Mod Flower Quilt

 Earth day seems like the perfect day to finish up this quilt and share it with you. Even though it is a small quilt (36"x38") it has been in the works for many months. It all began last September, on National Jelly Roll day. My guild,  McKinney Modern Quilt Guild, was holding a zoom mystery jelly roll sew along day and because I love to "do all the things" I was eager to be a part of it. Mind you, I am not a jelly roll person (not a precut person at all, truth be told) and being on a tight fabric budget I wasn't eager to spend money on a jelly roll. So, I decided to make my own. Due to the generosity of another quilter, I had a large stack of low volume yardage on my shelf. I pulled the needed number of fabrics (20) and cut a 2 1/2" strip from each. 

The day was great fun, with a large number of guild members participating. At the end of the day, I had this finished, and quite boring in my eyes, quilt top. 

Rather than let it go to waste, I decided I wanted to appliqué a large, modern flower to the front. Never mind that hand appliqué was not a skill I had in my current toolbox! I had a vision and was willing to do whatever I needed to do to accomplish it. I set about designing templates for the appliqué I desired, then recruited a friend who is very skilled at needle turn appliqué to teach me. In fact, I also recruited a group of friends to learn alongside me because everything is more fun with friends, right? Martha graciously gave us a free zoom class and I was off and running (with more than a few anxious texts and additional tips and tricks.)

Because I was having fun doing handwork (I usually do), I decided to teach myself big stitch quilting. You Tube to the rescue! I hand stitched the whole quilt using size 8 perle cotton, a neutral variegated in straight rows across and accent stitches on the flower and stem using matching colors.

I even added a few Xs here and there just for fun.

And just for fun, I machine stitched the binding to the back then big stitched it down on the front of the quilt in pink, to match the flower. These stitches don't show on the back of the binding but are firmly stitched through the batting to secure it. Oh, and a few Xs snuck into the binding as well, because, why not?

I'm so happy with this little finish! Very few of my quilts are inspired by nature (weird, I know) and I guess this proves, even when they are, they are modern and not terribly realistic! But it was fun to learn new things.

First Finish of the New Year

 

Last night I put the finishing stitches on the binding of my 2021 Word of the Year quilt.  You can read my thoughts on the word believe here.  I thought a magic wand was the perfect item to represent my word this year.

All of the fabrics are Moda Grunge and the finished quilt measures 18" x 20".  I used a bunch of different techniques in this one tiny quilt.... foundation paper piecing for the letters, my own funky dresden technique for the end of the wand, needle turn appliqué recently learned from my friend Martha for the stick, big stitch quilting on the yellow, and machine quilting for the rest.... and I'm really happy with how it all came together.

variations on Geo Pop

 When my friend Jayne, over at Twiggy and Opal started sharing her Geo Pop pattern in different variations, I decided to see how small I could make one! I pulled out some of my solid scraps and made this citrussy version...

Each block is 1 1/2" finished so the mini finished at 9"x12". pretty small but, of course, Jayne made a smaller one hahaha, which you can check out on her instagram.

Our Improv small group is doing a placemat swap. In August I needed to make a placemat for my friend Anne who had chosen pink and green. I enjoyed making the Geo Pop so much I decided to do a variation of it for Anne...

This one measures 12"x18".  Anne brought me this placemat (my chosen colors are black and white)

I love it! It will be fun to collect different placemats from my friends over the next few months.

Of course I didn't stop there with the Geo Pop quilts. A new great niece was on the way (she has since arrived and her quilt has been delivered). I thought a pink baby sized quilt was in order.

I quilted it with a simple grid on my domestic machine. 

Can you tell I really love this pattern? Jayne really hit it out of the park with this one!

Urban Emergence

I am just now beginning to be able to tell a story with my quilts. Until recently, often my story was "I wanted to play with triangles" or "these are the colors in my bedroom". Sometimes my story would come to me after a quilt was finished (or someone else would tell a story from my quilt!) This latest finish definitely has a story to tell!

It started months ago when I decided to ask my Solid Seven beemates to make me small, improv minimalist blocks with the prompts urban and architecture. I requested that they use any medium to dark blue for the background and kona white for the details, with a tiny bit of yellow if they wished.  If you know me, you know that I love cities! Love to visit them, explore them, even make quilts about them apparently.

Just as my bee blocks began to roll in, I started seeing pictures on the news and online of major cities around the world emerging from the smog. Because of the pandemic, fewer cars were on the road and the air quality was improving. Cities like New York, Los Angeles, Paris, Rome, and many others had clear blue skies above them. An idea began to take shape in my head.

I started making gray on gray blocks that fit my theme, to represent the cities before the quarantine. A couple of friends (Debbie and Chris) chimed in and made me some gray blocks too. As I played with the blocks on my design wall, I began to see the cities emerging from the smog! Thus Urban Emergence was born.

The finished quilt top measured 40"x42". It cried out for matchstick quilting and who was I to argue! I used several shades of gray and blue thread for the quilting (and 10 or 11 bobbins.... I lost count).

Today during a zoom sew day with my McKinney Modern Quilt Guild friends I hand sewed down the faced binding. I'm so pleased with the finished quilt!

Do your quilts often tell a story?

Check out #thesolidseven on Instagram to see more of our shenanigans.

Retreating with the McKinney Modern Quilt Guild

Last weekend, our guild had a day retreat at the Best Little Retreat Center in Texas. Such a wonderful facility... AND you get to go home and sleep in your own bed at night. Can't beat it. 

There were so many wonderful projects in the works....

I finished up a couple of children's quilt tops to send to my mom. Her church group is working on quilts for each of their Angel Tree children at Christmas...

And I finished up this quilt top, with improv Xs made with the strip sets from the Sherri Lynn Wood workshop I attended last fall. I think I'll add some borders to make it big enough to snuggle on the couch.

A fun and productive weekend for sure!

quilt con fun part 2

One of the best things about Quilt Con was meeting people. It didn't take long to start making new friends. I was barely inside the convention center the first morning, before the doors to the exhibit hall even opened, when I heard an excited voice calling out "Ellyn! Ellyn!" I turned and there was my instagram buddy Sandie, from sandieloves2quilt. Luckily, we saw each other many times over the four days of the conference & got to visit quite a bit.

I also got to meet Jane from janequiltsslowly. Jane made the mini I received in last years swap, which I absolutely love! It was fun to get to know her this weekend too.

pardon the sun streaks in my oh-so-professional photo

Debbie, from A Quilter's Table, and I had been planning a meet up for a while. We ended up running into each other a couple of times before our scheduled breakfast out...

At our breakfast on the last morning (more about good food in another post, stay tuned!) we exchanged birthday treats we had made for each other. I was delighted when Debbie gave me this beautiful patchwork gift bag with a gorgeous scissors keeper inside...

I feel like I've known her forever! It was great to just sit and share while we ate good food.

Of course there were some old friends to run into as well. Like Lee Monroe, from May Chappell.

There were a few fan girl moments, like meeting Heather Givans from Crimson Tate. She's a riot! and her booth was so much fun.

I took two workshops. Both teachers were talented ladies I had wanted to meet. First I took at design workshop from Amy Ellis of Amy's Creative Side.

We did lots of quilt math in Amy's workshop (I'm such a nerd. I love that stuff!) and I came away with a fun original quilt design, much different from what I started with.

My other workshop was with Nichole Vogelsinger from Wild Boho.

This workshop was called "Layered Abstractions" And involved fabric and embroidery embellishments. Can't beat that! Again, I went in with one idea and came away with something totally different.

I'm working away on this project and will share more soon.

I love meeting new people! I wish I could meet ALL of you!