I got the quilt back from C Squared Quilting that I had named crisscross. It is stunning, as is all of her work. Corrie recently purchased a second longarm machine and is taking in both Edge to Edge (E2E) quilting and custom quilting.
For this quilt, she used black batting and an edge to edge pattern called "Raindrops on Water". It's perfectly quilted and I love it!
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I hope you like it too!
This is a continuation of the previous post about the making of Improv Spotted Graffiti. One thing about improv quilts is that they can turn our pretty wonky and that does affect how the viewer interprets balance. I just kept playing with dots to try to get some balance on this piece and made several changes along the way. Here's where I ended up. I still felt that it was unbalanced.
Somewhere in the middle of the night, I thought that making it even more wonky might be the ticket. It seemed like it was calling out for a border of some type with the improv pieced material. So, I placed the piece wonky on my design wall and added black strips to show where I needed to add pieces.
I didn't know if this would make it OK or not. Stay tuned to see what happens!
I bought 4 yards of the beautiful Spotted Graffiti fabric designed by Marcia Derse a little while ago. I just loved the colors and texture of the browns and blues. I was saving it for a background for one of my garden ladies, but didn't use it for that series. So, I cut off 2 yards to save, and used the rest for an improv quilt. Not having any idea where I was heading, I pulled fabrics that went with the colors of the fabric.
I recently made some improv quilts using solids and hand dyed fabric, and I wanted to see how the process would work with patterned fabric. A Duckworth type of improv block seemed to be the best idea. So, I cut strips out of the turquoise and light tans and light blues and sewed them together in log cabin style. I made blocks that were about 9" (or so) square and sewed them together to end up with 15" square blocks of improv pieced fabric.
I layered those with the 15" squares of the background fabric and made initial curved improv cuts. I knew that the improv pieced fabric needed to have a strip of plain color between it and the patterned background, so I sewed either dark brown or medium blue to the inner piece. Then, I made a second cut on the background and pieced it together.
I ended up with 4 blocks that had predominately the pieced fabric on the larger outer section, and a few more of the ones with the pieced fabric on the inner, smaller section. At some point, I needed to make more of the pieced fabric, and I knew that these didn't need to be too big, so I made four of those and just trimmed them off to make a corner area. These were then pieced into the background fabric.
I tried several layouts and ended up with the third one.
The blocks are all different sizes, so I sewed them together into vertical rows and trimmed them to fit. In the pictures below, you can see where I had to trim to get a nice vertical row.
It's definitely wonky! I'm thinking about adding some of my signature applique circles. We'll see!
I hope you like it so far!
This is a continuation of 2 previous posts about the making of Mocha Mousse. I decided that I liked the chevron layout the best and started making blocks.
Here are some antique trims that I used. Take a look at the prices on some of these antique trims. I'm sure that many of us have these in our sewing baskets too. Aah, all the good intentions and sales that we can't pass up. I am the lucky recipient on these discards from many ladies over the years.
After making several blocks, I let it percolate for a week.
And I decided that I DID NOT like this at all and stopped the idea of making this quilt. It wasn't fun for me; it looked too old fashioned; and I didn't want to continue to slog through it. So, I donated the blocks and will think of something different for mocha mousse.
I hope you don't continue to sew on something that doesn't float your boat,
and that you give up reading books way before the end, when you know that you don't like them,
and that you toss out the clothes that make you feel yucky,
and that you do many, many more things that bring you JOY.
The Buzz and Bloom show at the Second Story Gallery in Camas, WA was held in February 2025. I had the 10 Garden Lady series of art quilts, 3 Bees on Flowers art quilts, and my co-artist, Cindy Wilson Geffel, had metal and wood pieces and paintings on glass. We had a reception at the gallery on February 7th, and an artist talk on Feb 12th. Here is the poster and a few pictures.
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This is a continuation of the making of the Mocha Mousse quilt. I made a few blocks and "bleh" is what I thought. I am a little old lady, but even these blocks made me think of little old ladies that were a generation older than me. So, I sketched up a few ideas and did some coloring in with a rainbow color range. Here are the ideas. Still kind of "bleh" - but I will plod forward and see if anything, something, lightening strike, bold idea or just plain defeat takes hold.
Stay tuned to see if I am still above water on this one.
Pantone picked their color for 2025. It's called Mocha Mousse and is a little bit like a Kona cotton color called "Suede". Here's what they say about it, "A warming, brown hue imbued with richness. It nurtures us with its suggestion of the delectable qualities of chocolate and coffee, answering our desire for comfort."
I purchased 3 yards of it at Modern Domestic in Portland and immediately thought about making a quilt very similar to my black and selvage quilt. In that quilt, I cut 8" squares of black fabric and sewed selvage pieces to one half of the square. This time, I'm going to start with 8" of the Kona "Suede" and add different colors of my huge collection of antique trims. I think it may end up looking like warm brown and striped fabric, but we shall see.
