"A Moment of Zen" part 2

Now that the submission deadline is past, I feel comfortable showing the rest of this quilt. We had left off with the central yin/yang circle in its fabric frame. I took the challenge fabric (and some other Hoffman fabric from my stash - an alternate colorway of the 2008 challenge - a bit of a private joke for me) and fussy cut the fish parts, and positioned them on the background:

The fusible web I tried for this quilt is Shades SoftFuse and I was really very pleased with it. I've tried most fusibles on the market, and the last heavily appliqued quilt I made was very stiff and hard to sew through once you got 3 or more layers glued down. This stuff may not be as adesive as some other fusibles, but it works great (I would recommend always sewing the edges down with this product), and it does not add a lot of bulk or stiffness to the fabric. It really does work as advertised, and I'll be buying more of it in the future.
 

If you look closely, you'll see that the red "scales" on the purple fish (and the feathering in its tail) are petals from the challenge flowers. The gold dorsal stripes are also cut from the challenge fabric, as are the "whiskers" on the top fish. The fish on top is composed completely from the challenge fabric, using the flower petals for the front part of the fish, and some fussy-cut leaves for its fins. The fins on the bottom fish are composed of peacock feathers from the other fabric.

I  agonized over border designs for days. I didn't want to detract from the center of the quilt, and I wanted something pieced. I poured through the Oriental design books I had in the house, and my inspiration came from a Dover book "Japanese Design Motifs" which is basically a collection of family crests from the 19th century. Virtually every shape, animal, and trade are represented in that book, but that's where I got the idea for interlocking squares.

I fired up EQ7 and designed 2 blocks: one for the end squares and one for the inside squares. I made the decision not to foundation-piece these, and I lived to regret it. It was quite a challenge to piece these, but I got it done.

I then tried a trapunto-type technique where I sewed a layer of batting around my fish and then cut it away from the non-fish areas before making my sandwich.

Quilting, next:

And a view from the back. I didn't do too much quilting, because I didn't want to take away from the fish, and I didn't want to screw the quilt up. almost all the quilting was done with Sulky invisible thread on top and white thread in the bobbin. This combination seemed to work really well and I hardly had any thread breakage at all.

I got the binding on (the same fabric as the dark part of the yin/yang symbol in the center), and then needed to figure out something for the corners. They were rather bare. I had attempted a quilted motif in one corner, but I hated how it looked and picked it out. The emptiness does give the eyes a place to rest, which I thought was nice. I finally, after consulting with some friends on the quilting group at LiveJournal, decided on some beading.

I made a floral cluster of 6 beads in the intersections of the border pattern, and beaded a fringe with some lovely iridescent amber glass pony beads and some copper flat beads that I picked up at Costume Con this past April.

And here is the finished quilt, which is now in the hands of the Hoffman Challenge judges.

Hoffman Challenge, 2011: "A Moment of Zen"

I am very pleased to announce that I have an entry for this year's Hoffman Challenge in a Priority Mail box waiting to be taken to the Post Office today. I had been stuck on what to do with the gorgeous oriental print that is this year's challenge fabric for months on end.

I knew I wanted to do something with applique; and to turn the print "on its head", so to speak. I didn't want flowers to be the main theme, and I wasn't going to try to some crazy pieced thing because I've looked at the previous years' winners in that category, and I simply didn't have enough time to attempt something like those.

So I was kicking around a lot of ideas, and then I discovered an artist on Etsy, Kailey Lang, who is just fabulous. I bought some of her fish prints, and I just really started to love the visual look of koi fish, and the concept for my challenge quilt presented itself to me. The concept is not new, and it even showed up in Avatar: The Last Airbender  as Tui and La.

I sketched a fish, and then traced that sketch onto vellum:

These were retraced onto freezer paper to make templates.

I further constrained my design process by limiting myself to stash fabrics. This is fine with me as I have a large collection of Asian prints, and I got to use an out of print Hoffman fabric which was an alternate colorway to the 2008 challenge fabric (I find this amusing, and I hope it's not lost on the judges). I also used some fabrics I purchased to audition for the last Hours in the Garden quilt I made for my niece's wedding, but didn't make the cut for that quilt. they worked perfectly here. for my Yin/Yang base.

I used a waste bin as a large circle template and cut 2 circles of light and dark material  Then I think I drew the inside curve in chalk and freehand cut with a rotary cutter through both light and dark layers, leaving me enough to make 2 of these. Then a lot of pinning ensued and I slowly pieced the 2 pieces together. I clipped the outer curves at sewing time to ease the fabrics together, and they laid perfectly flat when I pressed them towards the dark fabric. The background is completely pieced, and not applique.

Stay tuned for Part 2, where the quilt really starts to take shape.

Summer Solstice

Today is the summer solstice and I just received a big box of sale batting from Connecting Threads.  I purchased one or 2 pieces of a few different types of batting to experiment with and see what I will be using as my "go-to" batting going forward.

I got several packages of these:

 Hobbs Heirloom Wool Batting
 Hobbs Heirloom 80/20 Batting
 Hobbs Heirloom 80/20 Fusible Batting

I've heard noting but great things about wool batting, so I got some during the sale - it's still kind of pricey but at a sale price is comparable to other battings when they're not on sale.

I am very interested in the 80/20 fusible. I only have a "domestic" machine, and  I have issues keeping all my layers flat while quilting anything larger than a placemat.  I used a fusible 100% poly batting on the cat quilt, and, while the actual quilting was manageable, I was not happy with the loft and the flatness of the poly batting, and I'm hoping it softens up decently after washing (I didn't have time to wash the quilt after finishing it) like the package said.

I'm hoping the Hobbs will be a better choice for me. I'm looking forward to experimenting.

Now I have to piece some more tops!

A lap Quilt For Two

This weekend was the wedding for one of my good friends, someone I've known for almost 30 years, and like a good quilter, I decided to make him a quilt for a wedding present. I was completely unsure about the color scheme in his residence, so I kept it to neutral colors. The Quilt was designed in EQ7, modifying one of their foundation-pieced block patterns, and doing a lot of redesigning on the fly, as I could not figure out how to get this particular layout to work properly in the program.

As you can see in the EQ7 design the borderd squares are composed of 4 blocks with a cross inside, instead of a square block with pieced sashing and a 9-patch keystone block - which is how I constructed it..

From start to finish took me 5 days of very concentrated effort. I paper pieced the cats.

Here is the finished quilt:

And some photos of the quilting detail.

I could have done more, but I had only a handful of evenings to get this quilted in time for the wedding. I used a fusible polyester batting, because it was fast. I'm OK with the results - I just wish I had more time to spend on it so I could have used a batting with a bit more loft and a bit softer.

I will be writing up this pattern, and showing some alternate design options - like this one:

Had I been confident the recipients would have liked a rainbow quilt, I would have made this for them. But the one I made is a more elegant presentation.

quilt for Joplin, Finished

It's a bit small for a grownup, but should work really nicely for a child between 5-12. I had a lot of fun quilting the solid borders - so much so that I may do some more solid color quilts in the future. Used 8 bobbins for this. The quilting took twice as long as the piecing, and the binding about as long as the quilting. I did stitch-in-the-ditch in the center. I hope whoever receives this in Joplin enjoys it. I still have to do a label but that can wait for tomorrow.

Quilt top

Quilted and bound

Back of Quilt

Quilting detail

Quilt for Joplin (WIP)

Quilt for Joplin, MO, and part of the 30 Days of Creativity challenge.

Still needs some wide borders to make it large enough for a teen/adult. I'm not sure who this is going to - our guild is collecting quilts on Monday to send/bring to Joplin.

My first quilting pattern is published!

Picture Purr-fect, a crib-sized beginner quilt that will teach you how to make half and quarter-square triangles and sew on the bias, and also make a lovely on-point baby quilt.

The top goes together very fast, and is fun and easy. More advanced quilters can quickly adapt the piecing techniques to larger quilts.

You can order hard copy or digital editions (or both -  if you order hard copy, the digital edition is FREE) from Magcloud. PDF versions are also available in my Etsy store.

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EDIT:: I first made this quilt 13 months ago, and blogged about it here: http://quiltiliciousjourney.blogspot.com/2010/04/quilts-for-kids-ready-to-ship.html

I am amused that I said check back in a few weeks and I'll have a pattern... I guess "few" is 57.