Flow {A Finished Quilt}

Wow, it's been a long, long time since I've shared a quilt finish in this space! It's nice to be back - and I have several quilts and quilt tops I finished toward the end of last year that I'm hoping to share over the next few weeks. The first two I'll be showing you were made essentially in secret - that is, I resisted my usual tendency to completely overshare what I'm working on. The main reason for this was that both of these were made specifically for the challenge categories for QuiltCon 2016, so I wanted them to be a bit of a surprise *if* they were juried into the show. Neither of them got accepted, so I'm kind of excited to be able to share them at last!

The quilt I'm sharing today was made for the Michael Miller Luxe challenge - she's called Flow and she was a really fun quilt top put together. This is a fairly long post, as I'll be showing a bit of my process as well as a few pictures of the final quilt, so please bear with me! I would normally split this much information across a few blog posts - but I'm making up for my recent lack of blog posts by giving you a single enormous post ;o).

Mid last year, the Modern Quilt Guild offered members the opportunity to sign up for the Michael Miller Luxe challenge, one of the special categories that would be part of the QuiltCon 2017 show. Everyone who signed up for the Luxe challenge was sent two half yard pieces of fabric, in one of the colour stories below. Participants were then allowed to add ONE cotton couture solid to these, and to use any of the Luxe range of fabrics in their quilt. The fabrics I received were the middle two, and I then added a deep teal cotton couture to these, as well as solid white and grey Luxe fabrics.

I have to admit, these fabrics sat in a pile on my cutting table for a good few months before I started getting some ideas about what to do with them. These fabrics are sheeting fabric rather than quilting cotton, and as such have a slightly different sheen (they are quite shiny) and have a wee bit more stretch than regular quilting cotton. I was a little bit nervous about working with them, but eventually I decided improv curves were the way to go, and I started making a few blocks, without any real plan as to what I'd do with them. Apologies for the poor lighting in the next few photos - my design wall has overhead fluorescent lights, which make it really hard to get good pictures of the whole wall. 

Initially, I made a few blocks, thinking I would position them so that there was a continuous improv curve from top to bottom down the quilt. 

But as I kept making blocks, I decided to lay them out more randomly, with more negative space between and around the blocks. At this point I hadn't ordered any solids for the background, and my initial thought was to surround them all with white, and to create continuous curved lines through the quilt with quilting.

But, when I sat down to order the solids, I decided at the last minute to get some grey as well as white, and use this to create some more movement in the negative space. I think this is what I love most about improv quilts - it's such a playful process, figuring out layout and design on the fly. Working with an idea, testing things out and discarding ideas that don't quite work.

I had a love-hate relationship with this quilt the entire time I was piecing it. Thankfully, I have a really awesome quilty friend (kat) who was happy for me to bombard her with photos and questions as I was working on it. I think I've grown so used to oversharing my projects on social media as I'm working on them, that working on something in secret made me feel like I was in a black hole in some ways. I needed the opportunity to get constructive criticism when I was making this, or I honestly think I would have abandoned it. 

In the end, this quilt was a weird combination of improv curves, and some pretty intense precision piecing to get those curves to form a continuous line through the quilt top. It was a really fun challenge, so despite those times I didn't like it, I still enjoyed the process. And seriously, this quilt was SO much fun to add texture to. Quilting is a super important part of quilt making for me - and the whole time I was piecing it I was thinking about how I would quilt it, to add to the sense of movement in the quilt top, and add loads of texture without detracting from the design. I forgot to take a photo of the top before I quilted it, so this is it in full. After I'd finished piecing, I decided to orientate the curves across the quilt, rather than top to bottom, and I much prefer it this way around :o).

As always, I did all the quilting on my little domestic Bernina (440QE), but because it's a reasonably small quilt (around 60" square) it was a really enjoyable quilt to quilt. I decided to use batting with a bit of loft to make all the quilting stand out, so I chose a Wool/Polyester batting - it's become one of my favorites to use. The batting, combined with the fact that it's made from sheeting, has resulted in the softest quilt I've ever made, despite all that dense free motion quilting.

All the quilting on this one is done in Aurifil 50wt - white, dove and a few different blues to blend in with the fabrics. Although I've recently used a few other weights of Aurifil for quilting (40wt and 28wt), for this quilt I decided 50wt was the way to go, as I wanted the quilting to blend into the fabric as much as possible, just leaving all that texture.

I don't often piece backs for my quilts - but I had a few bits of the Luxe grey and white left over, as well as a bunch of half-metre pieces of various blues, aqua and teal cotton couture that I pieced together for this one. Solids are the BEST for showing up quilting :o).

Thanks for making it this far in a pretty epic blog post! As I said, I have a few more quilts to share, which I hope to do over the next few weeks. I've made a few fairly major life changes this year (all good ones) which will mean I have more time and energy to blog more regularly. I'd forgotten how much I enjoy talking about and sharing my projects here, so you'll have to put up with my rambling a bit more frequently from now on...

xx Jess

Improv quilt quilting progress

So, somehow it's been almost a month since I posted here (although I'm sure most of you are used to my erratic-blogging ways by now!) April was a bit of a blur, with 10 days in Melbourne for AQC - but since we got back I have been sewing up a storm. Over the last few weeks, I finished piecing my improv quilt top and started quilting it last week. I didn't manage to get a good photo of the quilt top before I basted it, so you'll have to wait for the big reveal when it's finished for that!

The entire time I have been piecing this quilt, I've been bustingly excited about quilting it. Not that I didn't enjoy the piecing part - it's been the most fun I've had making a quilt ever, quite seriously. I didn't have all that much of a plan when I started quilting - I just knew I wanted lots of organic straight lines (free motion quilted of course!) with a few pockets of curvy designs. I started out in the yellow/ochre block of colour, slowly getting a feel for what I wanted to do. I've used two different yellow variegated 40wt Aurifil threads in this section - a darker thread in this area (until I finished the spool),

and then a lighter (orangey yellow) variegated thread for the rest of the yellow block and out into the low volume. Once I got into the low volume area, I hit my stride with the quilting, very much inspired by the grey Carolyn Friedlander print in the photo below.

You can see here how much that fabric inspired this quilting - and the texture is just amazing. Because many of the low volume fabrics I've used have a grid-type design in them, I have actually done virtually zero marking on this quilt - I've used the fabrics as a guide instead.

 Earlier this week, I managed to start quilting the orange section. I'm using a variegated coral coloured Aurifil 40wt for the orange section - and I'm really surprised how well it blends into these fabrics. There is a big variation in tone and value through this section, and although I initially questioned this choice of thread, it works amazingly well.

You can definitely see it on the lighter fabrics, but it's proven to be a real chameleon thread across the others. I felt this thread was a bit dark to use on the low volume areas though, so I switched to a variegated grey 40wt for the low volume section near the oranges.

Considering I only got this quilt basted last Wednesday, and I haven't really spent all that much time quilting it (about 15 hours I think?), I can't really believe it's almost half quilted. This quilt has stolen my heart, completely and utterly. It's my absolute favorite, and I see many more improv adventures for me this year!

You can see a few areas I've left unquilted - some of these I will go back and free motion quilt, but others I will add a bit of hand-quilting too. And some of them will be left alone, happily puffy among all that textured, tactile quilty goodness.

 xx Jess

Improv Quilt Progress

I've been sewing up a storm over the last few days - lots of prep for AQC next week, but I've also managed to finish a quilt (more on that later this week!) and make some great progress on my improv quilt. This one is a class sample for a series of workshops I'm teaching at Frangipani Fabrics later this year. 

I've been slowly doing some strip piecing over the last week or so, to add to the blocks I shared last week. And as I was making them, I decided on a quilt-layout-plan of sorts - columns of each colour, gradually fading out as they go down the quilt. I actually think this will end up being horizontal rows of colour rather than vertical - but it was much easier to work on my design wall in this orientation.

Today I made a bunch of improv triangle blocks. My design wall doesn't have great lighting for photos - but I'm really happy with how it's looking. I'm also very thankful for a pretty big design wall - this is about 70 or 80" wide, so it's going to be a pretty big quilt.

I could happily work on this all day everyday - I get so absorbed in this project, I totally switch off from everything else and find it incredibly relaxing to work on. I'm hoping to start piecing it gradually each evening until I leave for Melbourne on Sunday - and I'm pretty sure I'll be dreaming about it when I can't work on it ;o)

xx Jess

Improv Quilt Beginnings

Almost as soon as I'd finished piecing my Gravity quilt top, I jumped feet first into my next quilty project - an improv quilt as a class sample for a series of improv workshops I'll be teaching at Frangipani Fabrics later this year. I've been busting to start this quilt for months, so it's SO nice to be able to start working on it. It was also a really nice excuse to cut into some new fabric - the bundle of Carkai I got very recently from Polka Dot Tea. I added lots more Carolyn Friedlander from my stash, along with a few friends.

I'll be teaching a range of improv techniques for these workshops, so I'm incorporating all of these techniques into this quilt. First up was log cabins.

And then wonky crosses, and inserting strips. I have not touched a ruler while making these blocks - and I don't think I can go back to using one for improv after this. This is such a fun and fast way to piece - and I just love the organic lines produced by ruler-free cutting.

I had a bit of time to start playing with strip piecing today - not the best photo I'm afraid, but I'm hoping to get a bunch more of these done later this week so I'll try to get a better one for my next update post on this quilt ;o).

Every time I make an improv quilt, it's like I rediscover how much joy and inspiration I get from working like this. I think you'll probably see quite a few improv quilts from me this year - this quilt has sparked heaps of ideas I'd like to try out when I get a chance!

xx Jess