In the Jungle, the Mighty Jungle

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Last year, I won the design contest that Sara Lawson @sewsweetness held for her Jungle Ave Quilt. I couldn’t believe it!! The design was inspired from Tapa cloths that I had picked up in the Pacific Islands, hence the name of my quilt “Jungle Ave Tapa”.

The prize included all the fabric to make the quilt and a chance to be published in Quilt Now. The fabric arrived and my first thought was OH NO (well actually sh*t) as I realized I now need to make it.

It was a long process for me to make this one as I had to work out how to turn it into reality, after a grueling 4 months it was complete. The whole secret sewing thing is like torture for me. I decided to get it quilted by Angela Walters as I wanted her style of FMQ to highlight and bring out the shapes. I love the quilting, Angela did a fantastic job on the first quilt I have ever sent out!!

For the big reveal, almost a year later, the quilt and the pattern is in this month’s Quilt Now magazine (picture from the magazine). (Happy Dance emoticons here!!).

We actually took it on vacation with us and had our own photo shot (the assistants maybe not have been always co-operative….but we got it done ;-)). This is my favorite sequence of photos; my son, who was suppose to be posing for me and decided to hide instead.

The Hatteras Lighthouse grounds/backdrop made it a perfect location. It was purely by chance that the black, white and pink/red of the lighthouse correlated to the colors in the quilt.

The back re-uses the ladder shape amongst the city jungle of elephants and of course the hubby did a great job climbing in the shrubs for me!! (Ashley, if you read this…this could be us doing each others photo shoots…the hubby’s will be so happy).

By the time we got to do close-ups, I lost my models/assistants….but the porch chair made a great prop.

Details

Name: Jungle Ave Tapa
Dimensions: 60″ x 70″
Design: Michelle Wilkie (does include paper-piecing the center strip.

Fabric: Jungle Ave, Sara Lawson for Art Gallery Fabrics; Pure Elements Snow
Quilted: By Angela Walters

Anyway, that was so hard to keep a secret….only 1 more of the 5 secret sewing projects to go. Linking up with Alyce @ Blossom Heart Quilts for Sew Cute Tuesday (see button on the right) and Amanda Jean @ Crazy Mom Quilts for Finish it up Friday.

Linking up with Adrienne for 2015 Finish along, as this was a long time coming as it was one of my goals for Q4 2014 to finish.

QDAD: July

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Lately, I have been so busy with other things that I have not spent a whole lot of time sewing/quilting or participating in Quilt Design a Day this month. I was lucky though ,to contribute the sparks (inspiration + color palette photos) in early July. Apparently, when I commit to doing the sparks, I can also commit to doing a design.

The sparks are all photos taken on various vacations, I have had. Have you ever taken a look through your photos and found quilting inspirations?? I have a different eye sometimes while on vacation….I think I am more open to see what is around me…so I see more design opportunities.

July 5: Moulin Rougue

Love the dark moody colors this photo gave as a color palette….and how can you not use red while in Paris. The design is a minimalistic impression of the windmill blades.

July 6: Ponte Sant’Angelo

One of my favorite photos while in Rome. I love the view of Ponte Sant’Angelo from Castel Sant’Angelo key hole brick. It offered a stark neutral kind of palette. I choose to keep a simple brick layered design, color placement was important.

The original design had color placement a little different and I found it to noisy and made it look more like camouflage material.

July 7: Rossio Square

I love this palette of dark greys, mustard, stone and red-brown. There was so much you can do with the design of the bricks in the photo but I had been flipping through a magazine and found the most amazing shelving units. I took what fascinated me in the furniture and turned it into this design.

July 8: Raglan

I love coastal color palettes. There is so much variety. I had an idea for a totem like design, inspired by the Maori sculpture in the picture and I had seen this great multimedia textile design which inspired the triangles and stripes.

I also like this color way and couldn’t really decide between the brighter or darker versions.

July 9: Raglan Succulents

For those of us who started out when we were using design-seeds as the photo inspiration, we have a few subject matters that we just cringe at. Succulents can sometimes be part of the list. So, I had a great chuckle to myself for posting this. I do love the color palette. Not my usual as it reads a little pastel.

I was inspired by a few Bauhaus prints for this one and chose several different elements from a few of those prints to put this triangle design together.

I also love the darker palette with the plum as the background.

July 10: Portugal Coast

I definitely have a thing at the moment for teals and coral colors. This color palette did remind me of a Lizzie House fabric line. I went with a simple design, again with lines of fractured color. This is not a bad design but with this color palette I would look at doing something different with it next time.

Ah, that feels good to post some of the designs. I would love to hear what photo from your vacation inspires, or inspired any quilt design you may have made.

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”.

AMH Mini Quilt Swap Finish!!

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I signed up way back in January for the Anna Maria Horner Mini Quilt Swap….and of course leaving it to the last-minute, I managed to finish and post on the last day (last Saturday). I had so much fun with this quilt.

I do not often use all very loud prints in my quilts and designs, but have admired folks that can pull it together. I knew that I wanted to try something similar with this swap and experiment.

I had created this design that I thought would be perfect for this challenge.

I loved my fabric selections, which I tried to split into warm and cool color palettes (two corners cooler and 2 warm). The inner square is based on a finished 1/2″ lines. I know kind of crazy.

I learned a couple of things that I would definitely recommend when I get around to writing this pattern, just shows the importance of pattern testing:

I loved using a log-cabin like approach for the innermost squares
The triangles that began the outer points of the center square, in the photo you will see I made those as actual triangles. Next time, I would leave them as squares and piece the larger out most triangles on and then trim to make sure you eliminate stretch or distortion.

I pieced the back from left over scraps from the front and used solids that represent the navy and crimson colored stripes. The quilting shows up way better on the back than the front as well as its less busy.

I am very happy, needless to say with the final swap item, even though one corner of my binding gave me so much trouble.

I plan to remake this pattern in solids and a much larger size. Linking up with Amanda-Jean over at Crazy Mom Quilts for Finish it up Friday.

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