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October Quilt Designs

I have been busy making the last couple of months, and have not designed as much as usual. I have however liked a couple of my designs over the last week…so I think I’ll start in reverse order.

29 October: Wheels turning

I love the idea of some improv. wedges in this design. I think there are a lot of opportunities for quilting to bring out the shapes.

I added a slightly darker background here, just so you can see the circular centers.

27 October: Split Court

I started with simplistic shapes and loved it instantly. This is the final design with a reduced color palette.

Here is what I started with using an extra color. I like it still but not as much as the reduced version.

24 October: Washboard Shutters

I loved this muted color palette. I was inspired by the french buildings and thought of shutters. I like the alternating shutter placement with the of centered main post.

I played with the color palette a couple of times before deciding on this final version. I also have one with the pale tan colored shutters. I thought this palette may also look better with a white background. I like the one on the left but prefer the limited color palette again.

19 October: Visions through a Mountain Fog

I have been dying to get a monotone palette to try out some improv. block designs. I originally thought this would be great with red’s but loved our it turned out with this dark grey neutral palette.

22 October: Autumn leaves

My least favorite of my designs. I was using the placement of the leaves as placement of color in my design. I played with the scale and found that the larger version was better.

Please Note: If you would like to make or use one of my designs, please email me (ml_wilkie(at)hotmail(dot)com) or leave a comment below. I am happy to talk with you on options and provide the relevant measurements etc. or have you test out a pattern. Also, if you use one of my designs, please use the following text to credit me the design: “Designed by Michelle Wilkie @ Factotum of Arts”.

Natural Corridors

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I have finally finished my charity quilt that was completed as part of our guild’s Spoonflower Fabric Challenge.

The rules of the challenge were:

Any child sized quilt in any design goes
Use the FE Spoonflower fabric bundle
You can add up to 3 solids

I loved the color palette. I knew exactly the quilt design I wanted to use. My first quilt design ever – “Natural Corridors“.

This design was based on a concept that I studied in Ecology. In nature, a corridor is a link of habitat, generally native vegetation, which joins two or more larger areas of similar wildlife habitat. Corridors are critical for the maintenance of ecological processes including allowing for the movement of animals and the continuation of viable populations.

The solids, I used with the FE Spoonflower bundle, were Kona white and pickle. My math was a little off, once I increased the pattern to lap-size, so to compensate I added the scrappy row at the top. This mistake actual is my favorite part of the quilt. The quilt top was perfect, as it took me 3 hours to make up, and I was limited on time.

I kept the backing simple by using tangerine Crosshatch (Carolyn Friedlander) wide back fabric. The binding I actually used two fabrics. This chevron fabric was used to bind the lighter scrappy row at the top and then a darker blue for the rest of the quilt. I think it works and balances out the quilt well.

Details

Name: Natural Corridors
Design: Designed by me
Fabric: Solids: Kona White & Pickle, FE Spoonflower fabrics:

Mudcloth in citron, Andrea Whalen
Entangled in navy, Heather Dutton
Chevron in navy, Miss Tiina
Plus in blue sky, Erin Mercado
Spots in coral, Casey Sibley
Map of our border sky, Mariao

Dimensions: 54″ x 56″
Quilted: Cary Quilting Company

I am so excited to give this to our challenge charity – Raleigh Methodist home for Children and to a child who I hope will love it.

If anyone is interested in the pattern let me know and I can work on releasing it before the end of the year. Linking up with Amanda Jean @ Crazy Mom Quilts for Finish it up Friday.

Blogger’s Quilt Festival: Moorish Pyramids

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My second entry for the Blogger’s Quilt Festival is my Moorish Pyramids quilt.

This quilt was inspired by the walls in this photo of the Moor’s Castle in Sintra, Lisbon, Portugal. The pyramid shapes, and how the sunlight exposure and shadows fall is so intriguing. I translated these elements into the quilt.

This photo makes me smile every time, as it reminds me of a very unexpected, unplanned vacation that landed up being one of my best vacation’s ever!! Now I have a quilt that captures the memory.

The selected a variety of fabrics from Katarina Roccella’s Indelible. I love the grey, navy, mustard and teal combination – my favorite at the moment. When contemplating the binding, the contrast of the bright pink spoke to me. Surprisingly, as I am not a pink person, it’s one of my favorite things about this quilt.

The back I pulled in some of the design elements from the front but changed the pyramid shapes into arrows. You can also see the quilting a little clearer on the right. I used straight line quilting mostly, but on rows 2, 3, 6 I wanted to highlight the pyramid shapes a little more. I followed the point of one of the pyramids in these rows, and this gave that cool triangular quilting pattern you see.

Details

Name: Moorish Pyramids
Design: Designed by me
Fabric: Indelible, Katrina Roccella, Art Gallery Fabrics
Dimensions: 60″ x 60″
Quilted: Using walking foot and with various grey Aurifil 50wt threads; Straight line quilting.

I hope you all love this project too. Please go and vote and/or participate. You can also nominate quilts for viewers choice award. It’s great to see all the submissions.

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