Off-centre: A modern baby girl quilt

Maybe even too modern?

What do you think? It is off-centre, has lots of negative space, wonky squares and linear and free-motion quilting.

I regret using a contrasting white Aurifil for the quilting. It works well within the white frames but I think I should have chosen a blending thread for quilting the negative space.

The back is more little-girl-ish: Anne Kelle’s Kites on flannel surprisingly matched well with most of the scraps I used within the wonky squares.

Of course it showcases the baby’s name.

I chose raw-edge appliqué again but changed the width often to match the width of the letters/strokes (does that make sense? You can see the width difference in the photo above).

So, all in all, what do you think? Too modern for a new born? Too much grey?
I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Happy quilting everyone!
Christine

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

Zen Chic Inspired – a design challenge and a giveaway

As you might have seen, Brigitte Heitland, the person behind “Zen Chic”, published her first book with Martingale.

the book
In “Zen Chic Inspired” she describes her approach to designing quilts that really match one’s peronal style. She begins by questioning if you ever bought fabric that you loved when it was on display at your LQS but at home you realise that it looks less appealing and strangely out of place?! Yes. Me. Guilty.

She then shows how to design quilts that match your living space: your flat, your house, your mobile home. She starts from a photograph of a room and deducts shapes and colours from it.

the challenge
When she wrote the book, several members of our Modern Quilt Guild Bielefeld, helped her sewing the quilt tops (yes, me too). Brigitte threw a party when she received the first copies of the book and we had a blast sketching quilt designs based on random photographs that evening. We decided to carry it a bit further and to make a little MQGB challenge – just for fun. Brigitte chose a picture and we were to make a matching quilt, mini quilt, table runner, wall hanging, etc. based on it.

photo by Houseology Interiors, flickr

fabrics and colours
In her book Brigitte shows different ways to deduct colours from a photo. I tried Moda’s Palette Builder: but seeing that I was on a short timeline (no time for ordering and waiting for shipping of chosen fabrics) I pulled solid fabrics from my stash instead:

design
Next up was shapes and design. I liked the shapes of the lampshades but as there is similar quilt in Brigitte’s book I thought it might be too simple to just copy her quilt. I still wonder how it happend that I chose the wall clock instead.

Here’s a close up of the clock:

And these were my first thougts for a possible design:

I never made a dresden plate before so this was entirely new to me. I thought of differnt sizes for the wedges and of using negative space between them.

work in progress
I found a tutorial “how to make your own dresden plate template” here and just followed the instructions. Easy peasy. I can recommend this tutorial, if you ever want to make dresden plate templates in your exact size.

Once done with sewing the wedges together (I skipped the wonky idea and made a “traditional” dresden plate), I wondered how to achieve that translucent look of the wall clock. I opted for a second layer, more fragile and quite thin. I made another template and drew the design directy onto the paper side of a fusible web.

The next step was tedious. I ironed the fusible web onto a light grey fabric and had to cut out all the shapes with an exacto-knife.

The dresden plate was ironed onto the background fabric and the second layer was ironed onto the dresden plate:

I appliquéd the second layer with my sewing machine, using a wide and dense zig zag stitch in a similar light grey aurifil thread. Thereby I attached two layers in one step. Here is close up shot:

I kept the quilting fairly simple and just stitched some straigt lines “radiating” from the tips of the wedges, using a white aurifil thread.

the result

The binding is made of the same newspaper print (from Brigitte’s Modern Background fabric line) that I used to break up the solids-only-look of the dresden plate.

I added a zipper and an extra backing at the back so this mini quilt can double up as a pillow cover.

Here’s a photoshop image, showing how the mini quilt might look as a wall hanging in the original room:

summary
This challenge was a greate experience for me. If you look at the quilts I made during the last years you will discover that I rarely follow quilt patterns. I love to make up my own designs. This book helps me to get better at choosing fabrics and designs matching the surroundings/ person the quilt is intended for. When I plan to sew a quilt for my sister next, I’ll snap a photo of her home first. Of course I know her living room, but do I really remember the hues of green she used for decorations? No. And I might not have noticed the unique shape of that armchair leg that I could use as a shape in my quilt design.

So if YOU like to design your own quilts, this book is for you. And if YOU have always be terrified by the thought of designing your own quilt, this book is for you, too! I takes you step by step through the design process and includes 12 patterns, deducted from 12 different photos of 12 living spaces.

If you’d like your own book, Brigitte offers signed copies here.

giveaway
As a bonus for those who read through this lengthy post, I will give away one copy of “Zen Chic Inspired” AND the mini quilt I made. Just leave me a comment below, telling me if you prefer to design your own quilts or if you rather follow quilt patterns (there are so many lovely ones out there!).

This giveaway is open until midnight, May 29th, CEST. I will draw a random winner on May 30th.

Happy sewing everyone!
Christine

P.S. If you’d like to see who else participated in the challenge and what they designed for the same room, click here and here.

P.P.S. Yes, Brigitte is my friend but yes, these thoughts are my thoughts and I really like the book. And no, I don’t get paid for writing a review and yes, I really bought this book to give it away to you.

Hexies and hidden stars - a baby girl quilt

Some weeks ago, the topic of our monthly sew-in at Modern Quilt Guild Bielefeld was Modern Hexies.

I had a treasured Cotton & Steel charm pack and I wanted to make a baby girl quilt for my sister’s second child – due in April.

I auditioned different layouts and decided on the one that formes little stars on the negative space – which instantly prompted the quilting design.

I applied some marks with chalk to keep those quilting lines straight.

I defined three big and some small stars that I omitted while straight line quilting and quilted them free-hand afterwards. Each with a unique quilting design. I used a variegated Aurifil thread in shades of white, light grey and dark grey.

To show you the free motion quilting, I used directional and natural lighting instead of artificial light. The fabric I used for the Background is "Notes in silver on white" from Zen Chic's Modern Backgrounds.

 

Once the baby was born, I added her name in light pink thread.

And this is the back: I used a dotted flannel and some leftover Cotton & Steel scraps.

 

 

And this is the entire quilt, already puckered and crinkly as I had to wash it 5 times to get rid of ALL quilting marks... BTW: what is your favourite method or tool to mark grids and designs?

 

I had a hard time giving it away as I really enjoyed the free-motion quilting a lot but I am sure it will be put to good use at my sister's home.

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

Quilts for brothers (1)

When our friends moved away, I made quilts for their boys as a special memory to take with them, to remember us from time to time. The boys used to share one bedroom so I wanted to make similar quilts, matching in colour but not strictly in design.

I chose low volume grey and white-ish prints and accent fabrics in blue, green, dark grey and turquoise and started sewing 4 strips together. Out came my 90° ruler and I cut striped triangles from each 4-strip-set.

 

Then the fun pain of trying out different layouts began... I opted for a giant arrow, diagonal rows, chevrons and diamonds. Which one do you like best?!

 

 

Once I decided on the design (Diamonds, because it matched my choise for his brother's quilt best), I started sewing the blocks together. Trying to match those points and cursing when the bulky seams made things difficult...

 

I only quilted within the light strips with a light grey aurifil thread and tried out different fmq designs...

 

(oups, can you see how I kept myself going while struggling with the quilt...? What is you prefered beverage during fmq sessions?)

 

I tried waves...

... and leaves...

... and triple loop-de-loops...

... and feathers.

 

I added his name and used a scrappy low-volume binding, finished off with a triple-zig-zag-stitch.

 

 

And here it is... the first of the two quilts for brothers...

 

I'll be back with the second one shortly...

Happy quilting
Christine