Play

Braided Rug Quilt Block Alternative - Colour Focused Scraps

So I think I started a new quilt. I didn’t mean to, honest! It was just an experiment that I fell in love with!

There I was, teaching a Scraptastic class with a guild out of the Whistler Valley. We got to the part where we play with strips. At this moment I always give students a choice on what technique they want to explore. The Braided Rug blocks won out that day. While demonstrating the technique I decided to explore a square block. A change from my original. One pile of pink scraps and some sewing later, an idea was born.

It’s a been a few weeks and that idea has already evolved. I thought rows of blocks first, then placed four together like this. Okay, that works. let’s try another colour and maybe do a round robin, like the original again. I really liked that shape formed by the four together though so placed another colour that way. Yup, that’s the winner! I’ve already picked my next colour - green, for hope - and will make another set of 4. I’m thinking, only thinking, of making 9 sets of 4 blocks. We’ll see how the motivation lasts. That being said, moving to the new studio uncovered A LOT more scraps than I thought I had so there is no shortage of fabric options!

Nine small piles of coloured fabric

Just playing around with potential colours. This is a more random colour scheme, maybe I will edit it down, maybe not? For now, one block at a time.

Wren - A Scrap Quilt of Happiness

Wren

78” x 80”

She’s the joyous girl of sunshine. She grew up in a hippie community on an island. It’s easy to be easy going when you grow up surrounded by peace and love. Sure, there is always an underbelly to that and life is always far from perfect. She chooses to move forward with love, however, no matter what happens. As a result, she spreads that calm and joyous nature to the people around her. At night, she retreats and regroups, a little bit alone in her personal sorrow. But without pain you can’t feel joy, right?

This quilt was a wonderful bit of therapy. I mean that both in the making and the end result. She started from a literal pile of scraps that my son threw on the floor as a toddler. Rather than put them away I started sewing them together right from the floor! Fast forward a decade and I pulled it out to make it bigger through some play.

You see, a few eyers ago I faced a rather deep hole of depression. No specific trigger or anything, but life was hard and I turtled. It happens and I am grateful for the support of family and friends and therapy and medication that helped me through. But there I was laying in bed one day, the quilt over me reflected in the light fixture above. The pinks in the chrome with the spots of crystal struck something in me. At that moment I decided to pull out some pink fabrics and play. Why pink? It’s simply a happy colour to me. I made one quilt top, then I decided to play with another. The first one I am in the midst of hand quilting, the second took a trip to the long arm rental with me. She’s done now.

That light fixture has seen some things! It was such a splurge for a light that we don’t actually turn on much (I am one of those people who doesn’t like to be in a room with overhead lights on.) Despite that, she brings me joy every day, reflecting the room around her and the light itself.

After making the initial quilt top a functional size, I set out to make a back that gave me as much joy as the front. I used some precious, favourite fabric from Denise Schmidt I’d been holding on to plus a few others from the stash. Life’s too short for an ugly quilt back!

Yellow and pink quilt on a yellow floor

This was not the quilt for fancy quilting. It is essentially one giant slab quilt with a riotous mix of fabrics. Quilting is for texture here more than anything. That being said, I ended up getting a bit fancy! I started with wavy lines across the quilt in pink, peach, and yellow. Sometimes they overlap, mostly they don’t. It wasn’t until I was off the long arm that I decided on some additions. My first thought was the odd line of hand quilting in waves, just for fun. Then I decided on some words. If this was the quilt that helped me through my depression, then I wanted some reminders to keep my mental health in a good state. So I started stitching words right in to the quilt. Both embroidery and quilting in one.

Relax stitched into a peach quilt square
Laugh hand stitched into a quilt square
Walk hand stitched into a grey square
Make Love stitched into a grey quilt square

Connect

Relax

Laugh

Walk

Make Love

These are the actions I need to remember moving forward. As I healed, I learned that I need these things (plus creating, but that is a given) to help me on a regular basis. If I do these things, I can make it through anything. Stitching them through the quilt was a good moment of reflection, and their subtlety in the quilt is like a little message for me - or anyone else - using the quilt.

Of course I wasn’t quite done with the hand stitching. After finding the perfect pink binding (an old favourite from Emma Jean Jansen) in my stash, I went with the big stitch for closing the binding. Yes, this works well and holds up to washing, in case you were wondering. It’s a rather nice way to put a finishing touch on a quilt full of love and joy.

Pink, grey, yellow, and orange scrappy quilt

Virginia - Maple Leaves for a Unexpected Fall Quilt

Virginia

60” x 60”

She is a crafty girl, taking her knitting with her everywhere. At this time of year she is buried in yarn and apple cider and cat cuddles. She wants to jump in a pile of leaves, take her girlfriend to a sunflower maze, and totally watch Gilmore Girls even though it is terribly problematic. She’s wearing layers at the first sign of a chill and refuses to take them off when the sun warms her on a walk. She may come across as basic, but she is anything but.

More than a year ago I made a single block. Just one maple leaf to show some folks in a Playdate that you can find use for the ugly fabric hiding around corners in your stash. Ugly, after all, is just like beauty - it’s all in the eye of the beholder.

teal, blue, gold, brown, and a bit of pink in a maple leaf quilt

Of course, of course, I put that first block dead centre in my finished quilt top. That so not me leaf fabric was paired, unexpectedly, with a ikat butterfly print from Tula Pink. From those two fabrics the rest of the quilt came to be. I shopped from my stash and had a blast putting together different combinations. The end result was a fall inspired quilt like no other.

The quilting is there merely to add texture. Each block was quilted with wavy lines crossing the block on the diagonal. Because the leaves themselves change direction across the quilt, I carried the direction of the waves with each leaf. For thread I chose a teal blue Superior at the long arm rental spot. (My preference is for 100% cotton, but this works well with their machines and there is absolutely nothing wrong with it.) I wanted the quilt to be extra squishy so an allover design versus outlining each leaf was preferred.

I broke my fabric shopping fast (I have sooooo much fabric) to pick up a binding choice from the clearance section at My Sewing Room. As I was taking the quilt off the long arm I realized that a rosy binding was going to be the perfect choice. Now, I know my stash, there is not a single rose coloured fabric in any value in there. I am a hot pink girl! Keeping with the theme of the quilt as a whole - starting with ugly fabric - I chose a print very much out of character for me. Turns out it was perfect. It binds the quilt so well and is a great complement to the colour scheme.

In the end, this quilt is another unconventional fall quilt. They don’t all have to be reds and oranges folks! And as I was stitching the binding I also realized that it goes perfectly in our living room with its chartreuse sofa on one side and the blue/brown one on the other. I guess it was just all meant to be!

Much Needed Play with Ravel by e bond

Before there was such a thing as an influencer we had celebrity endorsements. When real people started to become more popular through blogs we simply called them bloggers. As a quilt blogger it was quite common to receive or at least be offered fabric. The catch being, of course, that you would make something to promote the fabric. Ideally, you would do that to coincide with either fabric purchasing for stores or the launch itself in stores.

Many times I was offered fabric. The first few times you get super excited and jump at the chance. Free fabric and exposure?! Sign me up. Then we realized that we were giving away free labour and not really getting paid by the fabric companies to use us as promotion. Not really a fair deal for the time invested. On top of that I was positively AWFUL at actually making something with all the shared fabric in a reasonable time frame. I was, frankly, a crappy promotional partner. So working with me to promote a fabric line was a bad deal for both parties.

On top of all that, I always found it very difficult to work with a single fabric collection. It felt stifling, creatively, and was always a challenge because of one common issue with fabric collections: the majority of the fabrics are the same value. This means it is hard to get contrast in your designs. As a result, many designs made with a single fabric collection, without the addition of other fabrics or neutrals, can fall flat.

So, no matter how much I’ve loved a collection, I rarely buy a single line of fabric. Instead, I pick favourites or the most interesting or simply what I need at the time.

I could not resist, however, when I saw e bond’s Ravel collection. I love everything about it! The colour, the text, the graphic nature, the graffiti... and while I've never met e, her online presence is inspiring and real. I've had it for a couple of months and just started playing with it. Not only did I buy the whole collection, I'm using it all together. Who am I?

Yes, a good chunk of the fabric falls in the same value family, but there are enough contrasts with the lights and the darks as well as the texture of the prints that things seem to be working so far. I couldn’t resist though, I did add in a few solids for fun and respite.

I have no real plan for the quilt. I’m just playing. Life has been quite heavy of late and none of my current projects were giving me the joy I needed from my quilting. I’d sat with the fabrics and obsessed over coming up with something just right. That was taking all fun out of it so I decided to just grab some fabric and cut. I defaulted to my comfort of improv curves, primarily, but other things come up here and there and I let them happen.

Normally, when I make an improv quilt that is block based, I make all the blocks and then figure out a layout. This time around I am enjoying adding and subtracting and playing with composition as I go. Not so much planning each block as an individual unit, but seeing how a few blocks might talk to each other. A conversation. As it grows I am really embracing the chaos it brings. It’s a wild thing. In a way, it reminds me of a spot under a bridge with layers of graffiti marking the lives of people who’ve been there.