From the Vault - Climbing Lanterns Quilt

Since I haven't made much progress on my Paint Quilt. I thought I would dig out an older quilt for you to look at.

I started this quilt in late 2011 and finished it in January 2012.  It's approximately 48" square, and is from a free Michael Miller pattern called Climbing Lanterns, designed by Marinda Stewart.

The background is 6" squares and the tree is fused over the top. 

The pattern called for an additional applique element, Chinese Lanterns, at the tips of some of the branches.  That's how the pattern got the name, Climbing Lanterns.  

I guess I didn't bother with them because one of the fabrics I chose had navy blue circles and it almost gave the same effect from a distance.  Adding another element there would have just looked more cluttered.

Usually when I fuse something down, I just scribble stitch around the edges.  But on this quilt I carefully satin stitched every single part of the tree.

This satin stitch was done only on the quilt top, not through the entire sandwich.

I spent A LONG TIME on the quilting, and I did three kinds:

1. stitch in the ditch on all the seams of the 6" blocks, being careful not to stitch over the branches
2. edge stitching in brown thread around all the tree parts, just to the outside of the satin stitch
3. free motion leaves in the background

You know what?  I used to do a lot more, and better, quilting before I started this blog.  Now I seem to rush to get projects done so I have something to show.  Maybe I need to rethink that.

This is the label, a miniature version of the front.  

The backing fabric on the quilt is the brown that I used in this tree.

This is probably my favorite quilt.  I've had it on the wall in one place or another ever since I made it.

Cold Weather Tree

My metal tree is in its third decorating phase.  It's already been an Elephant Tree and a Leaf Tree. 

Now it's a Cold Weather Tree. 

 

The tree used to sit in a heavy ceramic pot, further weighted down by lots of gravel to hold the trunk upright.  I always had to worry about the pot scratching whatever it sat on, and it was a PAIN to move.  So my husband built me a wooden base with a hole drilled in it.  The bottom of the trunk goes in the hole - nice and sturdy, nice and light.

Bundled birds hang out here.

I have one fuzzy snowman...

... and two tiny wooden ones.

One of three sweaters.  No, I didn't knit it.

Another sweater.  I forgot to take a close-up photograph of the third sweater.

On the left is an aluminum mitten.  

There are plastic snowflakes...

... and wooden ones.

And at the very top, a pair of boots.

I really love my Cold Weather Tree.  I usually get tired of things quickly, but I've had this tree up for two months, and my interest hasn't waned at all.

Monday is Fun Day - Tweezers

Last week I went to a sewing machine store to get a large cone of steel grey polyester thread to use at the quilt retreat.  I found something unexpected at the counter.

Tweezers!  And big ones, at that - 6" long.

Seeing as how they were so fun, and I couldn't decide between the two, I bought both.  "What am I supposed to use these for?", I asked the clerk.

Once she explained, it made perfect sense.  And I realized that was exactly what I needed.  

Fun and functional - nothing better than that.

Funny How Things Change

So I wanted to talk a little about the quilt retreat I went to yesterday. 

I forgot to show you this photograph yesterday, when we looked at the fabric I cut out for the retreat.  Both of these fabrics were candidates for the center portion of the Courthouse Steps blocks.  The taupe with lines on it was my first choice.  It was also designed by Carrie Bloomston, who did the Paint collection I was using.

But the night before the retreat I decided it was too boring, so I cut out the Simplicity text print instead.

Fast forward to Retreat Day, and before I did any stitching at all, I asked my friend which one she thought worked better.  (I cleverly had brought the "reject" along with me.)  She immediately picked the taupe with the lines, and she didn't refer to it as boring at all.  It took me a millisecond to change my mind, so I borrowed her 6" x 24" ruler and ran off to the cutting table.

That was Change Number One.

 

I pieced the Courthouse Steps at the retreat, and this morning I threw all of the blocks, including the 10" squares, on my design wall.  Do you remember in yesterday's post how my fabric selection included paint, sewing, and gardening themes?  Yeah, well maybe that's a bit much.  This is a corner of the 25-block quilt.  I didn't like it at all.  

When I pulled and cut the fabric, I thought it would be OK because the colors worked together.  But, egads, those great big 10" squares of dress forms (row 1), sewing logos (row 2) and knock-your-eyes-out flowers (row 3) made me feel unsettled.

Ugh, now what? I wondered.

I dug around for my leftover Paint collection, and had enough to cut 10" blocks to replace the sewing and gardening blocks.  Better, right?

However, I left that sewing and gardening fabric in the Courthouse Steps borders, because 
1)  in little bits it looked OK
2)  my leftover Paint collection only yielded enough to squeak out the extra 10" blocks, and 
3)  did you really think I'd want to rip out all that stitching?

This is going to be Change Number Two (I still need to trim the leftover Paint fabric down to 10".)

Just out of curiosity, I slapped the Simplicity squares I had already cut out, over the taupe centers.  Kind of cute, but the Paint fabric isn't the star - Simplicity is drawing my eye.

So this is the winner, and instead of thinking of that taupe center fabric as boring, I'll think of it as paint strokes.

I've started lots of projects this month, but now I'm going to stick with this one until it's done.

All Cut Out for the Retreat

I'm going to a quilt retreat today.  I wasn't sure if the title of this post was going to be All Cut Out ... or Not Cut Out ..., but I did manage to get my fabric cut last night. 

I never cut all the fabric for a project before I start sewing, and I was surprised by how long it took.  I have 10" blocks, 6" blocks (not shown here), and then 1.5" strips in lengths of 6", 8", and 10".

Since it's a retreat and there'll be more talking than concentrating going on, I wanted s simple pattern.  I was going to do the cover quilt from Easy Weekend Quilts.  But this quilt works better with fabrics that read as solid and my fabric was busy.  If you take that book link and look at image number 7, you'll see the pattern I picked.

I've been waiting for a good time to use Carrie Bloomston's Paint Collection, and the pattern I picked was made to order for large-scale prints.

I'm using some of my sewing-themed fabrics as well, so the quilt will have a creative theme going on.  Then I threw in some florals just because the colors went well, so now the quilt is painting/sewing/gardening.

Here's a little mockup of what to expect.  On the left, I'll have the same Simplicity fabric 6" block inside all the courthouse steps.  There are two rows of steps around the center.  Then this pieced block will alternate with 10" squares.  

I double-checked all my cutting and it seems like I didn't goof anything up, but I'm taking my extra fabric along just in case.

Tale of Two Cities

When choosing a book for 2016, my modern quilt club was pretty much equally enthusiastic about two books.

Patchwork City by Elizabeth Hartman won out by one vote.  I'm going to make one of my city quilts with the fabric in this cubby.

The Modern Medallion Workbook is the alternate book.  I'll probably make something from it eventually, but for now I have a second city planned from the fabrics in this cubby.

Let's get a better look at these fabrics.

This is the starting point for one.  You can't really tell, but there's a slightly patterned white fabric on the left side, in the background.  What I like better is the white on the right - Modern Background in silver/white from Moda's Zen Chic line.

The main fabrics are going to be from the layer cake and charm pack on the left, both of which are For You, also from Moda's Zen Chic.

This looks like a pretty disparate group of fabrics, but I think I can make it work.

This fabric is the starting point for the second city quilt.  I must like Moda fabric - I'm using a charm pack and candy pack (or whatever you call the really little squares) of Block Party.  The orange geometric in the upper left and the grey/aqua floral in the upper right are also part of that line.

At the bottom is a Cotton + Steel line called August, which I bought back in 2014.

See the grey oval fabric in the background?  Hold that thought.

One of these cities will have a cool feeling; the other will be warm.

I love this Patchwork City book - there are 75 different blocks in three different sizes.  Yesterday I made one of each size, from my warm city.

This is an 8" x8" block, named Donut Shop.  (All the blocks in the book have names related to some aspect of a city.)

I fussy cut lions from the Cotton + Steel fabric.  Whenever the pattern called for a 2.5" square, I used one of the candy pieces.  All of the blocks are going to have the happy grey floral.

This 5" x 14" block is named Coffee Shop.  Lots of fussy cutting here.  

You can just barely see cream linen strips at the top and bottom.  My plan was to put that color in every block, along with the grey floral.  But that was back when I planned on using the grey oval fabric (time to retrieve the thought I told you to hold) as sashing between the blocks.  Once I had some blocks made, my happy grey floral wasn't coexisting very peacefully with the grey ovals.  I've now picked a dark cream text print for my sashing.  I don't feel like taking a picture of it right now, so you'll have to see it later.

The point of all that is I'm going to replace those cream strips with something else, because right now they blend in too much when I lay the block on my new sashing fabric.  I want my 5" x 14" rectangles to look nice and big, so I can't have any disappearing going on at the edges.

And here's the 5" x 8" block, named Raindrops.  Lots of opportunity in this block to use my candy squares.

So that's what I have so far.  My original plan was to make these quilts in a parallel fashion.  Meaning I now should go and make these same three blocks in my other city fabric.  But I don't feel like it.  I'm going to stay with my warm city until it's done.  I don't know how many of the blocks I'll make for each quilt.  And I might make different ones for each city.  I'll find out as I get there.

At my modern club this morning, lots of people had started their quilts and brought their blocks in.  They are ALL gorgeous.