WIP Wednesday/Bee Block

Linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced for another WIP Wednesday.

Here it is the end of the month and about time I get my Mid Century Modern Bee block done for Debbie at A Quilter's Table. She asked for a low volume block based on the tutorial over at Little Miss Shabby's blog. It was a fairly simple block to make but I'm not sure about the best way to press. The seams where the gray strips meet seem a little bulky.

I really like many of the low volume/light value quilts that are showing up online. I've even been playing around with an idea of my own but it hasn't made it past the designing stage yet. When Debbie requested this type of fabric I was excited to give it a try and to see what everyone else came up with too.

Pulling fabric from my stash made me realize I don't have a big selection of low volume or light value fabrics. Like many quilters, I have tons of mid values and few true lights and darks. Here is where I started. Several colored dots on white, a handful of leafy and bird related prints, and miscellaneous other prints. I can definitely see an excuse for fabric shopping . . . hehe. Just don't tell my husband.

It was hard to decide what to use for Debbie's block but I eventually settled on mostly grays with some blues and greens thrown in. It turned out a bit darker than I thought it would but hopefully it will work with the rest of the blocks she gets. After all, you need a lot of variety with scrappy quilts right?

The last couple of weeks have seen plenty of behind-the-scene sewing too. Just not things that have shown up on my blog. My new pattern is coming along nicely and I hope to publish next month. Check back often to get the first peek.  I've also submitted a couple of things to magazines and thus can't share.

These cuties are the biggest adjustment I've had going on in my studio. I never realized how easy it really was with our sweet old lady Shadow. She would drive me crazy at times but just as often was content to sleep in the chair while I sewed. No need to worry about her eating threads off the floor, eating pins off the design wall, running with scissors and generally tearing things to pieces . Hmmm . . . life with kittens is interesting, fun and challenging . . . just like human toddlers in the house.

But they are adorable. Opal and Leo (formerly LuLu until she turned out to be a he)
Head back over to Freshly Pieced for more quilty goodness and have a great week of stitching.

We Have 2 Winners!

The Quilter's Blog Party was my very first time participating in a giveaway and I really enjoyed reading all the comments. I had lots of fun visiting the other participating blogs as well as the blogs of people who commented on my giveaway. I found some wonderful new blogs to follow and hope you did too. All this online inspiration is simply amazing. 

Thanks to all of you who became a new follower of mine and to those of you faithful followers who came to visit. I had a winner from both camps, one new, one faithful. Love that!

Now, on to the winners .  .  .

First up is Amy from (Amy's) Crafty Shenanigans who said:
"New follower and looking forward to seeing more :) I absolutely LOVE cascade - and the colors that it has been done in - true inspiration thanks!!!"

And the second winner is Carla from Lollyquiltz who said:
"Anne, your patterns are all so great and I'm excited at the chance of winning one! If you pick my name, I'd choose the Cascade. Thanks a bunch!"


Seems Cascade was the pattern of choice for most of you.

Although there were many votes for Facets too.

For those of you who commented and didn't win you can purchase my patterns through my Etsy shop. I hope you will come back and visit often. I have a new pattern in the works right now with more to come this year. 

Happy quilting, Anne

Giveaway

I'd like to welcome you to my blog if you are hopping over to visit from the Quilting Gallery as part of the Quilter's Blog Hop Party. Give a shout out to Michele for hosting this great event!  There are some awesome posts and giveaways happening and hopefully you'll be one of the lucky winners. 

While you're visiting please do wander around a little and get a feel for my style. I sometimes go modern and sometimes more traditional, but the one thing you can always count on is lots of color and strong design elements. 

2 lucky readers will win their choice of one of my patterns featured below. The pattern will be emailed in a PDF format.

Both patterns include:

• 2 different versions of the quilt as seen on the cover.
• Size options.
• Additional ideas on how to use the pattern to make different variations.
• Coloring page to envision your own color scheme.
• A bonus pillow project made from the scraps.

Great design is first and foremost in all my patterns. In addition to directions for making the cover quilt, I include a Design Lesson and a Design Exploration page so you can envision optional ways to use the pattern. My hope is that these ideas will inspire you to try your own version based on the basic pattern. A coloring page is also included so you can try out your choice of colors and fabrics.


First up is Cascade. This is a great pattern for large scale prints but is equally at home with solids. It works well with fat quarters and layer cakes. Below are some examples of ways  I have used this pattern. As you can see, there are many possibilities.

This is the Design Explorations page included in the Cascade pattern. 

This bold zigzag baby quilt plus the bonus doll quilt were both made from the Cascade pattern. 

Cascade was also used to make a bright summery tablecloth and matching table runner form the Tradewinds fabric line by Moda

Next up is Facets. This quilt also works well with large scale prints and is the perfect quilt for using up scraps, charm squares or your favorite fabric bundle.

This is the Design Explorations page included in the Facets pattern. 

This is the alternative quilt as seen on the Facets pattern cover.

These two pillows were made as part of the bonus project included in the Facets pattern.

To win your choice of one of these patterns (to be emailed to you in PDF format):

• Become a follower or let me know if you already are.
• Tell me which pattern you like best and why. 
• Please be sure that your comment links to your email. No email = no win. 
• Comments are open through March 15th (MST). Winners will be announced shortly thereafter. Good luck !

Thanks for visiting. Enjoy the rest of the hop.

Emeralds

Welcome to anyone visiting from Lee's WIP Wednesday.

My WIP for March is my emerald green quilt. I mentioned a couple of weeks ago I was seeking emerald greens. Not sure I have all the right colors yet but I'm getting there. Do you ever feel like there are just too many color choices and yet when it gets down to finding the ones you have in mind it's not so easy?  It was certainly fun to look at all the green paint chips though.

I've started with the greens I'm pretty sure I'll use and have begun to make half square triangles. Lots of HSTs. I find the repetition of sewing the same block over and over rather satisfying. Makes me feel like I'm getting something accomplished when I end up with a nice long string of chain pieced squares. Here's a few HSTs. I think they look like the paint chips don't you?

I've got big plans for this quilt. It's slated to become my 3rd pattern. The pattern design didn't start out as an Emerald green quilt but once Pantone announced Emerald as the color of the year and I reviewed the design I realized they were destined to be together. As usual, I'll have several other color options to show too. I just can't stop designing once I get started.  : )

Hope you're having a productive sewing month too.

QuiltCon

Three quilts entered.
Two quilts accepted !
One quilt wins an award ! ! !

Rhythm & Blues won 3rd Place in the Use of Negative Space category sponsored by Michael Miller Fabrics!  I can't begin to tell you how excited I am.

I've seen lots of pictures on Instgram and there are some amazing quilts in the show. I don't really have a lot of quilt show credentials under my belt so this is all rather new and most definitely an honor considering all the great talent out there.   : )

If only I was in Austin right now to see them in person.  : (  
I didn't even know which quilt won what award until just now when the winners were finally posted online. For a complete listing of the winners go here.

I made 2 new quilts to enter in QuilCon. Both were based on concepts that had been in my sketchbook for ages. Seemed like a great opportunity to finally bring those concepts to life.

The first quilt was "Rhythm & Blues".
The inspiration for this quilt initially came from studying the design elements in woven interior decorating fabrics. I was interested in the interweave of colors that occur within the strong horizontal format of the weave. As the idea progressed, I became more intrigued with the vertical movement that could be created as different colored groups of lines interact with each other. The quilt morphed into a graphic representation of the sound bars that move up and down on digital recording equipment and "Rhythm & Blues" was born. I have plans to explore other versions of this basic design later this year.

I quilted it with horizontal lines. A single line in the white bars, double lines in most of the blues and triple lines in the darkest blue. It made for a lot of starting and stopping, which is an area where my skills need improvement.

The second quilt I made was "Mondrian Unleashed".
"Mondrian Unleashed" was inspired by the paintings of Piet Mondrian, an important contributor to the De Stijl art movement of the early 1900's. He simplified compositions into vertical and horizontal lines and used primary colors plus black and white. I was intrigued by his compositions and the limited placement of color and initially planned to reproduce this structure using print fabrics in place of solid colors. As the concept evolved though, I broke free of the rigid horizontal and vertical structure in favor of diagonal lines. The placement of color within the spaces created by the intersection of lines falls in a way that intentionally leads your eye through the quilt.  I have other color options I'd like to explore with this one as well.

I quilted random diagonal lines all over the surface that echo the randomness of the quilt design.

The third quilt I entered was "Zebras in My Garden" made using my Facets pattern. While this quilt wasn't accepted, it's actually my favorite in many ways simply because of the use of color and Kaffe prints.

Making these quilts was a great learning experience. One of the main things I realized about my personal quilt journey is that the design process is what I love the most. Guess that's why I have so many sketches and so many "yet to be made" quilts. I really enjoy the compositional aspect of designing and working with color. And while it was a lot of fun to work with mostly solids, I realize my first love is prints and riots of color. I'll still design and use solids frequently because there are just so many delicious colors available, but I'll never give up on prints . . . especially Kaffe.

I encourage all of you to go out on a limb and enter a competition this year. If you aren't accepted into one show it certainly doesn't mean you won't be accepted into a different show. Sometimes it just means finding the right fit for your work. Be confident in your ideas, improve the skills that need work and let the rest of the world see what you do.

I hope QuiltCon is a grand success. I can't imagine that it won't be. 
To all of you lucky enough to go, I'm quite jealous but hope you had a blast!!

WPI Wednesday

Do Wednesdays come up way to quickly for anyone besides me? I want to post every Wednesday but before I know it, it's Thursday. I really am getting lots of quilty things started and some of them even get finished. They just don't make it into blog posts. Got to work on that.

I 'm sharing my latest bee block for the Mid Century Modern Bee group this week. Cindy requested a winged square block based on this tutorial. It's been a fun block to make. Since the block reminded me of a butterfly, I pulled out my only butterfly fabric. A fun fat quarter of Jane Sassman fabric from awhile ago. There have already been several blocks made that include orange so I went with yellow instead. Orange would look really good too. Hope Cindy likes it.

For me, the hardest part of making a bee block is deciding which fabrics to use. I think choosing fabric for just a single block is harder than for a whole quilt. At least with a whole quilt you can spread the love of all your fabrics around by using lots and lots of them. But a single block . . . it's just hard to settle on which fabrics to use. Probably why it takes me till the end of the month to get my block done. Anyone else have that problem?

Emerald Green paint chips

I've also been seeking as many emerald green fabrics as I can find for a new pattern I'm planning. Green has always been one of my favorite colors. However my green stash leans more toward the yellow end so finding emeralds has given me an excuse to go fabric shopping.  : ) Not sure I've found all the right greens yet. The second and third from the left are definitely in question. Maybe too dark, maybe too olive. Wish there were a few more emerald choices in the modern style.

Emerald Fabric Swatches

Stay tuned for what I hope will be a nice take on the Pantone year of Emerald Green.

And to all you lucky quilters going to QuiltCon  . . . I'm so jealous. Have FUN!!!

WIP Wednesday

It's been awhile since I've posted for WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced but it doesn't mean I haven't been doing any sewing.

I've been trying out a new machine-quilting style for one of the projects I decided to tackle as part of the Finish-A-Long with Leanne. I chose just 2 projects to finish for this quarter that have been sitting around FOREVER and thought it about time I made a dent in the UFO's. Of course I plan to work on far more than just these 2 quilts but this will at least get me finishing those projects that get set aside and sometimes forgotten.

The current quilt under progress right now is one of the smaller samples I made as part of my first pattern "Facets". I've really admired the circular quilting done so beautifully by people like Karen at Blooming Poppies and have always wanted to give it a try. (Check out her tutorial for circular quilting here.) This quilt seemed like a good choice to try the circular quilting on because it's always reminded me of ripples of color expanding outward just like the ripples of quilting expanding out from the center. I'm so glad it's small because I don't know if I could handle a larger quilt with the small arm space on my machine. Not a lot of progress yet but I plan to work on it more this week.

In an effort to get more involved this year, I'm taking part in my very first quilting bee. The Mid Century Modern Bee put together by Cindy at Live A Colorful Life. You can read more about the bee and see my first block here.

I'm also joining the newly formed Boulder Modern Quilt Guild which will have their first meeting in March. I've been a bit isolated here in my studio and look forward to getting out and making new quilty friends in person. If you live in the Boulder CO area and are interested check out the Facebook page.

My new year also started off with a project I was asked to do for a magazine. All I can show for now is this sneak peek.

One last note, I'm curious as to what you think about fusible batting. Has anyone used it for lap size quilts and does it stay fused while you work without shifting from all the manhandling? What brand do you use?
Connecting Threads has batting on sale through mid February and I thought I might give it a try.

Hope you are having fun stitching away into the new year.