, and some were uneven widths.

Strips of tiny blocks cut from the strip sets.

I joined the strips of little blocks (which varied in width from 1 inch to 1-1/2 inches) and then added black triangles. The center “square” is NOT square–it is improvised without much measuring!

There, now I have another one with a black background! Here are the links to the other quilt blocks in my sampler:

My Own Modern Sampler–It May Take a Year!

Retreat!

Posted on August 16, 2015 by zippyquilts

There was a BIG finish at our last retreat:

Quilt of 3392 Pieces!!!

Here is Jerri’s quilt of 3392 pieces, made from a pattern in one of Bonnie Hunter’s books. Jerri made this for a Little Sisters of the Poor fundraiser, and it certainly should raise a lot of funds! It is beautiful. And she had the sense not to count the number of pieces until she was FINISHED with the project! Even so, it took almost a year to complete. I am VERY impressed that there is not even ONE block is turned wrong!.

This is a HUGE quilt!

And here is the latest stack of donation quilts from our group.

So far everyone is keeping up with the commitment to make a donation quilt each month, and one over-achiever is several months ahead of the rest of us!!! As you probably can see in the photo, another over-achiever quilts hers by hand! I am always amazed by my very accomplished friends!

As soon as Jerri finished the BIG quilt, she started this beauty!

Our latest block swab is monochromatic slabs. Each of us chose a color we wanted, and as soon as we swapped one group member turned her blocks into a donation quilt. Talk about quick work!

Donation quilt from green slabs

When I got the slabs, I immediately started cutting them up and adding accent strips of blue. So far I really like the result. More on this later.

Slabs with accent strips.

So, what’s new with you?

7 Quilts

Posted on August 2, 2015 by zippyquilts

The Modern Quilt Guild of Asheville had a show at the Handmade in America gallery this summer. Here are a few of the quilts. Unfortunately, there were difficulties with photography so the pictures aren’t as good as I’d like, but these quilts are just too good to pass up.