Tag Archives: Modern Quilt Guild

Altitudinal Ecosystem

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The last of this round of secret projects was revealed last week!! “Altitudinal Ecosystem” was August Quilt of the Month for the Modern Quilt Guild. Amazing to think that thousands of people got my quilt in their email last week. WOW!! In case you missed it, the pattern is available to MQG members here.

Altitudinal Ecosysytem

This design was created as part of Quilt Design a Day (QDAD). It was inspired by Anne @ Play Crafts spark (inspirational photo and color palette) of Crater Lake.
CraterLake_AnnPlayCrafts

The mountain in the middle of the lake reminded me of my ecology studies. We looked at the impacts of altitude on species causing zonation/changes of various species (both plant and animal).

This gave me the idea to represent the zones by various colored bars and graduating the color from light green to dark green to white (snow caps).
Altitudinal Ecosystem Forest

For the back, I really wanted to use this mountain print from Sarah Watson’s Indian Summer line and some of the off cuts from the front. However, the off-cuts were too bold for the print so instead I created a grey and white stripe section with splashes of the color from the front.
Altitudinal Ecosystem Back

You may also notice in this photo above I have used color blocked the binding. That is, The mountain areas is in  dark green (pickle), the lake in the dark blue and the sky area in Lighter blue.

The quilting was all done with my walking foot and various Aurifil threads. I used standard straight lines following the direction of the zones, for the mountain. This represented the solid nature of the mountain. The sky and the lake though I wanted to introduce more movement. For the sky, I used wavy lines representing air movement.
Quilting Sky

The lake, I was thinking about circles but since it it not symmetrical I thought an improv. irregular block design could work. This quilting design was inspired by some of the quilting Carolyn Friedlander uses in her savor each stitch quilts. I really like the look and the texture is fantastic.
Quilting Lake

This is definitely one of my favorite quilts, I have made so far, its getting a little hard to choose now :-). I hope you all enjoy it too.

Details

Name: Altitudinal Ecosystem
Design: Designed by me, available from the MQG site (if you are a member)
Fabric:  Kona Solids (White, Shadow, Pickle (which was provided by Robert Kaufman), Wasabi, Prussian, Oasis); Back: Woodland in Pine, Indian Summer, Sarah Watson, AGF, Kona Solids (White, Shadow, Pickle, Oasis, Prussian)
Dimensions: 60″ x 60″
Quilted: Using walking foot and matching Aurifil 50wt threads; Ultra wavy lines, Improv. Irregular block shapes, Straight line quilting.

If you want to submit a quilt design for the MQG Quilt of the month, you can – they are looking for 2016 people. Vist this page for the information and submission form.

Linking up with  Adrienne for 2015 Finish along, as this was one of my goals for Q2 to finish.

2015 FAL at On the Windy Side

 

 

Sew Down Nashville: FMQ and improvisational piecing + Winner

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Sew Down Nashville was fantastic. Heather, Elizabeth and Jen, from The Modern Quilt Guild, organized the best weekend activity/conference, I have ever attended.

Friday evening, kicked off our sewing with open sew, where you could sew any project with others, in a social environment….like a giant bee. I worked on my hexagon (EPP) lap quilt which is slowly progressing; perfect when traveling. Can you believe it, I finished around midnight.
Hexagon_OpenSew The weekend did not slow down a second from then on. Each class exceeded my expectations. First up, was Angela Walters Free Motion Quilting class. If you ever get a chance to take her class – do….she has such a great flow and structure in her teaching…..she is funny and down to earth which made it a lot of fun. I know!! FMQ fun!!Angela_Me

This was one of her quilts she had on display….one of the quilts, you say, “When I grow up I want to be able to do this”:Angelas_FMQ

I struggled with the more curvy designs. Pebbling, which was our first lesson and my first time I have attempted it, was hard more due to the fact I got lost and didn’t know where to go next. Pebble_FMQ

My favorite designs for Angela’s class was the more geometric shapes. To get the points to be more prominent instead of rounded corners, she passed on the knowledge to pause and then move on so that the needle/stitch catches well. Great tip!!, now I just need to not keep my foot on the pedal and sew 2-3 stitches in the same place 🙂Geometric_FMQ

Practice, practice, practice. Angela talked about how she would for 15 minutes a day just sit at her sewing machine and practice…I think it will be my next months challenge (Sarah @ Berry Barn Designs….sounds like a 3030SC right??).

Victoria Findlay Wolfe, was up next for improvisational piecing. A fantastic class to take those out of their comfort zone, especially if you are a pattern follower. Of course, this one was right up my alley and loved it!

Victoria_Findlay_Wolfe

These were some of my favorite mini quilts that she had bought with her. I love that she has all these vibrant colors in her quilts. All those small pieces did not start out small, it’s all about how you piece the together…and then trim.Victorias_Quilts

In her class I learned how to do a Y seam…folks nice and easy – why was I freaked out about these before 🙂 Also, I managed to improv two blocks…I now have a new project in my head on how I would use these.Improv_YSeam_VictoriasClass

 

Saturday finished up with another open sew and can you believe it I was almost first one to breakfast each morning (7:30 am – yes hubby, I can be an early rising) and one of the last to leave each open sew.  I finished this open sew with a completed block!!
HST_OpenSewBlock

Final part of business today….the winner of Quilt Essentials (btw, I met the author at sew down!!)…is
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Who is Sarah @ For Russia. Congratulations, I will send C&T Publishing/Stash books your details.

I am linking up with Lorna @ Sew Fresh Quilts for Let’s Bee Social (see button on right).

It’s “A Fine Day”

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Can you believe it? I actually finished the Riley Blake Challenge on time with my depiction of “A Fine Day” and it’s submitted. I decided to try a multi-piece binding, so I could keep the colors focused. To get the binding to match up to each block:

  • I used the darkest solid in each block for the binding.
  • I sewed each piece onto the front, leaving 2 inches from the block end.
  • I marked the edge on the binding + a 1/4 inch mark, then sewed the pieces together and trimmed.
  • For the last two pieces, I marked both pieces and matched up the lines and sewed the seam,  and trimmed.

AFineDay_hanging Bottom left: Sunrise, Top Left: Midday, Top Right: Sunset, Bottom Right: Dusk

Name: A Fine Day
Size: 34 x 30 Inches
Material: Riley Blake Prints + Kona Solids (Torch, Stratosphere, Royal, Navy for the binding)
Design: by me…inspired by the color of the sun
Technique: Improvisational piecing, Circular Quilting, Multi-piece binding

For the quilting, I wanted something that depicted the sun. I used a star like – straight line quilting in the middle circle, then used radiating circles for the rest of the quilt. This was my first time sewing circles – which aren’t perfect but I still think they turned out great. (PS. I think I need a better sewing machine to do the quilting on, instead of my light weight $150 Brother….I hinted this to the hubby at breakfast…maybe for Mothers day or birthday ;-)).

AFineDay_lying

For the 1 inch radiating lines, I used my walking foot with the guide. I could not work out a color that would work across all blocks so I used invisible thread on the top, white on the back. Here is one last photo to show the binding and quilting. AFineDay_QuiltingBacking

Lastly, here are the links to the posts documenting my whole process for the Modern Quilt Guild Riley Blake Challenge Quilt:

Design idea
Fabric Selection
Sunrise Block
Sunrise + Midday Blocks
Sunrise + Midday+ Sunset Blocks
Quilt top completion

Linking up with Alyce @ Blossom Heart Quilts for Sew Cute Tuesday and Lorna @ Sew Fresh Quilts for Let’s bee Social. This is also one of my Quarter Goals and linking to:
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