Tag Archives: quilt design

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

IMG_3775

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

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.
Natural_Corridors_Chair

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.

Natural_Corridors_Backing_Binding

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.

Natural_Corridors_Quilt_Top

Details

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

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.

 

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

 

 

Road Signs Quilt (Sisterhood of the Traveling Quilts)

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Sisterhood_RoadSigns

My package is already to go for my first ever Traveling quilt. The blocks are done. The solid yardage has arrived (including the Kona Torch).  You might say I am over excited about this….I am probably driving the “Sisterhood of the Traveling Quilts” crazy.

TravelingQuiltDesignBook_Journal

The last thing I have added to my package is a small traveling journal/design book for folks to fill in along the way. The first pages goes through my ideas (similar to this post)…

  • Inspiration: The Road signs I all of a sudden found interesting on our way up to the North Carolina Mountains for vacation.
  • Style: Very much a minimalistic, architectural feel, influenced by Erin Wilson’s quilts (which are featured in the pictures erinwilsonquilts.com).
  • Color Palette: Navy (Kona Nautical), Orange (Kona Torch), Aqua (Kona Pool), Dark Grey (Kona Graphite) and then Neutrals for the background (White, Bone, Oyster, Putty, Ash, Silver etc). A minimal use of prints is ok.

I love the idea of the little design book/journal…I did feel the kid come out in me again and the creativity renewed with this little project. I hope the others have fun with it. Here are the others in our fab little group.

Liz – Beadqueene’s Bits and Baubles
Ashley – Wasn’t Quilt in a Day
Jessica – Quilty Habit
Laura – Little and Lots
Renee – Quilts of a Feather

I am off to ship my package!!