Defractured – a baby boy quilt

I can’t believe I actually finished a quilt. It’s been such a long time! Don’t get me wrong: I haven’t been quilting much lately, infact I haven’t been sewing much at all (my mojo went missing). But FINISHING a quilt that’s something that has not happened here for a very loooooong time…

All that was needed to get me going was another baby to be born. Not mine. But my friends’. And another one (from my sister). And another one (from my colleague at work). So even if I finished ONE quilt now, I am already late for the other two… (stay tuned for more though, I am on a roll recently…)

And now, without much further ado, here is the baby quilt that I made for my friend’s second son:

In the upper left, the hexagons are still regular. They start to fall apart in the lower left part and are completely defractured in right half. Things can be pretty in life even if they are irregular. Harmony can be found in the oddest shapes, forms and places.

I combined low volume fabrics with vibrant boy-ish prints in blue, turquoise, grey, and different shades of green.

I decided to keep the quilting simple: I used the stitch-in-the-ditch method and only quilted within the main (block) seams.

I used a white backing with little blue pluses and a scrappy binding from leftover low volume strips.

No baby quilt leaves this house without the baby’s name on it! Although I am not a huge fan of serifs, I instantly fell in love with this font. I admit that I hated those tiny serifs even more when tacking them down with my sewing machine. I used a broad zig zag stitch for this raw-edge appliqué.

One last photo and I am off to visit the newborn!

May there be many more babies to come (or I will never finish my WIPs).

Do you sometimes need some extra motivation? Did you ever loose your mojo? How did you get it back? Any tips or tricks that you want to share?

Happy Quilting!
Christine

Simple Squares - A homage to Gerhard Richter

Another quilt finish inspired by modern art. A homage to Gerhard Richter. 

 

Photograph: Graeme Robertson, found on TheGuardian.com; click image for origin and more information

 

The german artist (pictured above during a vernissage at Tate Modern in 2011) is considered one of the greatest artist of our time. In the 1960 and 1970 he explored abstraction using colour charts - arranged in squares or rectangles.

 

I loved the idea of colourful squares and when I stumbled across this notebook, I decided to make a quilt with the majority of squares in neutral colours - grey, white-ish and black.

 

 

 

To make things as quick and easy as possible, I used Kona Cotton Charm Packs and tried to cluster them by colours, only seperated by neutrals. So that most green hues would be close together and so on...

 

 

For the first time ever, I used a wavy stitch of my sewing machine and a walking foot. Light grey variegated Aurifil makes for a nice contrast.

  

Here's another close-up shot:

 

I used Brigitte aka Zenchic's "Reel Time Screens Ink" fabric for the backing and a scrappy grey and black binding with a triple zig zag stitch to tack it down.

 

 

I machine stitched a quilt label and sewed it down by hand, using Aurifil's variegated floss:

 

 

The quilt is meant to be used daily but I like to imagine it as a wall hanging, too.

Here's a photoshop version of my idea:

 

 

The quilt was gifted to someone special who could do with a cheer-up recently.

I might be tempted to add, that this is one of my favourite quilt finishes ever.

Thank you, Mr. Richter and Remember.de for your inspiration.

 

Happy quilting everyone!

Christine

Homage to V.Vasarely – an OpArt Quilt

This quilt has been on my list for a very long time.
Ever since we visited an exhibition of art of the sixties (back in High School) I am fascinated by Optical Art.

To give you a general idea, here are some examples that I found online (doubleclick for source):

Movement in squares, Bridget Riley, 1961

Biadan, Victor Vasarely, 1959

Occhio al Movimento, Alberto Biasi (Gruppo N), 1964

The artist that inspires me most is Victor Vasarely (1906 – 1997). The french-hungarian artist is considered as one of the founders of OpArt. He combined easy geometric shapes like squares, rectangles, triangles and circles to create stunning and eye dazzling optical illusions.

One of my favourites is this one.

Riu-Kiu-C, Victor Vasarely, 1960

I always thought that I would love to create a similar piece of art following his style. But somehow other projects (like lots of baby quilts for our friends) always took higher priority.

Then, last spring, our Modern Quilt Guild Bielefeld decided to take part in a quilt show and our general topic was “Solids Only”. So I had to create a quilt that is made entirely of solid fabrics. Ha! Enter Riu-Kiu-C.

I drew up a pattern using only rectangles and some triangles. Here you can see that pattern when the quilt was almost finished – with lots of handwritten additions:

As I wanted a slightly more soft contrast, I decided on a white and grey colour scheme instead of white and black. I am glad I did and I have to say, that the finished quilt is probably one of my favourites ever.

It just turned out the way that I hoped it would.

Piecing was not easy because it had to be very exact and precise. Especially those diagonal seams were a pain. The seam ripper came out more than once…! I have a love-hate relationship with him. Can you relate?!

I debated with myself for quite a long time because I could’t make up my mind about the quilting design. I usually prefer free motion designs over straight line quilting but this time a simple outline won. I took some white aurifil and outlined every seam – but only on the white strips. The grey fabric remains unquilted. I am glad I did not venture our for a more “artistic” design. It adds a clean and simple look to this modern design.

 

I initially envisioned it to be a modern wall hanging…

…but when I was looking for backing fabrics I found a perfect match in a dotted flannel.

Flannel is quite a heavy choice as backing for a wall hanging but it is oh so soft for snuggling. The quilt ended up rather big (1,65m x 2,25m) so I guess the whole family can snuggle up under it. Now to find a new (and smaller) wall hanging for our living room (o:

I finished the quilt with a single fold binding and zig zag stitch. Lately I prefered the single fold binding over double fold binding as it adds less bulk to the quilt. But I have no experience regarding durability. Do you know whether double fold binding will last considerably longer than single fold?!

This is my second entry for Blogger’s Quilt Festival Spring 2015. Please visit Amy and her online festival of fine quilts. There is much to be seen and to discover.

If you came over from Blogger’s Quilt Festival, please consider leaving a comment so I can see you were here and repay the visit!

Happy Quilting!
Christine

 

P.S. Oh, and I even finished the quilt in time for “Quilt Art Nürtingen”, the quilt show it was intended for. There’s nothing like a close finish. Even if you knew 12 months ahead what you were going to make, right?!

“Sew-euro-bee-an” – A bee quilt

May was my month in our Flickr Bee “Sew-euro-bee-an”.
Except that it was May 2013.
Well. You know how things sometimes take longer than planned, don’t you?!

I had chosen an easy “squares and triangles” block,

inspired by a winter coat I had bought for my eldest son.

The colours were entirely chosen to match our living room.
Here’s the finished quilt.

I will admit, that it was very difficult to sew those blocks together as the block sizes varied more than I had thought they would. I ironed the quilt several times but it is still crinkly.

But as I will keep it for myself, I do not mind and it only shows that the blocks were made by lovely ladies from many european countries.

They all made signature blocks that I pieced together in one long strip for the backing. It will be nice to snuggle up under my quilt and look at all those familiar names and remember how and when I met them in person and how much fun we had together.

I kept the quilting simple. I quilted diagonal “straight” lines, using different Aurifil threads – yellow, variagating orange, grey and variegated grey.

 

Those diagonal lines made it hard to wrestle the quilt while quiling though…

I like the texture and how it looks on the back

Another post-wash photo:

And here is a shot of the quilt on one of our yellow chairs. I think I’ll just keep it there and enjoy the sight (o:

Thank you to all contributors! Dianne (Czech Republic), Pippa (France), Elisabeth and Helen (Switzerland), Floh and Tacha (Germany), Nicole and Linda (Netherlands), Celine and Lush (UK), Annabella (Morocco). I had so much fun with you!!!

This is one of my entries for Blogger’s Quilt Festival 2015. If you came over from Blogger’s Quilt Festival, please consider leaving a comment so I can return the favour and visit you too!

If you have never heard of Blogger’s Quilt Festival, grab a cuppa and hop over – there are many lovely quilts to discover and much talent to be seen.

Happy Quilting!
Christine

DNA Quilt – a finish

This quilt was hand-delivered today and can now be revealed to you. It has been another long-term work in process. It began with a bunch of swap blocks from all over the world: In round 6 of the scrapbuster swap on flickr we made scrappy X blocks. I had to look it up, we made the blocks two (2!) years ago!!!

I began contemplating different layouts:

While I loved the above layout (photo taken before swapping, with my blocks only), the finished quilt would have been too small. And making 60 to 90 more blocks was out of the question.

I opted for some randomly stacked blocks but wasn’t convinced either.

Then I put the blocks together in one long row and found that the layout reminded me of a double helix. Hence the name DNA Quilt.

Once sewn together, I put it away because I didn’t have enough Kona Coal to finish the quilt. And time went by.

More Kona Coal arrived and was neatly folded. And put away. And time went by.

When in April 2013 Celine, our Queen Bee of Sew-Euro-bee-an asked for two scrappy X blocks, I seized the opportunity and made some more Scrappy X Blocks for this quilt. The additional blocks were safely stored with their sisters (brothers?).
And more time went by.

I finally finished it last December.

I echo quilted within those Xs…

…and straight line quilted the background by extending the diagonal lines of the Xs.

I backed it with grey and white leaves (I think it is from Moda’s Shades of Black) and bound it with a grey zig zag print.

All pictures a pre-washing and you can still see those chalk-marks I used to keep the lines straight.

I guess that quilt would still be an u.f.o. (unfinished object) if that stroke of fate had not happend.

A close friend (for more than 30 years) of my husband sufferd from two ruptured celebral aneurysms in October. Thanks to the quick reaction of her teenage daughter, the neurologists saved her life.

But her brain suffered from the hypertension and she was kept in an artificial coma for several weeks. She is almost hemiplegic ever since BUT her cognitive abilities are almost fully restored. Her longterm memories did all come back but her short-term memory does not work (yet). At first she conversed with pencil and paper, slowly writing down her thoughts and wishes. She is now able to speak and makes process with her movements. She really fights her way back into life.

My husband brought her this quilt today and came home shaken and very thoughtful. Our thoughts are with her family, especially with her three kids (her youngest is only eight years old). She still has a long way to go on her path back to (what we call) normality.

Hopefully my little quilt will bring some comfort and love to our friend and her family.

Christine

Modern Mosaic - A Quiet Quilt

My christmas gift for my mother.

You saw the work-in-progress here and it was also part of my Finish-A-Long Q4 List.

She asked for a quilt that matches their new sofa which is dark grey. The walls are beige and brown-beige and I wanted to make a quiet quilt – few colours, no complicated design, just one block to rest your eye upon.

So I took my fabric colour chart along and chose the colours that match the room perfectly. I pieced five mosaic blocks and put them together to one big cross and put it off-centre in a large dark grey space.

I free motion quilted within the white narrow stripes of the cross. Then I quilted some irregularily spaced straight lines in all four directions of the cross. I wanted the cross to “radiate”. The negative space that was left was filled by “cobblestones”: free motion quilted rectangles with rounded corners. I wanted to revisit the design of the mosaic though in a calmer way.

I used a lighter grey thread to let the quilting show a bit better. I did not want to let it blend in completetly with the background as the negative space takes such a great part in this quilt.

I finished the quilt with a beige binding and my favourite triple zig zag stitch.

And here is the picture that inspired me to make this quilt:

I saw this church flag during our summer holidays and wanted to turn the design into a quilt. We passed it several times during strong winds and I never stopped to take a photo. I alwas wanted to but never had my camera ready. Oh how I regret that! On our last day I remembered to take my camera – and there was nearly no wind at all )o: I had to wait several minutes for a gust of wind to take this picture.

Here’s hoping that next time I’ll remember to take photos of inspirations right away instead of waiting… At least they didn’t pull down the flag for good…

Happy Quilting!
Christine