Off the Grid {a finished quilt}

This blog post has been a long time coming. I finished making this quilt back in October last year, but I've only just got around to editing all the photos and actually writing about it. Which is kind of annoying, as this is one of my very favorite finishes ever, and I've been pretty excited about finally sharing it. But life happens, and when you've got three small children things take months longer than they need to a lot of the time ;o).

So, a bit of background. Around the middle of last year, I started thinking it would be cool to make a quilt that was inspired by aerial views of farmland, and after doing a quick Google image search I knew it was something I wanted to do. Green is my absolute all-time favorite colour, and I've actually only made a couple of quilts that feature green - so it was about time! And then a few weeks after this, the Modern Quilt Guild announced their 9 Patch Challenge as part of QuiltCon 2017 and it felt kind of fateful. So I started making a quilt, intending to enter it into the 9 Patch Challenge. It didn't get juried in, but I've made a quilt I'm so proud of and am completely in love with, and at the end of the day that's what it's all about.

This quilt started the way a lot of my recent quilts have - a pile of fabric, a vague idea and a design wall. I cut a bunch of strips, made a bunch of blocks, and started putting them up on my design wall. I had farmland in mind when I chose the fabrics for this quilt - greens, yellow-greens, ochres, and rich browns. And to start with I thought the layout would end up something like this, with narrow sashing between blocks in these colours.

But as I got further into the piecing, I decided my original vision probably wouldn't work like I wanted it to. So I played around with the blocks I'd made for a few weeks, until that lightbulb moment when the design really started to take shape. I didn't take a whole lot of photos at the beginning of this quilt - so fast forward a lot of piecing later, and the design finally started to take shape. Apologies for the darkness of these photos - my design wall is in an awful spot for taking decent photos...

Once I was happy with the layout of the green/brown/ochre blocks I started trying to figure out what on earth I would do in the rest of the quilt. At some point (most likely while I was trying to get to sleep one night...) inspiration struck and I decided to continue the 9 patch theme into the negative space, using pale grey and dominantly white prints to create the 'background'. As you can see from the next few photos, it was very much like putting a puzzle together. Such a fun process, figuring out how to make all the pieces fit.

Once I'd filled all the gaps with grey/white 9 patch blocks, it was simply a matter of joining all those blocks together with white sashing. It's impossible to see in these photos, but every single fabric I used is a print - even the whites are tone on tone. 

I won't lie - putting this quilt together took a very, very long time. It involved a lot of trimming, a LOT of problem solving, and a huge number of partial seams for the final stages of construction. But I think this quilt is more 'me' than any other quilt I have ever made - and I enjoyed every moment of putting it together. Over the last year or so, quilt making for me has become so much less about the finishing and so much more about enjoying the process and embracing the idea of 'slow sewing'. I love Carolyn Friedlander's concept of Savour Each Stitch, it has become my sewing mantra.

Over the course of piecing the quilt top, I had (as usual) been thinking about how I'd quilt it. During the making of this quilt, I travelled over to Adelaide to the Australian Machine Quilting Festival and happily Aurifil Threads Australia were there with the ENTIRE range of Aurifil threads, including the relatively new 28wt (grey spool) threads. So I bought a few spools in colours I thought would be good for this quilt. I wanted this quilt to be all about the texture, and since 28wt is a pretty heavy weight thread I thought it would be fun to give it a try.

I've included a lot of photos of the quilting on this quilt, because it is such an important part of this quilt. It is entirely free motion quilted - yes, even those 1/4" spaced straight(ish) lines. I quilted this one over a few months, so it didn't feel too monotonous doing all that straight line work (and to give my shoulders a break. That kind of quilting requires a lot of focus, and I find I do get a bit tense when I do it for long periods of time!)

I started off by quilting the green/brown/ochre blocks, using various grids and x-shaped designs throughout these blocks. I only quilted one of the two fabrics in each block, allowing the unquilted fabric to pop beautifully.

While I was quilting the blocks, I was trying to decide how to treat the white sashing strips. I did toy with the idea of hand quilting these, but in the end I decided machine quilting was the answer. Walking foot quilting them did cross my mind, but the thought of burying all those threads was not especially appealing ;o). And in the end this quilt required a huge amount of thread burying - it would have been far worse had I walking foot quilted!!

I think my favorite part of this quilt is those sections where the lines intersect in the sashing - it's a little nod to the grids in the piecing, and the texture is fabulous.

A close second are those 1/2" checkerboard blocks. I'm becoming a bit obsessed with tiny piecing lately, and quilting tiny piecing is so rewarding. Again, amazing texture.

 This is my favorite block in the entire quilt - it's 1/2" squares, and I used a green 28wt Aurifil to quilt this one. I just can't get enough of how puffy those little squares are :o).

I'm so happy to have FINALLY shared this quilt properly. And I'm will be back later this week with another finished quilt top!

xx Jess

Aviatrix Medallion {Finished at last!!}

A few days ago, I finally finished sewing the binding down on my Aviatrix Medallion, so this epically epic quilt is finally (almost!) finished! Aviatrix has been roughly a year in the making, so I hope you're not sick of seeing it quite yet (I know I've been sharing it quite frequently over the course of piecing and quilting it!). I still have a lot of thread burying to do, but it is essentially finished - so this is the last time you'll have to see it ;o). 

I made this quilt as a class sample for the class I taught at Frangipani Fabrics last year (and will be teaching again this year), and all the fabrics in the quilt are from Frangipani. The Aviatrix Medallion pattern is designed by Elizabeth Hartman, and I stuck pretty closely to her original palette, but I've used print fabrics rather than solids as in the pattern. I really do prefer working with prints, especially prints that have a dominant colour, and I think they work perfectly in this quilt. It gives the blocks a bit more sparkle than with solids, I think.

This is a pretty time consuming quilt to piece - although the centre is the only really difficult part to put together. Having said that, the way I chose to quilt it made it a truly epic quilt to make. I haven't timed it at all, but I reckon I spent close to 150 hours quilting this one. And I am really proud of what I achieved with it. I tried really hard to be original in my quilting choices, and to add lots of texture without taking away from the piecing design too much. I think I've achieved my aims - I know this much detailed quilting isn't to everyone's taste, but I adore how it's finished up!

I used a wool/poly batting for the first time on this quilt - and I'm hooked. It gives the quilting a bit more puff than 100% wool batting, and it has a lovely drape despite all that quilting. I figure if I am going to spend all that time quilting, it might as well be noticeable ;o). 

Having looked through these photos, I've decided I will go back and add some more quilting to the log cabins that haven't been quilted in the coloured sections. In the photo below, you can see I've quilted a cross hatch pattern in the yellow log cabin - I'm going to go back and add bits of quilting like that at some stage soon.

 The back of this quilt is simply pieced, with a Cotton and Steel voile down the centre and a dark pink solid on either side. The voile held up amazingly well with all the quilting on this quilt - and having such a light weight fabric on the back means it drapes amazingly well. Not only that, it feels delightful!

As always, I matched my bobbin thread to the top thread, so the quilting on the solid pink is really visible, especially where I've quilted over the same place a few times. I somehow managed to keep the back straight relative to the front too - not something that always happens when I piece backs! The binding is partly pieced using the left overs from the top, and partly neutral fabric that blends in with the final border.

All the quilting was done with Aurifil threads - Dove grey 50wt for all the background and grey areas, and the four colours you can see below for the coloured sections. I love that you can see the quilting on some of the coloured sections, but blends into others. Changing thread colours wasn't something I originally planned for this quilt, but I'm glad I did. Although it means a lot of threads to bury, I think with this much quilting it needs to blend fairly well, or it would completely dominate the piecing.

This quilt was on my Finish Along Quarter One list, so I'm especially pleased to get one finish in this quarter. I've had so many lovely comments during the making of this quilt, thank you so much for your encouragement! I'm incredibly happy with how it's turned out, although I'm looking forward to making a couple of simple quilts before launching into my next epic quilt ;o)

xx Jess

Beneath the Waves (a finished quilt!)

Back in December last year, I hosted a giveaway for a roll up of blue Cotton Couture fabric from my wonderful sponsors Polka Dot Tea fabrics and Danielle and Jeanette generously sent me a roll up as well. It's no secret that I'm a massive fan of cotton couture - I first used it last year when I made Galaxy and it was love at first touch. Needless to say, I was pretty excited to work with the roll up! Around the same time, I bought Karlee Porter's self published Grafitti Quilting book (which is excellent), and instantly wanted to give grafitti quilting a try - and what better way to feature quilting than working on an all-solids quilt? This idea percolated away for a while, and then when I came back from QuiltCon I came up with a solid plan for how I wanted to approach it.

I started by sorting the strips by value (using the black and white function on my camera), attempting to have a smooth transition from dark to light across the quilt top. I nearly managed it, but I think I accidentally switched a few strips around while I was piecing it so there are a couple that don't quite transition smoothly - but it's close enough for the effect I wanted ;o)

Once it was pieced and basted I dived straight into the quilting. I was lucky enough to attend a class with Krista Withers (one of my quilty heroes) at QuiltCon, and I came home full of ideas I wanted to try. One of the best things I came away from Krista's class with was ideas for how to approach breaking up negative space with quilting, and I wanted to incorporate some of that into the quilting on this quilt. So I decided to use a combination of grafitti quilting and Krista's ideas and hope for the best. I decided to use this as a learning experience, and just go with it - no ripping stitches, no self-criticism but just have fun and play. As a result it was one of the most enjoyable quilts to quilt - and I'm delighted with how it turned out. It was a brilliant learning quilt - finding some new (to me) shapes and combinations of designs, and getting LOTS of ideas for future quilts.

I made this quilt for my baby nephew, who lives in a house with polished boards, so I used a double layer of wool batting on this quilt thinking it would be a lovely quilt for wriggle time (and to play on as he gets older). The resulting texture is pretty incredible - I think it will be a really great sensory quilt as he gets older and starts to explore things more. I'm using a double layer of batting more and more on smaller quilts - I just can't get enough of the texture it gives. I don't think I'd do it on anything much bigger than this (it's about 40" x 60") due to the added weight, but as I'm becoming more confident with my quilting, I'm really loving the added puff two layers gives.

The quilting is all Aurifil 50wt thread - a variegated blue in the darker area of the quilt, and then a light variegated grey in the lighter area. Overall the thread has blended beautifully and has just left all the glorious texture. The combination of cotton couture, double layer batting and all that quilting makes for a pretty luxurious quilt - it's silky soft to touch and it is very comfy to lie on (as this little cutie can attest!)

I can't promise I'll have two posts in such quick succession again by the way - but these wintery nights are much better suited to sitting on the couch with my laptop than braving my freezing cold sewing room, and I have lots of things I need to share, so I might actually become a regular blogger again ;o)

xx Jess

Full Moon Lagoon Quilt {Blogger's Quilt Festival}

A couple of days ago I finally got around to binding and washing my Full Moon Lagoon quilt, just in time for this round of the Blogger's Quilt Festival. 

We took it out to the beach today for a bit of a photo shoot. Unfortunately, it happened to be a typical Tasmanian spring day (snow on the mountain, 13 degrees Celcius, gale force winds), so most of the photos looked something like this:

and this:

Not quite the idyllic calm blue sea I'd imagined as a backdrop for this quilt ;o) We did manage to find a relatively sheltered spot a bit further back on the dunes though - so you can see a teeny peek of the sea behind. This is the quilt front

and back.

Finishing this quilt has been very much a proud mama moment for me. The piecing itself was a lot of fun and made me realise how much I enjoy improv piecing. This quilt is basically a whole lot of improv pieced log cabins, pieced together like a puzzle using extra strips of fabric as needed. The fabric I used is the gorgeous Full Moon Lagoon by Mo Bedell for Andover fabrics - plus a whole bunch of other coordinating fabrics from my stash (lots of Lizzy House, Tula Pink, Anna Maria Horner and a few others). 

I really pushed myself with the quilting - I wanted to add loads of texture to the quilt top, using motifs reminiscent of being underwater (ripples, bubbles, swirls etc) without detracting from the quilt top. For the quilting, I chose a range of 50wt Aurifil thread to blend into the fabric as much as possible, so it didn't dominate the fabric but would add an abundance of texture. My quilting is not at all perfect - it's the not-quite-circular swirls etc that jump out at me when I look at it - but I am really pleased with what I achieved on my little domestic machine. And my little girl absolutely adores it, which is what really matters :o)

Most of the following photos I took in the relative (non windy) safety of our house.

Washing this quilt has made a massive difference to all the texture, and it has made it surprisingly soft and drapey considering the density of the quilting. I've gone a bit overboard with the photos here - these are some of my favorite parts of the quilt.

I didn't notice until I was looking through the photos that I actually missed the bottom corner of this seahorse block. Whoops! My camera had a really hard time photographing the pink accurately - the photo above is the closest to the actual colours.

I left many of the larger images (seahorses, flowers etc) un-quilted - and as a result they pop up from the background really nicely.

I also left some random strips entirely un-quilted, just to add a bit more variety to the quilt.

I was avoiding these feet in photos during the entire photo shoot - so I had to add just one in here. My three year old daughter is completely smitten with her newest quilt which makes all the (many, many) hours that went into to it completely worth it :o)

For the binding, I decided to piece a bunch of the left over strips together, vaguely following the colours around the edge of the quilt. It doesn't quite match each section completely - but it does well enough for an improv quilt, I think!

I've decided to enter this quilt into the Home Machine quilted category in the Blogger's Quilt Festival. It is entirely quilted on my Bernina QE440 (the same machine I use to piece and quilt all my quilts). A few people have commented during the making of this quilt that they didn't think this kind of quilting was possible on a domestic machine. It absolutely is - it just takes a really long time and a lot of quilt wrangling. I think the quilting on this one took around 30 hours, done a few hours at a time.

Quilt Stats:

* Fabric - Full Moon Lagoon by Mo Bedell, plus a range of coordinating fabric from my stash. 

* Quilt design - improvisationally pieced using log cabins.

* Size - finished size is about 70" square.

* Quilting - done by me on my domestic Bernina.

I hope you enjoy the rest of the festival! Huge thanks to Amy for organising this event again - it's definitely one of my favorite blogging events of the year. 

xx Jess