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?!

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

Optimism – A finished Quilt

If you have been following my blog for the last few weeks, you know that I had a hard time at my real-life-job recently. Fate had struck my dear colleague with a nasty blow. He was absent several weeks and will have to undergo medical treatment for some weeks.

To cheer him and his family up, I made him a quilt. A Plus Quilt has been on my to-sew-list for quite some time now and I think this was the right occasion to make one. I associate many positive meanings to plusses – and that’s what it was all about: to send positive vibes and thoughts to my colleague and his wife.

Amazingly, I pulled all these grey, green, white and black fabrics from my stash (mostly comma and curious nature with some architexture and backyard baby mixed in). As I was in a hurry to get the quilt finished, I used rectangles and squares to speed up the piecing.

I meant to use one solid piece of fabric for the backing but discovered too late, that the intended piece was too small. I ended up piecing the backing and I am glad I did. IMHO I think it looks splendid.

Here’s to my new sewing machine! I managed to quilt straight lines without any problems. Thanks to the adjustable foot pressure of my new machine. I quilted two vertical lines and one horizontal line…

… and bound the quilt with my favourite COMMA. I attached it with my sewing machine, using my usual zigzag stitch.

I really love this rather manly quilt and am happy to report that my colleague wrote me a super-nice-thank-you-note stating that he loves the quilt and that his wife wants to learn how to sew now (o:

Thanks for visiting!
Christine

Bus-y Words - A quilt for my Dad.

My dad turned 60 a month ago. Around christmas I decided to make him a quilt. The inspiration for that quilt was obvious. My dad loves his old Volkswagen Bus. A Limited Edition Bus. In 1992, VW offered 2500 Busses in two colour ways: red and blue. Many owners of those “Last Limited Edition” Busses meet regularly. It’s kind of a fanclub that you can only be part of if you own one of those 2500 busses. Here’s a photo of their meeting 2006 in Berlin:

Or 2011 in Prutz, Austria:

He is kind of crazy when it comes to his Bus.
So this blue Volkswagen Bus was the theme for his birthday quilt. I needed a proper sketch of his bus so I could trace it onto fabric. I found a technical drawing online:

The only thing I had to re-design were the alloy rims, as he had soon decided that the original ones were too small (o: I searched for a photo of his bus to trace his light-alloy rims:

Then I started fusing fabric on double sided fusible web, tracing, cutting, sewing and applique-ing.

The next thing was the Limited Number. VW produced 2.500 Busses for this Last Limited Edition. Here is the number of my Dad’s Bus and the special sign for this Edition:

 

And this was the worst part: Cutting all these tiny letters and numbers…

And then I had to fuse the letters to the background and attach them with a zigzag stitch.

Here is “his” number: 134:

And without further ado, here comes the quilt I made for my Dad’s 60th Birthday:

This is a close up of all the appliqued parts.

It took some time to get this amout of applique done and the best was yet to come! I tried some new free motion quilting! Instead of making a label on the back, I wrote the entire message all over the quilt top! It is hard to see but the entire background is quilted with words. To make it visible I used the flash of my camera:

To spread the words evenly over the quilt it took lots of planing and preparations and I ended up pre-marking the words.

Above you can see the pre-wash state with the chalk-marked letters.
And below you see the post-washed state.

In case you wondered WHAT I wrote all over the quilttop: A congratulation to his birthday, an enumeration of all the ways he used his VW Bus (shuttle for kids and their friends, bus for our athletics’ group, camper, wedding-“carriage” at my sister’s wedding,etc.), and an enumeration of all the countries he visited with his bus (most parts of Europe) and of all the places he visited with his the “fanclub” (and my faithful mother).

I attached the binding with my preferred triple zig zag stitch and squeezed in my nametag:

The backing is made of the same fabric as the background of the top – and the same as I used for my mother’s quilt. So when they are folded up they look identically.

All that applique-ing and marking and quilting took very long but it was easy to persevere as I was sure I had chosen the right gift and was looking forward to his joy in receiving it.

However, I didn’t finish it in time for his 60th birthday, I was 3 days late. But as his party was sadly cancelled due to the severe and high-feverish influenza he had caught, nobody noticed. When they returned from their holidays, I drove over with the kids and I gave him his quilt. And I’m happy to report that he really liked it and stated that he’d probably never get a better gift than this quilt.

The end (o:
Happy Quilting everyone!
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

Gift for a giant

Today I'm going to share a summer sewing project, a "sewing for guys" project, and a gift idea. Three in one.

Some weeks ago our friend turned 30 and received a barbecue grill from his girlfriend. He said kind of jokingly that he still needed an apron for the next BBQ. So I took his measurements as I was not able to just copy my apron - Did I mention he is 2,06 metres tall?!

His birthday party was yesterday evening so guess what we gave him as his gift...

Yep. A special BBQ Starter Kit

... including giant BBQ gloves...

... and the giant apron! 

You can't see the proportions in this photo but when I wear it, the hem is halfway down my calves...

As he is a fan of soccer, I was quite happy to find the footie-fabric in my local fabric store :o)

If I can convince him, I'll get you a photo of the "giant-with-apron-in-action" next time we're over for a BBQ Evening.

Happy Sewing!

Christine