Quilt it: design wall

Showing posts with label design wall. Show all posts

05 April 2018

madhouse

spring is late this year and I will share a quilt I finished a bit earlier

here is madhouse:

finished at 72" * 72"
hand quilted in perle cotton no 16 on quilters dream wool batting
logcabin variation, starting with a pentagon shape
basted on the wall with quilters safety pins

using 2.5", 3.0" and 6.0" strips and charm pack squares from my many boxes of precut fabric, I managed to scale down and free up some storage space. Rearranging fabric is an neverending activity. I think it's also a way to find new inspiration.

The quilt is soft and warm, quite happy with the finish. I have used a bit of black color, and think it adds a lot of dept to the palette.

More hand quilting is going on behind the scenes, and hopefully there will be more quilty goodness to share in a while...

; )

08 May 2016

sunday morning

designwall in the dining room

wip - slowly but surely

; )

31 March 2016

longing for spring

This spring I keep looking through wip boxes, and one of them contained a fair amount of 2.5" strips in pastell colors from maybe 2 years ago. So I decided to move along and empty out the box.

These 16 patch blocks ends up a square 8", and I was aiming for a 64" by 80" layout. Easy piecing, but still a bit of puzzle to find a good balance and nice contrast in the final top.

A few pastell marzipan eggs was consumed during constructions, as may be expected of a easter time endevour as this... Appropriate, I would say, as they were an important part of the inspiration regarding the color palette.

Did you ever make a quilt inspired by a favourite snack or sweets?

; )

09 July 2015

tag poppin' in ballard

My latest quilt top on the design wall, in the process of being put together.

This is my third time sewing with reclaimed shirts. I think they are a bit more challenging to use than quilting cotton, as they vary in weight and weave. So I went with simple shapes.

I also wanted to make them a bit big to show off the pretty fabrics that are generously gifted from a dear friends stash and joyfully selected on a memorable day of tag poppin' in Ballard, Seattle.
Happy memories in each square of fabric!

The colors is a hommage to LeeAnn's stash and love of a beautiful warm palette. I always admire her way of choosing colors.

The design is simple, 9 patches measures 7.5" finished size. The medallion / trip around the world variation is inspired by a golden brooch from viking times found in a creek near my grandmothers childhood home. A true fairytale that is now exhibited in the archeological museum in my home town Stavanger. As a stark contrast my grandmother was one of 5 girls raised by their mother with no such luxury. They learned to make do and mend. My grandmother was an excellent cook and a seamstress. And I was lucky enough to spend time with her and my grandfather in the summertime with my siblings and cousins, completely spoilt on homemade bread and cake, fish from the fjords and fresh vegetables from their patch. This spring we have been spending a lot of time refreshing the gardens of this place, her childhood home, chopping down trees and clearing brush.

Visiting LeeAnn I was privileged to see and touch her quilts and quilts of her good friends in the Rebels quilt group. The softness of those quilts made from recycled shirts are just wonderful!

For me, so many happy things come together in this simple quilt top. tag poppin' in ballard is 67.5" square and I will spend some time wondering about adding a border or not.

The mystery of the struggle accessing my blog and uploading pictures are still not completely solved. It seems like our service provider might not be consistent in providing stable lines. Hopefully there will be more posts this summer. The weather is only good for indoor activities right now...

; )

15 May 2013

wednesday wip

In the end there was no choice, I had to have a go at Katy Jones popular pattern "scrap vomit". I think scrap archives would also be a fitting name. Seeing so many and so diverse fabric come together in the same quilt. I have included some of my oldest purchases, some of my newest, some gifted to me by friends and some swapped.

My quilt will have 1225 simple 2.5" squares. The nifty sizzix machine with the right die comes in handy, here. But my own scrap system also heavily leans towards these cute squares. A quarter of a charm square. The end of a jelly roll. Extras from a bargello block, a 16 patch and so on. Over time they do collect. For this quilt I also had a proper look and slim down of my scraps. The ones I keep in smaller boxes, sorted by color. My scrap organizing system builds on inspiration from Bonnie K Hunter, Amanda Jean and Cheryl. So far I have been making popular patterns from several designers out of the 2.5" squares and the small scrap boxes:

Bonnie K Hunters / Gwen Marston Maverick stars ( two finished lap quilts)

Emily Ciers Scrap Hoover (top)

Jolene's Granny Square (finished quilt)

Elizabet's Tokyo Subway Map (wip / top)

Amanda Jean and Cheryl's Scrappers delight (wip) and The Missing U (wip)

and now:

Katy Jones Scrap Vomit (wip becoming a top)

A few of these wips are in a state of arrested development due to a shortage in scraps! I will consider this a success. A few years of quilting does produce quite a bit of scraps. As some of you may have noticed I happen to love the scrappy kind of quilts. And now there's room for more. I think it's time to turn to the stash and cut into some yardage and FQ, soon...

This latest adventure, my scrap vomit wip has been named emerald city. I do enjoy making it. The most difficult thing, so far, has been to choose the central cross colors. In the end I went with emerald, by pantone named color of the year 2013.

"Symbolically, Emerald brings a sense of clarity, renewal and rejuvenation, which is important in today's complex world." quote from Pantone

A bit uncharacteristic for my taste in colors, I really love how well the emerald contrasts with the colors of all the other pieces in there.

A scrappy greeting from me. Somewhat quiet these days on the blog. But still piecing my life together, bit by bit... Happy stitching!

14 February 2013

be my valentine

Thank you for your vote of confidence, yesterday. I got a bit carried away and had to pursue the inspiration...

starting point: layer cake "dream on" by Urban Chicks

blocks: about 9" hst

quilt size: about 63" * 72"

level of fun: high

Wish you all Happy Valentine' day!

02 February 2013

strings on a saturday

For me, the start of a new year is always a good time to get more organized. Looking through my stash, scraps and wips... I am making slow progress on my spiderweb blocks that was started last year ...

Over time I have collected strings with this wip in mind. The strings vary in width but fit into the colors I choose for the quilt.

I am aiming for 15" finished blocks in a layout of 60" * 75". This will be a busy and colorful one!

After putting the few finished blocks on the design wall, I decided to cut out the base square for the rest of the 20 blocks. I am using my own tutorial for these with a few adaptions:

larger squares to start with
a more narrow star forming in the center

I was not happy to dig through a lot of strings , so I decided to sort and divided them by color to make it easier to grab a few of each... The challenge of making these blocks for me is to have good contrast and distribution of color throughout the quilt. I also think a good mix of light and dark values make the blocks more vibrant.

Enjoying the slow progress as these spiderweb blocks are fun, but not so quick to make. This quilt will be a labor of (scrappy string) love as the spiderweb is one of my most favorite traditional patterns.

Hope you are enjoying your weekend!

30 January 2013

five

My latest quilting adventure started with some beautiful field study fabric and a wish to try making Kathy Doughty's Fractured pattern using 2.5" strips WOF.

I pulled out a warm palette to complement Anna Maria Horners Field study from my stash: orange, pink, red purple and gold. Making blocks and putting them up on my design wall I decided my fabric selection didn't work out, so I put some of the blocks and ready cut strips aside. Then I finished the purple fractured top shown in picture 4.

The spare blocks from this first fractured quilt top kept calling me. I put them on my design wall and decided it was half a top worth of pretty blocks. So I pulled more fabric from stash and made the pink fractured quilt top shown in picture 2.

This second fractured top is slowly being hand quilted on wool batting and a voile backing. (see picture 3). It is softer than butter and oh so tempting to work on.... The key for me is to go slow with the hand-quilting. I have spent all my money at the chiropractors office lately. Not fun! I have to find a way to go back to spend my money on fabric instead.

The center 4 patch in the first picture are made from spare parts from the second fractured top. They were just winking at me saying "don't we look pretty? All we need is a few star points from the scrap bin."

So we are down to picture 5. The spare parts from the spare parts formed a figure of five stars. Reminding me to tell you it's been 5 years since I started this blog. Thank you all for making it such a great place to share ideas and inspiration!

Wish you all a great wednesday and hope you will have some pretty spare parts tempting you to get creative! Me, I am trying to go real slow. 5 years is not so long, I do not want to stop quilting and blogging just yet!

; )

16 January 2013

wednesday wip and washday

cold january weather outside,

working with some warm colors inside...

this is my twist on Kathy Doughty's Fractured quilt pattern

I like to work with pre-washed fabric, and there is a bit of catching up to do...

wish you all a good wednesday!

03 January 2013

stash buster

Sometimes we all get smitten with a lovely quilt pattern, and it starts popping up on lots of blogs. The so called scrappy trips around the world pattern have been on my to do list for quite some time. I made my first (this is so fun you would want to make more than one) last spring, and now I would like to share the finished quilt with you.

The pattern is easy and fun and free for all over at Bonnie. Thank you Bonnie for providing so many great classic patterns! Quiltville is a true treasure throve and a great place to find inspiration.

For my first take on this pattern I set two rules:

a limited color palette: yellow / orange / pink / purple and turquoise
using the darker strip of each block as a diagonal

I did some stash busting on this one. You will need 2.5" strips of about 17" length. FQ will work nicely. Putting the colors together for each block was great fun. And so was seeing how fast it grows on the design wall...

My scrappy trips around the world finished at 60" by 72", long-arm quilted on hobbs thermore polyester batting. It is to be gifted later this spring to somebody special.

It is a fun quilt to make and can be a great stash buster. I would like a halloween one, a christmas one, maybe use those pretty Tula Pink FQs in one, or my precious japanese fabric or maybe dive into my favorite Denyse Schmidt...

sometimes it is hard to stop at just one. You just have to believe me ; )

We are having a mild and wet start of 2013. The first day of the year was spent visiting the doctor as I am completely knocked out by the flu. Hopefully that will pass quickly, and I can dust off my sewing machine. Not sewing is not good for my soul.

Wish you all a great thursday!

26 September 2012

wednesday wip

Progress is made on my sunday morning paper blocks. The strips are sewn together into blocks: a 70" by 80" layout with only 1 spare block. I will take some time to move them around and make sure there is a decent distribution of prints. The blocks are fun and easy to sew. I stay stitch the strips after squaring them up. Making sure they are fit for moving around on my design wall...