You’ll probably recognize this general idea and color scheme from another recently finished quilt I wrote about; I’m not releasing a detailed pattern for the piecing process here, but I don’t mind if you just figure it out yourself and copy it…

Some pictures have filters to enhance the stitching and make the colors more vibrant.  I can do that here as this one isn’t being advertised so accurate hues aren’t an issue!

I had a custom order for a smaller throw quilt in the same colors and I just happened to have enough left of two of them and a spare piece of Moda Grunge that was pretty close to the dove gray I used in the first quilt, so this came about and made my client very happy.  She’s also a huge fan of words on quilts, and I had a panel from the Thrive fabric line (Natalia Bonner & Kathleen Whiting, for Moda Fabrics) so we chose a suitable block and I pieced it in.

I had free reign over the quilting designs which is always tons of fun, so I set about to use similar stitching to what I had already done in the first one.  However, as often happens, the plan changed not long after I got started 🙂

I tried out some funky stuff here, used a stencil I recently purchased from Love Shack Quilts in one of the chevron areas, pulled out several of my circle rulers and experimented with various ideas that came to mind along the way.

The result was a vivid modern super textured and fun lap quilt with a bit of inspiration popping out of the background and now that it’s all laundered and ready to go, it’s as cuddly as can be and I just know she’s going to love it!

I’ve included links below to a couple of videos I shot while quilting this: one is showing the greyish area with the chevron paths and the other is a time lapse of me finishing off the word block.  Most of the other things you have seen me do before haha.  Until next time…

 

 

There’s always more to learn, more motifs to try, more fillers to practice.  The lists are endless.  So I have no shortage of available ideas, especially with access to the internet.

But I recently began to feel that I needed something else.  I’m not saying “something more” because I have access to “MORE”!  Something “ELSE” is different.

I wanted to start seeing spaces differently, to learn to look past the obvious and venture into new territory.  To “unlock my brain” so to speak, in the words of a quilt artist I recently spent a very productive and inspiring private training day with, Sharon Blackmore of Love Shack Quilts.  That was our goal: unlock my brain and take my quilting to the next level.

It’s not my nature to think outside the box; I can be lead there, but it doesn’t come naturally to me.  Thus the need to “unlock” my brain!  I can plan on the fly over a wide open space, and work within the confines of blocks to accent piecing, but I knew there was more to be done somewhere in between those two.

I had loaded this client quilt (pieced by Pam Fritsche) mid-week with a definite plan for a few of the areas, basted the whole quilt so I could roll it back and forth, and started stitching the designs that were clear in my mind.  I used some of my go-tos for the centre triangles, lots of straight lines for the modern look, I knew I needed to leave space for the initials requested, and I had the big feather border stitched out before I left it.

After my lesson day, I came home to the quilt, thinking I would just finish this one up and then start using my new vision on the next one! haha But when I started stitching the second large area around the star with the big echoed circles I felt myself getting bored (that doesn’t usually happen!).  I hit the centre of the bottom edge and immediately experienced a shift when I saw the space.

I wanted a big change that would make a statement right there and decided I could easily build a triangle and fill it.  That was the start – yes I’ve done something like this before in wide open space, but not in the middle of a border as a contrasting element.  I stitched it out, finished off the big circles and advanced the quilt.

I was planning to stitch a piano key border in the outside white space, but those darn grey half square triangle were mocking me.  I stared at them for a bit, trying to come up with designs to fill them in some ordered kind of way – typical! – but it suddenly hit me that I could ignore all of them and that bright orange sashing, and make my triangle a square!

This might not seem like a light bulb moment to everyone, but for me it was a breakthrough because I was seeing the space differently than usual, ignoring what was already there and making something new right on top of it.  I was playing outside the lines!  (and the angels sang… LOL)

From there, of course, I needed to up the anti in the rest of the final area too.

The whole time I was enjoying my new inspiration I was wishing I could go back in and change the first areas I had stitched because they would have been different at that point, but the end result was still pretty cool and I’m looking forward to my next detailed project so I can put to use more of what I learned 🙂

When I take a quilt off the frame I like to get a really good look at all the texture from various angles.  And that white on white gets me every time!

I love that square and I love how it draws all the attention to itself.

Do you play outside the lines? 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

Naming quilts isn’t my forte.

By nature, I feel the pressure to somehow come up with an inspired and interesting name for each of the more technical quilts I finish now, moreso than when I first started.

I remember when numbering them seemed like a good idea even if just for my own reference – since I make my own labels it was easy to add numbers to each one – and I only made “special” labels when giving a gift or when a customer requested some personalization after the quilt was finished.

However, I’ve now progressed to wanting special labels on most of my bigger quilts with more intricate stitching – not only for posterity but also because there’s something beautiful about a custom label on a handmade item.  No matter where the quilt ends up (and most of mine are sold) there will be a part of it that tells people who made it and when, along with where it fits in my story (numbers).  It gives me room to include a favourite quote or information about the pattern, whether it was original or not etc.

I like to sew this type onto the backing fabric before the quilting is done so my stitching goes right through the label, making it a part of the quilt itself rather than an “add-on”.  BUT I’m still not at the point where I actually remember to do that every time, and this quilt is an example of that!

So when I took this quilt off the frame and went to bind it, I noticed I had forgotten to make a label.  And if I’m going to make a label I need a name.  That little glitch then interrupted my routine of trimming and binding immediately after unloading and I had to sit down and really think about what the heck I was going to call it!  I could go on about the various things that came to mind and the mental blocks that caused delay, bit I eventually settled on “Let it Flow” because that’s exactly what I did while quilting it.

Some of the stitching on this was practice using ideas I’ve seen and liked and wanted to try, and some of it was a complete deviation from the original plan because that’s what happens when I am in “the zone”.  So I let it flow.  No regulation (except for the ruler work), just free motion in manual mode, me and my machine learning to work together in our own unique rhythm, which is getting more fine tuned as we go along 🙂

It was fun and therapeutic and on the practical side it gave me ideas for more quilts like this where I can work on the solid areas I love to play in with a bit of structure (using the seam lines to define my spaces) and combine colors that are trendy and fun for modern whole cloth quilt results.

There’s a short video at the bottom showing a bit of stitching just for fun; most of this you have probably seen before in my other videos so I didn’t record a lot of detail work, just enough to give you an idea of the process I used 🙂