I’ve been working on this baby quilt off and on since the beginning of May. Towards the end of May, I was at this point.
Then it sat untouched on my design wall until a few days ago, while I worked on other projects that had firm deadlines.
I spent the last couple of days making more striped blocks, and now the top is totally pieced. It’s about 42 x 44 inches. I love the combination of pink, purple, orange and yellow with neutrals, and the scrappy, improv look.
I’m going to back it with pink fleece, and I’ll quilt it with straight lines – most likely diagonal lines, like I did with this baby quilt. My goal is to have it finished so I can show it at the July Vancouver MQG meeting.
Thanks for stopping by. Today, I’m linking up with these blogs – click on the links below, where you’ll find many other creative and inspirational projects.
My newest cityscape quilt is finished – and just in time to be registered for the VMQG Modern Quilt Showcase – the deadline to register quilts is tomorrow.
I called it ‘Sailing at Sunset‘. It’s 13.5 x 26 inches and made entirely from solid fabrics. (See my previous post for information about how I designed it.)
And here it is next to the 6 x 8 inch cityscape mini quilt I made in March for a reader challenge in Cloth Paper Scissors magazine. I think they look great together!
Thanks for stopping by. Today, I’m linking up with these blogs – click on the links below, where you’ll find many other creative and inspirational projects.
I haven’t posted anything since Quilt Canada because I’ve been working on a secret project. It will be a few months before I can post about it, but I can show you some of the colors I used. This little pile of leftover scraps and threads was a great source of inspiration for my next project.
I’m working on my entry for the VMQG Modern Mini Showcase Challenge. It must be made from solid fabrics and have a maximum perimeter of 80 inches. I’ve been considering various options including improv piecing, circles(!) or an abstracted scene of trees and water. I had pulled a number of solid fabrics that made me think of the West Coast – mostly cool colors – blues, greens, purples.
But this pile of colorful scraps inspired me to broaden my color palette. And the return of my most recent cityscape mini quilt from Cloth Paper Scissors, gave me the inspiration I needed – a Vancouver cityscape in solid colors and a modern, abstract style.
When I think of Vancouver, I think of: colorful sunset skies, mountains, city skyline, water, and sailboats. This is how it evolved on my design wall. First, I selected my color palette. Second, I cut out the buildings and fused them to the mountains. Third, I added sunset clouds to the sky, and a reflection of the skyline in the water.
And finally, a few sailboats. Right now, they are just paper triangles pinned in place and will most likely include a few bright colors.
Now I have to unpin it from my design wall and start sewing and quilting.
Thanks for stopping by. Today, I’m linking up with these blogs – click on the links below, where you’ll find many other creative and inspirational projects.
Last week I spent 4 fun-filled days at Quilt Canada 2018 at the Vancouver Convention Centre. Four days of workshops, lectures, shopping and over 400 spectacular quilts!
On Wednesday morning, I helped my fellow Vancouver MQG members with the set up of the QuiltCon Travelling exhibit of modern quilts, which was very well received.
On Wednesday evening, I attended the Awards Ceremony, and was happy to cheer as many of my friends won awards. The National Juried Show award winning quilts can be seen here.
I was thrilled to receive the Trend-Tex award for my entry ‘Tally to Thirty’.
Here are some of the Trend-Tex quilts hanging at the show. There were 86 entries this year.
Here are some of the other concurrent shows, which were all well attended.
I attended a great workshop and inspiring lecture by Gloria Loughman from Australia.
On Saturday morning, I presented a lecture about some of my tips and techniques for making Architectural Quilts.
On Saturday afternoon, I helped take down a couple of the concurrent shows. It was fun to be a part of the behind-the-scenes set up and take down.
Now I’m looking forward to Quilt Canada 2019, which will be held in Ottawa, Ontario.
Thanks for stopping by. Today, I’m linking up with these blogs – click on the links below, where you’ll find many other creative and inspirational projects.
Welcome to my stop on the Art with Fabric Blog Hop!
I’m participating in the Spring 2018 edition of the Art with Fabricblog hop, organized and hosted by Alida of Tweety Loves Quilting.
Alida has lined up a number of quilter-artists, and has asked each of us to create a quilt or fabric project inspired by “traditional” (i.e. non-textile) art – such as paintings, drawings, sculptures, architecture, music, books from all countries and all time periods.
The Spring 2018 blog hop runs from May 21 to 24, with 3 or 4 artists blogging each day about their artwork and inspiration.
Check Alida’s Art with Fabric blog hop page for the complete schedule and links to all the participants’ blogs. Alida also has links to all the art-inspired quilted pieces from previous blog hops.
I’m glad that Alida included architecture as one of the inspirational sources, because I love to make art quilts inspired by architecture, especially bridges.
My piece is titled Jade Sky at Night and features the Pattullo Bridge, located in New Westminster BC, where I live. The bridge is a beautiful structure, with its graceful arched shape, intricate angled beams, and distinctive colors. The Pattullo was designed by supervising engineer Major W.G. Swan, and it opened in 1937. You can read more about the history of the bridge here and here.
Below is a photo I took of the Pattullo Bridge. Using photo editing software, I cropped the image, then enhanced it by boosting the contrast and using a Neon effect to change the colors.
I printed the image on fabric, fused the printed image to acrylic felt, and quilted the outlines of the bridge and the clouds.
I mounted the piece onto a 12” x 12” x 1.5” gallery wrapped canvas, using Susan Carlson’s technique described in this blog post https://susancarlson.com/2017/08/26/hang-it-up/ which describes several methods of hanging and displaying quilts. (The back of Susan’s frame looks much neater than mine – I obviously need more practice with this technique. But it looks great from the front!)
This beautiful bridge is slated for demolition and replacement in the next few years, so I plan to take a lot more photos to use as source material for future art quilts.
Visit the blogs of today’s other artists to see what artwork they’ve been inspired by:
A couple of weeks ago I attended an Improv Letters Workshop with Felicity Ronaghan (felicityquilts.com). My plan was to make some words to include in the baby quilt I’m making.
The workshop was great! Here are some of the letters made by participants.
I really liked Felicity’s improv approach for making letters and words. I made a few more words for the baby quilt.
Now I just have to build a quilt around the words using the the wonky crosses and improv stripe blocks on my design wall.
Thanks for stopping by. Today, I’m linking up with these blogs – click on the links below, where you’ll find many other creative and inspirational projects.
Also, check out the Spring 2018 edition of the Art with Fabricblog hop, organized and hosted by Alida of Tweety Loves Quilting. The Spring 2018 blog hop starts today and runs to May 24, with 3 or 4 artists blogging each day about their artwork and inspiration.
Several exhibits that I’ve entered work into have recently been posted online. Click on the links below to see some amazing art quilts and fiber art.
The SAQA Benefit Auction – there are already 200 art quilts on the Benefit Auction page and more quilts are being added to the list each day. Here’s my donation. I blogged about how I made it here.
A new Fibre Art Network exhibit ‘From a Tiny Seed’ – there are 66 pieces in this exhibit, each one is 8.5″ x 11″. My piece is ‘Beauty on the Sidewalk’. You can read about my design process here.
Another new Fibre Art Network exhibit ‘Conversations’ – this exhibit will debut at Quilt Canada in Vancouver BC at the end of this month. There are 24 pairs of artworks in this exhibit. My partner was my sister Anne, and our entries are a tribute to our father, titled ‘Jack: Conversations with Myself’. You can read about our collaboration here.
The Trend-Tex challenge for Quilt Canada 2018 – there are 86 entries, all made from the same 5 fabrics. These will be auctioned off at Quilt Canada. My quilt is titled ‘Tally to Thirty‘ and I blogged about it here.
Thanks for stopping by. Today, I’m linking up with these blogs – click on the links below, where you’ll find many other creative and inspirational projects.
A week ago, I started sewing blocks for a quilt for my brand new great-niece Evelyn. I planned make improv stripes in pink, purple and low volume prints. I started making blocks about 13 inches square, thinking that would make a quick quilt.
Here are a couple of possible arrangements I posted on Instagram.
But looking at the blocks on my design wall, they just didn’t seem bright and colorful enough. I decided to add some yellow and orange to the mix, and some darker neutrals to add contrast. Then I decided to add some wonky crosses. This is where I am now – still just making blocks with no real plan, just sticking them on the design wall. But I’m much happier with how it’s looking.
I won’t finalize the layout until next week, because this Sunday I’m taking an Improv Letters Workshop with Felicity Ronaghan. I think some improv letters (saying something like ‘Welcome to the World, Evelyn’) will fit in well with the wonky crosses and improv stripes.
Thanks for stopping by. Today, I’m linking up with these blogs – click on the links below, where you’ll find many other creative and inspirational projects.
Quilt Canada is coming to Vancouver in late May/early June. In conjunction with the Canadian Quilters’ Association, Cindy at Cindy’s Threadworks is sponsoring a quilted postcard challenge. The postcards will be on display at Quilt Canada and will be available for purchase by donation, with all proceeds going to the BC Children’s Hospital.
The theme is “Inspired by Nature”. I had planned to use some of the leaf photos I took last October. But with the May 1 deadline fast approaching, I wasn’t sure I would have time to edit and print them, as well as do the quilting.
Then I remembered that when I made my SAQA auction donation in March, I had to print the leaf image twice, because the first attempt didn’t print the bottom inch (due to operator error!). But since most of the image was good, I kept it to use in another project – like this one.
I cut the printed fabric down from 13 x 13 inches to 10 x 12 inches. I fused it to gray acrylic felt, and and free-motion quilted the leaf and the pebbles. Here is the front and the back after the quilting.
I fused a layer of Decor-Bond to the back to secure the quilting threads and to add stiffness. Then I fused on the backing fabric. I cut out three 4 x 6 inch pieces for postcards. I straight-stitched twice around the edges, and wrote my contact information on the backs. I started working on these Monday morning, and had them in the mail that afternoon.
Thanks for stopping by. Today, I’m linking up with these blogs – click on the links below, where you’ll find many other creative and inspirational projects.
As I said in my last post, I decided to base my design on the theme of 30 years. I wanted a design that looked modern and interesting, and decided on tally marks. I’m not fond of the bubblegum pink color in the front fabric, but some extreme fussy cutting minimized that color in my quilt.
For the quilting, I outlined each set of tally marks with a double-stitched line of contrasting colored thread. Then I quilted the background with straight-line echo quilting. The edges are faced. It is 16 x 20 inches. Below you can see the quilt, a detail, and the back.
There are some wonderful entries this year – check out the Instagram hashtag #trendtexchallenge. There are typically 70 to 80 submissions to this challenge each year (you can see the submissions for the last 3 years here). This year’s entries will be on display at Quilt Canada 2018 in Vancouver BC, from May 31 – June 2.
Thanks for stopping by. Today, I’m linking up with these blogs – click on the links below, where you’ll find many other creative and inspirational projects.
