Flow {A Finished Quilt}

Wow, it's been a long, long time since I've shared a quilt finish in this space! It's nice to be back - and I have several quilts and quilt tops I finished toward the end of last year that I'm hoping to share over the next few weeks. The first two I'll be showing you were made essentially in secret - that is, I resisted my usual tendency to completely overshare what I'm working on. The main reason for this was that both of these were made specifically for the challenge categories for QuiltCon 2016, so I wanted them to be a bit of a surprise *if* they were juried into the show. Neither of them got accepted, so I'm kind of excited to be able to share them at last!

The quilt I'm sharing today was made for the Michael Miller Luxe challenge - she's called Flow and she was a really fun quilt top put together. This is a fairly long post, as I'll be showing a bit of my process as well as a few pictures of the final quilt, so please bear with me! I would normally split this much information across a few blog posts - but I'm making up for my recent lack of blog posts by giving you a single enormous post ;o).

Mid last year, the Modern Quilt Guild offered members the opportunity to sign up for the Michael Miller Luxe challenge, one of the special categories that would be part of the QuiltCon 2017 show. Everyone who signed up for the Luxe challenge was sent two half yard pieces of fabric, in one of the colour stories below. Participants were then allowed to add ONE cotton couture solid to these, and to use any of the Luxe range of fabrics in their quilt. The fabrics I received were the middle two, and I then added a deep teal cotton couture to these, as well as solid white and grey Luxe fabrics.

I have to admit, these fabrics sat in a pile on my cutting table for a good few months before I started getting some ideas about what to do with them. These fabrics are sheeting fabric rather than quilting cotton, and as such have a slightly different sheen (they are quite shiny) and have a wee bit more stretch than regular quilting cotton. I was a little bit nervous about working with them, but eventually I decided improv curves were the way to go, and I started making a few blocks, without any real plan as to what I'd do with them. Apologies for the poor lighting in the next few photos - my design wall has overhead fluorescent lights, which make it really hard to get good pictures of the whole wall. 

Initially, I made a few blocks, thinking I would position them so that there was a continuous improv curve from top to bottom down the quilt. 

But as I kept making blocks, I decided to lay them out more randomly, with more negative space between and around the blocks. At this point I hadn't ordered any solids for the background, and my initial thought was to surround them all with white, and to create continuous curved lines through the quilt with quilting.

But, when I sat down to order the solids, I decided at the last minute to get some grey as well as white, and use this to create some more movement in the negative space. I think this is what I love most about improv quilts - it's such a playful process, figuring out layout and design on the fly. Working with an idea, testing things out and discarding ideas that don't quite work.

I had a love-hate relationship with this quilt the entire time I was piecing it. Thankfully, I have a really awesome quilty friend (kat) who was happy for me to bombard her with photos and questions as I was working on it. I think I've grown so used to oversharing my projects on social media as I'm working on them, that working on something in secret made me feel like I was in a black hole in some ways. I needed the opportunity to get constructive criticism when I was making this, or I honestly think I would have abandoned it. 

In the end, this quilt was a weird combination of improv curves, and some pretty intense precision piecing to get those curves to form a continuous line through the quilt top. It was a really fun challenge, so despite those times I didn't like it, I still enjoyed the process. And seriously, this quilt was SO much fun to add texture to. Quilting is a super important part of quilt making for me - and the whole time I was piecing it I was thinking about how I would quilt it, to add to the sense of movement in the quilt top, and add loads of texture without detracting from the design. I forgot to take a photo of the top before I quilted it, so this is it in full. After I'd finished piecing, I decided to orientate the curves across the quilt, rather than top to bottom, and I much prefer it this way around :o).

As always, I did all the quilting on my little domestic Bernina (440QE), but because it's a reasonably small quilt (around 60" square) it was a really enjoyable quilt to quilt. I decided to use batting with a bit of loft to make all the quilting stand out, so I chose a Wool/Polyester batting - it's become one of my favorites to use. The batting, combined with the fact that it's made from sheeting, has resulted in the softest quilt I've ever made, despite all that dense free motion quilting.

All the quilting on this one is done in Aurifil 50wt - white, dove and a few different blues to blend in with the fabrics. Although I've recently used a few other weights of Aurifil for quilting (40wt and 28wt), for this quilt I decided 50wt was the way to go, as I wanted the quilting to blend into the fabric as much as possible, just leaving all that texture.

I don't often piece backs for my quilts - but I had a few bits of the Luxe grey and white left over, as well as a bunch of half-metre pieces of various blues, aqua and teal cotton couture that I pieced together for this one. Solids are the BEST for showing up quilting :o).

Thanks for making it this far in a pretty epic blog post! As I said, I have a few more quilts to share, which I hope to do over the next few weeks. I've made a few fairly major life changes this year (all good ones) which will mean I have more time and energy to blog more regularly. I'd forgotten how much I enjoy talking about and sharing my projects here, so you'll have to put up with my rambling a bit more frequently from now on...

xx Jess

Improv Quilt Progress

I've been sewing up a storm over the last few days - lots of prep for AQC next week, but I've also managed to finish a quilt (more on that later this week!) and make some great progress on my improv quilt. This one is a class sample for a series of workshops I'm teaching at Frangipani Fabrics later this year. 

I've been slowly doing some strip piecing over the last week or so, to add to the blocks I shared last week. And as I was making them, I decided on a quilt-layout-plan of sorts - columns of each colour, gradually fading out as they go down the quilt. I actually think this will end up being horizontal rows of colour rather than vertical - but it was much easier to work on my design wall in this orientation.

Today I made a bunch of improv triangle blocks. My design wall doesn't have great lighting for photos - but I'm really happy with how it's looking. I'm also very thankful for a pretty big design wall - this is about 70 or 80" wide, so it's going to be a pretty big quilt.

I could happily work on this all day everyday - I get so absorbed in this project, I totally switch off from everything else and find it incredibly relaxing to work on. I'm hoping to start piecing it gradually each evening until I leave for Melbourne on Sunday - and I'm pretty sure I'll be dreaming about it when I can't work on it ;o)

xx Jess

Improv Quilt Beginnings

Almost as soon as I'd finished piecing my Gravity quilt top, I jumped feet first into my next quilty project - an improv quilt as a class sample for a series of improv workshops I'll be teaching at Frangipani Fabrics later this year. I've been busting to start this quilt for months, so it's SO nice to be able to start working on it. It was also a really nice excuse to cut into some new fabric - the bundle of Carkai I got very recently from Polka Dot Tea. I added lots more Carolyn Friedlander from my stash, along with a few friends.

I'll be teaching a range of improv techniques for these workshops, so I'm incorporating all of these techniques into this quilt. First up was log cabins.

And then wonky crosses, and inserting strips. I have not touched a ruler while making these blocks - and I don't think I can go back to using one for improv after this. This is such a fun and fast way to piece - and I just love the organic lines produced by ruler-free cutting.

I had a bit of time to start playing with strip piecing today - not the best photo I'm afraid, but I'm hoping to get a bunch more of these done later this week so I'll try to get a better one for my next update post on this quilt ;o).

Every time I make an improv quilt, it's like I rediscover how much joy and inspiration I get from working like this. I think you'll probably see quite a few improv quilts from me this year - this quilt has sparked heaps of ideas I'd like to try out when I get a chance!

xx Jess

Blogger's Quilt Festival - Sunshine Through the Rain

I absolutely love Amy's biannual Blogger's Quilt Festival - looking through all the entries is always inspiring, and I love adding new blogs to my reader. I don't have anything brand new this time around, but I've had fun looking through my finishes since the last festival and deciding which two to choose. If you're popping in for the festival, welcome to my blog!

I couldn't not pick this little quilt for one of my entries - I'm still a little sad that it's finished, it really was such a joy to make. So I'm entering Sunshine Through the Rain in the original quilt category. I live in Tasmania, the little island to the south of mainland Australia - and in winter we have a lot of grey, rainy days that seem to go on forever. I get really grumpy and down in this kind of weather, so I made this as a gentle reminder to myself to try to stay positive regardless of what is going on outside my window. Winter seems to have arrived early this year, so it's been quite a therapeutic quilt already :o)

You can read all about the construction of this quilt here. I appliqued the rain drops using needle turn applique, and then improv-pieced the quilt top using a range of grey and white light value prints. It is densely matchstick quilted using a variegated grey Aurifil 40wt thread for the most part, with a light yellow thread around the sun. The dense quilting has made the raindrops and sun rays pop beautifully from the quilt top, and feels incredible.

Quilt stats:
Techniques: Needle turn applique, improvisational piecing, matchstick quilting.
Size: 30" x 36"
Quilted: using FMQ matchstick quilting on my Bernina 440QE, using Aurifil 40 threads.
Design: Improvisationally designed (ie I made it up as I went along!)

I hope you enjoy the rest of the festival!

xx Jess

Improvised arrow

This year, I'm participating in a quilting bee that's a little bit different from most. We have two months to make a 12.5" x 60" (or equivalent) improv strip for the queen bee, based on a Pinterest board put together by the queen. The bee members have complete creative control over what they make, apart from the background fabric which is chosen by the queen bee.

Our January/February queen was Gemma who blogs at Pretty Bobbins (and is also FMQ obsessed - you should definitely check out her amazing quilting skills!) and gave us this Pinterest board for inspiration. I really struggled to decide what to do for a long time, but ended up thinking I'd make some improv cross blocks in rainbow colours. I cut my coloured strips, and then at the very last moment decided to try something a little different, inspired by the amazing mini quilt by Lu Summers in Gemma's board.

Once I got started, I got a little obsessed with getting it done. I know I say this every time I do improv piecing, but it really was SO much fun to make. I think I need to expand on this idea and use up a tonne of my scraps sometime soon...

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 

Low volume wonky crosses

A couple of weeks ago, I splurged and bought a second sample pack from Maze & Vale. I had been regularly pulling my first one out trying to figure out what I wanted to do, so when Leslie posted on Facebook that she had just listed a few low volume sample packs, I nabbed one pretty quickly. I think the thing I really love about these packs are that they have a wonderful range of base cloth in them - from linen to canvas to really high thread count cotton (possibly sateen? They are a bit shiny anyway.) Plus the hand prints themselves are just gorgeous.

When it arrived I started to have a few ideas about what I'd like to do with them. Ever since seeing Sarah's AMAZING low volume forest quilt (seriously go have a look. It is unbelievably gorgeous.) I've been wanting to make a (mostly) low volume quilt. I love my super saturated colours, but really wanted to push myself out of my comfort zone and make something really subdued. To me it's a really beachy palette; sand, rocks and waves. The top row here are all the Maze and Vale handprints, and the bottom are a bunch of lower volume fabrics from my stash.

After all the precision involved in making my Marcelle and now Midnight at the Oasis, I was really craving some improv piecing. I haven't done wonky crosses before so I thought I'd have a play making those to start with (and they are seriously fun. And addictive.) Once I got going I added a couple of Echo prints, since they have the same hand-print feel and the colours are perfect.

I'm not quite sure where I'm headed with these still - but we have a lot of freshly painted bare walls that need decoration, so I'm thinking it will end up a smallish wall quilt for our dining area. 

In other news, I finally got the binding on my Full Moon Lagoon quilt and washed it today so I'm hoping for some decent photo weather tomorrow so it's ready for the big reveal for Blogger's Quilt Festival on Friday :o)

xx Jess

Full Moon Lagoon Quilt Top

I have done a bit of improv piecing in the past - I'm not sure how I forgot how much fun it is! I have been working obsessively on this quilt top over the last week or so, and I'm in love :o) We've had some glorious spring weather in the last week or so - and the colours in this quilt just scream summer to me, so it's been a fitting project to work on.

I managed to include a heap of my favorite designers - loads of Lizzy House (mostly pearl bracelets and jewels), Tula Pink (Prince Charming greens) and even a bit of Anna Maria Horner. I tried to continue the fade-up effect - although the magenta and purples are much more saturated than the blues and greens, so it's not so much a fade effect between those (more a giant leap?). But still, it has come out exactly as I'd envisioned.

It's ended up fairly massive. I haven't trimmed the edges (I figure I'll do that once it's all quilted) - but at the moment it's around 75" square. The intended recipient of this quilt is my three year old daughter - so hopefully it will last her for many years to come ;o)

I didn't end up using any of the softer pink prints I had pulled out for it - so I'm going to use those in a pieced back.

It probably goes without saying, but I am extremely excited to quilt this one :o)

xx Jess

Linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced, and Quiltstory. 

WIP Wednesday - Full Moon Lagoon improv quilt

I haven't linked up with Lee for a long time - but I have a true work in progress at the moment so I thought I would this week :o)

The idea for this quilt has been percolating in my brain for a few months. I fell completely head over heels in love with Full Moon Lagoon by Mo Bedell after seeing this quilt made by the brilliant Julianna earlier this year. So last week, I started cutting the the panels up and putting them up on my design wall - with the darkest value prints in the bottom corner, moving up to the lightest prints in the top corner.

Then I pulled a stack of coordinating prints from my stash, and started making improv log cabin blocks around the panel prints. When I was choosing the prints I tried to keep the value fairly consistent - although I did add in a bit of variety value-wise in the purples (mostly because I didn't have a whole lot of really deep purple on hand.)

I have made the magenta blocks as well - and taken all the other bits off my design wall as I'm fast running out of space. I've snuck in a few pieces of Mendocino (by Heather Ross) as the colours and prints work absolutely perfectly with Full Moon lagoon. I think this is going to end up being an absolutely gigantic quilt - I need a much bigger design wall for this kind of piecing. Apparently making a bigger design wall and putting it in the hallway outside my little sewing room is completely out of the question ;o)

The plan at this stage is to add a fairly narrow row of orange prints above the magenta, followed by the greens. I am really enjoying putting these blocks together - and it's going to be quite a challenge working out how to put them all together. A lovely change from the precision required in the last couple of big quilts I've made ;o)

Linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced!

xx Jess

Something new?

I know, I know I need another project like I need a hole in the head. But I've had an epiphany of sorts of late. I've decided that there is nothing wrong with having a million projects on the go at once - if I'm feeling bogged down by a project and losing momentum, why should I feel like I have to keep at it? Why not work on something else for a while and go back to it later? Or not go back to it at all? So I decided to start something new :o)

 I like to move from one project to another (I'm very easily bored) and I've had a massive urge to do something a bit improv. I blame my Retro Flowers for this - I'm finding it incredibly draining to concentrate on getting my seams to match when sewing the petals together (seriously, the curves were the easy part. Sewing them together just sucks!) I finished my May blocks for my bees a few days ago (at last!) and I faffed around looking at my WIPs trying to decide which to work on but none of them were making me excited.

Then the other night when I was doing some blog reading, I became aware of this pattern for the first time through Jeanette's blog (go check her blog out, she is crazy talented!). I tried pulling various stacks of fabric for it, but nothing seemed just right. So that pattern has been added to my 'to do someday' list, once I work out which fabric to use. But that little pattern was stuck in my mind. I love polygons, I've worked with hexies a fair bit this year, why not try octagons? I'm not sure when the inspiration struck me, but I started thinking octagons are getting pretty close to circles (kind of, anyway). And then I got thinking bubbles. 

I have a confession here. Over the last few months I've been building up a collection of Mendocino via swaps and a few purchased bits on etsy and eBay. Oh and the dots in the top row? They've been sitting in my stash forever without me realising they are actually HR Lightning bugs. So the ridiculous amount of time I waste spend drooling over fabric online paid off there ;o) Most of these are large scraps, a few are FQs and one or two are half yards.

The solids you see dotted around are all Oakshotts. And oh my goodness I think they were made for each other - I've never found such perfect matches using other solids!

Do you get where I'm heading now? Bubbles? Mermaids? I looked at these (and yes, patted them a lot and grinned like a loony), took a deep breath and did a bit of cutting and piecing. And ta-da, my first Mendocino 'bubble' block was born. The outer ring will also be octagonal once I decide on background fabric (at this stage I'm thinking various aquas pieced kind of randomly so it kind of looks like water...) I started with an 8" square for the centre of this one, and then built the octagonal rings around it.

I loved making it so much! I wish I could show you better how superb the Oakshott aqua is. Even better though, they're a similar weight to the Mendocino and were dreamy to sew.

 Here's my second attempt - a bit smaller for this one, I started with a 6" square. 

I'll be taking a small break from these (though it breaks my heart slightly to do it) so I can actually get my June bee blocks done before time, and make my zippy pouches and drawstring bags for Danny :o)

xx Jess

I'm linking up to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced (no full list of WIPs sorry - I have a page with pics of them if you're interested in how good I am at distracting myself with new projects ;o) )

Block Party Project

I recently got Block Party by Alissa Haight Carlton and Kristen Lejnieks and seriously can't put it down. Like I look at it everyday. I don't have a whole lot of quilting books, but this one has changed my outlook on quilting all together - it is such an inspirational book! If you're a quilter interested in modern quilting you should seriously get it (would make a great Christmas present!)

So, I have decided to start an ongoing project using this book. Probably most appealing to me is the fact that its an ideas book rather than an actual quilt pattern book (I do use patterns from time to time, but generally make up my own patterns). I intend to make my own version of most of the quilts and I will be blogging my fabric choices, blocks I make and the finished quilt.

There are a lot of techniques in Block Party that I haven't tried but would like to, so I'm hoping this project will expand my quilting skills a fair bit. In the past I have tended to use a single range of fabrics in a quilt - for this project I will be pulling a variety of fabrics together to (hopefully) make some beautiful quilts.

My first attempt at improvisational piecing was my 1001 Peeps Doll Quilt and I'm addicted - it was So. Much. Fun.

I hope you'll read along as I do this project - I'm really, really excited!

Happy stitching,
Jess