Category Archives: Modern Quilting

May 9, 2019 · 5:34 am

A Change of Perspective

Last week I subjected you to umpteen iterations of layouts for “Arches.” I know, I’m the only one who saw much difference among all the versions. This week I’d like to present my final layout and thank all of you who made such helpful comments. They guided me to the version I will quilt.

It turned out I simply needed to make the width the long side, which changes how the parts relate to each other. I also added a turquoise strip along the bottom with a few narrow strip insertions.

Monty Don’s program (one of those sweetly earnest British reality TV shows featuring “Britain’s favorite gardener”) on French gardens may have subconsciously influenced me. All the gardens had geometrically pruned hedges and espaliered trees. The tall, narrow pairs of mirror image curves remind me of that rigorously trimmed French greenery. Not my taste in gardens, but I like it in a quilt.

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May 3, 2019 · 5:21 am

If I Sew It

I know I’ll be ripping it out tomorrow. Some projects demand that I change my mind after the sewing is done. My current project, “Arches,” is like that. After an early burst of inspiration that came together in a few hours, work on it since has been a slog. Each time I make a change, something else is off, and my seam ripper rears its pointy head.

Someone sent me a photo of Colleen Cole’s “Pockets of Time,” and I just had to start free cutting curves into solid color fabrics. I think my piece is different from hers. Certainly my palette is different with the turquoises, cobalt, hot pink, putty, and brownish gray.


Early stages when I thought I was close to done.
Then I started fussing, and added a divider between the left third and the right two-thirds
I decided the overall shape was too dumpy, and went to a thin version. This may blow my aim to have a piece at least 36 inches wide, which is a minimum for many shows.
Trying a pink strip instead of blue. You get points for finding it.
Gave up on tall version and went back to dumpy, minus the dividing strip. Hate it.
I’ve gone back to a tall format and kept the left side strip. I think this may be where I’ll stop, except for some minor fiddling around the edges. Sometimes I just get tired of a piece and want to call it done.

I’m linking to Off The Wall Friday.

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February 7, 2019 · 5:04 am

Deep(ly Flawed) Purple

In case you think quilt creation for me is all beer and skittles, I want to take you behind the curtain and share my latest humbling quilting experience. I haven’t done such a bad job in years. I’m embarrassed to reveal my ineptitude, but I want to make a clean breast of it. Maybe we can laugh about it, sometime.

In December I showed you “Deep Purple,” an improv created quilt top and asked your advice about how to finish it. The advice you sent was helpful, and I used it to complete the top.

Recently, I started to quilt this piece, and what began as an improv quilting design devolved into a royal mess. First, I decided to quilt edge to edge with purple thread, following some of the angled pieced lines. Then, when I saw all the intriguing shapes those lines created, I decided to quilt the shapes separately – in a different color thread.

The chartreuse thread I chose went well with the main non-purple color in my quilt, but I didn’t have as much of the thread as I thought. I placed an order for more, but it would take a week to arrive. So, I quilted only three rounds in each shape with chartreuse, and filled in the rest with my purple thread. Oh, I also decided to change the quilting direction to just parallel lines. The process of yanking the quilt through my sewing machine’s harp with each round was hard on my machine and my arms.

When I changed to parallel lines I decided to use my machine’s automatic tie-off feature so I wouldn’t have to hand knot and bury hundreds of thread ends. I’ve done this before and have gotten by with it. However, the purple thread I was using on the top and bottom stood out blindingly on the yellow-green backing fabric.

Because the shapes were so awkward, I had to start and stop my quilting lines however I could. I did switch to a lighter bobbin thread once I saw what was happening. The change helped a bit, but the thread barf balls still show up well. At this point I wasn’t open to ripping out and starting over.

Usually I steam press the daylights out of my tops to get them flat. However, “Deep Purple” has velveteen, which marks badly when steam pressed, so it was lightly pressed. Despite pinning, parts of the top were looser than others and the fabrics were different thicknesses, so the fabric scooched up along the bias lines I was quilting. The result was sheering and tiny pleats. I did redo some of the worst. Yes, I used a walking foot.

Right now this mess hangs over a banister, awaiting some sort of edge finish. Like me, it looks OK from a distance in dim lighting. Up close it’s another story.

I’m linking to Off The Wall Friday.

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December 13, 2018 · 5:51 am

Too Much Purple?

People see red, turn green with envy, are blue, etc., but what emotion is associated with purple? Passion? Overheated prose? Anger? Elegant decadence?

I ended up with a very purple quilt top for a prosaic reason, nothing to do with emotions. The scraps I had, gifted velveteen from a church janitor, and luscious grape fabric I had on hand determined my purple path. I stitched  already pieced scraps from past projects onto old phone book pages. My idea was to do paper piecing light, with far fewer seams sewn through the paper.

The scraps are left from a baby quilt and “Church Windows”

Next, I sewed Marcia Derse’s grape crush solid fabric down around the edges, along with contrasting color handles. It was easier said than done, as sharp angles caused me to misjudge how much fabric to allow.

I also added velveteen edges and tried mixing in different purple fabric. That did not go well.

I abandoned the velveteen edges and tried other corner treatments made of velveteen and silk.

I didn’t like the clunkiness where the corners meet. I also decided to eliminate a row of blocks and add a border. I was bound and determined to use the velveteen. It’s not your eyes; the photo is out of focus.

I’ll spare you all the fiddling I did, but I eventually settled on the following arrangement.

The corners are spread out and work on a border has begun.

I decided to drop the narrow inner border. The color is really a yellow green, which photographs more yellow than it is.

The present state of “Deep Purple.”

Right now it’s quite prickly looking. Maybe I’ll get it quilted this year or maybe I’ll decide to change it and save the quilting for 2019.

I’m linking to Off The Wall Friday.

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November 15, 2018 · 5:51 am

Modern Curves

I hereby declare this is drunkards path week. First, I featured the paintings of Luiz Zerbini. Now, I want to show you two small quilts, let’s call them quiltlets, I’ve been working on. They use the modern drunkards path block.

What makes this block modern? As the photo below shows, the larger, traditional orange and yellow blocks have at least a half inch between the outer edge and the pie piece, while in the smaller modern blocks the distance between the pie  and the curved piece is just 1/4 inch. When the modern blocks are sewn together, the pies touch each other. At least that’s the theory.

Inspired by the work of Jenny Haynes, I created a flower pillow and a small quilt using the templates I had copied from the back of Angela Pingel’s “A Quilter’s Mixology.”

The 15.5 inch pillow cover is made up of 3.5 inch blocks and is quilted with my sewing machine’s serpentine stitch.

The 20.5 by 24.5 inch quiltlet reverses the light and dark colors from the pillow cover.

The stem is a strip of old curtain material I plucked from the theater costume shop’s garbage can.

I’m still working up a quilting design for “Flower Power” but have managed to start two new projects, so I’ve shoved all the boring (to me) finishing chores to the bottom of the heap. I have a month and a half until the close of 2018, plenty of time for all the facings/bindings/quilting/hanging sleeves needed.

I’m linking to Off The Wall Friday.

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August 16, 2018 · 5:36 am

Stars From My Scrap Bins

My last procrastination to avoid my canal project was a scrappy stars quilt. The canal project is onto its next phase, so I can stop making excuses now. Meanwhile, I have yet another top to quilt. I don’t think I thought my diversion through to its logical end.

As I’ve done before, I pulled out my scrap strips bins to create lots of strip squares, which I then cut into two triangles. Many of the light colored squares were made from scrap bags I bought at the Sew Batik sewing expo booth. I just don’t use light fabrics enough to have a good stockpile of light strips.

I paired the triangles in mostly light/dark combinations, with a few all light ones, and had fun creating stars with them. I was inspired by a quilt posted on Pinterest. It was made by Stash Lab Quilts, and is brighter than mine.

I had made a rough drawing of my layout, but found that getting the light triangles to flow together really drove the composition. I guess I know who or what is really in charge. That’s right, color and value.

I’m linking up to Nina-Marie’s Off The Wall Friday.

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April 5, 2018 · 5:44 am

The Last Bit Seems To Take Forever

It used to be that I took forever to quilt my tops. I’ve gotten better at that, but now I face the hurdle of finishing the edges. Case in point, my Big Red quilt.

It began as an offshoot of Rayna Gillman’s casual suggestion in her latest book to alternate background fabrics slightly for an accordion fold effect. That appealed to me, so I sorted numerous red fabric strips into lighter and darker piles and sewed them on a diagonal to lighter and darker pieces of gray fabric. I spiced up the red with bits of blue and metallic gray fabric.

Originally each vertical strip was the same width, but I found that too static and cut off different sized bits from the left and right sides.

I’m glad I used a leftover piece of wool batting as it makes the straight line quilting stand out so well. The heavier red line at the top of the red quilting sections was done with a jeans stitch. I had planned to couch cording there, but decided I could get straighter lines with a heavy stitch line.

Two decisions remain. Should I do more quilting in the long diamond shapes and what edge finish should I use? I have two gray fabrics as possible bindings. One is the metallic gray I used in the red sections. I could also face the edges.

Let me know your thoughts. I’ve had it up on the design wall too long to be objective about it.

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