Moscow Design Museum

Yet another example of Visual Communication being an inspiration for patchwork!

The Moscow Design Museum have some lovely icons to go with their establishment. This images screams patchwork sampler to me.

This blog post by UnderConsideration shows how they came up with the designs, truely an inspiration!

Hope this provides some inspiration!

My Creative Space ...

I've finally managed to find the time to pin my Monochromatic Quilt to the backing fabric. So now it is all set to go, I just have to decide how to quilt it. So many options! I need to find the time to finish the last tutorial on the "night and day" block that is in the Sampler.

For more craft pursuits, check out Kootoyoo's blog

Kaos also has a giveaway, "I heart Patchwork" the book .. so enter! yes!

Monochromatic Sampler: Block Eight

I've had this entry sitting in my drafts folder for a few weeks now, just waiting the finishing touches. I am anxious to get this quilt and the blogging associated with it finished as young Nicholas is becoming more and more aware of what is going on around him.

The construction of the Pinwheel block uses a similar technique to the Diamonds block. Create a square and rotate it by putting triangle sides on it.

Create the Pinwheel

Cut:

• Two squares 3 1/2 inches square in White
• Two squares 3 1/2 inches square in Black

Pin both squares together and rule a line from opposite corners of the squares.
Use this line as a guide to run a stitch down the squares either side of the line. Seam allowance 1/4 inch.

Cut down the centre of the stitching and then open and press with your iron. You should have four squares ready to go!

From each square, you should get two blades on your pinwheel. Sew blocks together carefully making sure that you line up your seams.

If your seams match up correctly, you should have a nicely lined up pinwheel measuring 6 inches squared.

Cut:

• Two squares measuring 4 1/2 inches square in White

Cut the squares in half and attach two to the sides of the pinwheel. Trim and then attach the last two triangles.

You should have a nice sexy pinwheel ready for a border! Trim your pinwheel border leaving at least 1/4 inch between the edge of the pinwheel and the outside of your square. My finished square finished at 8 3/4 inches squared.

Cut a 2 1/2 inch width strip and attach a border to your pinwheel.

Voila, another finished block!

I haven't given much thought yet as to how I might quilt this piece, any ideas? I'd love to try freehand quilting like Kellie does, but I am not that confident!

Are you making these blocks as well? Add your pictures to the Flickr group.

Monochromatic Sampler: Block Seven Tutorial

You could probably do this block in a variety of ways. Unfortunately I think I chose the most wasteful way! If you have ideas, please post a comment on this blog entry!

Cut

• 4 blocks of 3 1/2 inch squares in black
• 5 blocks of 3 1/2 inch squares in white

Creating the centre block

Take your squares and create three rows of patches.

Press your seams, then line up your seams and construct the centre diamond shape.

You should have a centre block that looks something like this.

Rotating the centre block into Diamonds

What I wanted to do is turn the blocks 45 degree.

Cut two squares measuring xxx and cut them so that you have four triangles. We are going to use these to rotate our block.

Sew them onto each side of your block making sure that they are in the middle. There is a bit of slack with the size of the triangles so that you can trim them down later.

Once the additional triangles are sewn on, trim the edges to make another square using 1/2 an inch allowance between the edge of the black squares (see the diagram).

The trimmed down square should be nice and neat.

Border around the Diamonds

Cut a strip of 2 1/2 inches by the width of the fabric in White.

Once the sides are sewn onto on your diamonds, press and trim.

Voila, another block done, two more to go!

Are you making these blocks as well? Add your pictures to the Flickr group.

Monochromatic Sampler: Block Six Tutorial

The technique used for this block could very well be used for a black star on white fabric block. Although the original design has three starts on white, when I was putting this block together I felt like I wanted a bit of Konstant Kaos in the quilt.

I wanted to play around with a different applique technique this time. I've done raw edges and reverse applique, this one uses Freeze Paper.

Cut our fabric:

• 10 1/2 inch by 10 1/2 inch square in Black
  
• One star in colour of choice
  

To get the star shape I used a Wingding in MS Word and enlarged it to 650 font size (re-adjusted the font style to outline) then printed it out.

Applique Shape

Cut some Freeze paper the size of your star or stars. We are going to use the Freeze paper to fold over and press the edges of the star so that there are as little raw edges as possible.

Another quilter at the Melbourne Modern Quilt Guild showed me this technique. She used it for hexing and used a clover mini iron press to press her hexes rather than baste her them before hand sewing them together. I want to try this with the Penrose Tiles Quilt. This does mean that you have to cut freeze paper in hex shapes, but I am sure that there is a paper punch out there somewhere that does it!

Cut your freeze paper star and start to gently press the edges over with no steam. Upto you whether you trim down the corners or fold them over. For this one, I trimmed the corners out so that it wouldn't b so bulky as an applique.

The result should be an applique with nice crisp lines.

Carefully remove the star from the Freeze paper, it should hold it's shape for long enough to sew it onto your fabric.

A bit of fray lock can be used on any raw edges, alternatively, you could have folded those edges over.

Attaching the applique

I used a strip of double sided interfacing around the perimeter of the star to lock the pressed edges in place. Alternatively, you could have cut out a star from double sided interfacing.

Remove the paper backing of the double sided interfacing and press in place onto your backing fabric.

Around the edges I used the blanket stitch on my sewing machine, but you could just as easily zig zag or straight stitch.

How are you going with the tutorials? I would really love some feedback on whether the instructions are clear and concise.

Monochromatic Sampler: Block Five Tutorial

This block took the longest for me. It was by far the most fiddly but also the most rewarding when it was finished.

Cut

• One 2 1/2 inch width strip of fabric the entire fabric length (42") and then cut in half into two 1 1/4 inch strips in White.
• Cut the same strips, two 1 1/4 inch strips of the entire fabric length (42") in Black
  

Row One

Due to the nature of this block, it is important that you iron, measure and trim in between each row to make sure that everything is even. Once you have sewn a row, make sure that you measure the strip at 1 inch after you sew them together. You will be able to tell easily if your measurements are out.

Start off with two small pieces of fabric:

• 1 1/4 inches by 1 inch in White.
• 1 1/4 inches by 1 inch in Black.
  

Row Two

The general method for spiral construction is a "top and tail" construction. You can either choose to cut each piece by hand and sew the spiral together or work off a length of fabic and trim in between each row.

Row Three

When constructing I would roughly measure the length of my strips, sew both sides at once and then iron, measure and trim to length.

Continue adding strips to the top and tail of the spiral until you have 11 rows of the spiral.

Final Row

By the time you get to the final row, you should be feeling quite happy at your spiral. Fiddly but rewarding .. right?

Sashing

Once you have your spiral finished add some sashing to make it really pop!

Voila, another block finished, four more to go!

I could imagine this technique being used with jelly roll strips to create quite an effective quilt. I noticed on the Moda web site a few days ago, someone had made a similar quilt! They have called it a Serpentine Quilt.

A big thank-you goes out to Leanne who actually spotted the pattern in my Japanese Quilts book (although these instructions are all mine because the book didn't provide any clear instructions) and the lovely Beky who actually got me the book in the first place for my Birthday last year!

My creative space ...

I've been working at breakneck speeds (as fast as a full term pregnant woman can work) to try and get this quilt finished before baby arrives. Which could be any day now given that I am past my due date.

My hubby has a theory that it won't arrive until I have it finished and I am relaxed ...

Of course, it wouldn't be me if I wasn't also writing tutorials for each block for my blog as well. I must be mad!

What do you think of the layout? There has been much debate on Facebook about the balance of a few of the blocks, how would you re-arrange it?

What is in your creative space today? To join in, head on over to Kootoyoo's new web site!

Monochromatic Sampler: Block Four Tutorial

This block is the easiest! Basically a whole stack of stripes!

Cut

• Three strips of 7 1/2 length by 1 inch in White
• Four Strips of 7 1/2 length by 2 inches in Black

Sew together

Sew together the three white strips with a black strip until you have three stripes.

Then attach all of them together, attaching the left over black strip at the bottom.

Sashing

Cut

• A strip of 2 1/2 inch width by the length of your material (42 inches).

Add sashing to the top of the block and then sides of the block.

Looking back at my block, I should have done sides first then the top and bottom. But when I constructed the block, doing the top and bottom and then sides seemed more logical. It's upto you!

Trim the sashes to complete the block. Remember that when we construct the quilt, we will probably trim all the blocks down to one uniform size.

Voila! Finished!

Are following along with the Monochromatic quilting adventures?

Monochromatic Sampler Update

Slowly getting through each of the blocks.

The most painful one so far has been the "snail" one. Although I had a book that had some guidelines, the construction of it was a bit of a mind bender ...

Stay tuned for tutorials for the additional blocks!

Monochromatic Sampler: Block Three Tutorial

I have effectionately named this block "building blocks". I could imagine that in another quilt you could applique numbers or letters onto the blocks and create a nice effect.

The concept seemed a lot easier on paper when I first drew it. My first attempt at this block resulted in a block that was too small. So I unpicked it and re-did it to made the sides of each row longer than the 10 1/2 inch square block so that it can be trimmed down at the end once all the other blocks are done.

Cut a few strips of white and black at the standard width of 2 1/2 inches.

Row One

We'll start with the row with three "building blocks" and work our way up the block.

Cut:

• Three pieces of 2 1/2 inches by 2 1/2 inches in Black and
  
• Two pieces of 2 1/2 inches by 1 1/4 inches in White.
  

Sew together but remember to press, measure and trim after each line of stitching.

Complete the row by attaching two blocks of 2 1/2 by 2 1/2 in White either side of the three blocks.

Once finished add the spacer to the top of the row.

Cut

• 12 1/2 inch length of your 2 1/2 inch sash and cut it in half. We will use one half for the Row 1 spacer and the other half for the Row 2 spacer.

Attach spacer to the top of the row, press, measure and trim if needed.

Row Two

Cut

• Two 2 1/2 by 2 1/2 blocks in Black and
  
• one piece of 2 1/2 by 1 1/4 in White.

Sew together but remember to press, measure and trim after each line of stitching to make sure that your black blocks are 2 1/4 inches in width before sewing on the sides.

Complete the row by attaching two blocks of 4 inches by 2 1/2 in White either side of the two building blocks.

Once finished add the spacer to the top of the second row. Use the second half of the spacer from Row One, 12 1/2 inches by 2 1/2 inches in White.

Attach spacer to the top of the row, press, measure and trim if needed.

Row Three

The fastest row of all!

Cut

• One 2 1/2 inch sqare in black
• Two 5 1/2 strips of 2 1/2 inch height in white

Attach the sides to the "building block" and then press with iron.

Compiling the block

Sew each row together.

To line up the blocks I folded the middle block in half, gave it a quick press and used this to line up the blocks above it. The blocks have to line up or the effect will not look as good. Don't trust the perimeter of your rows, as due to stitch length the rows may be different lengths.

After the blocks are joined, sash the top and bottom in 2 1/2 inches height white, at a length or width of 12 1/2 inches.

This block will be bigger than the first two, but that is ok, as we are going to cut them all down to the same size before we sew them together.

Three blocks down, six to go!

Are following along with the Monochromatic quilting adventures? Let me know!