A touch of denim - a finished quilt-

My super soft double gauze quilt is finally finished and I am so pleased with the result. With all of it really and in particular my decision to add the border via QAYG.

So let's have a look at some images, shall we ?



The quilt is big at about 76" (194 cm) square which is exactlty what I wanted and fits very nicely onto a large double bed. It certainly is not a sofa quilt. I love the way the HSTs play with the different shades of denim blue, light and dark greys and the couple of black triangles give the whole ensemble a little more interest and focus.


 


I quilted densely in a 1 inch diagonal grid which supports the diagonals from the HSTs. Because the double gauze is much thicker than normal quilting cotton, the intersections have quite a lot of bulk although I ironed the seams open. Therefore quilting was a little more laborious than I would have liked it to be.



I quilted with a variegated Guetermann thread on the top and with my favorite ice grey Aurifill on the back of the quilt.





Both threads blend in well and the variegated thread adds to the denim and grey shades of the quilt top.



I used a text print from Carrie Bloomstone 'Paint' collection for the back; it is such versatile print and works well with many quilts. But sadly I am out, having used it on a few others already.

 

And finally the binding. For this quilt I wanted the binding to blend in rather than contrast. So I used some more of the Essex yarn dyed linen/cotton. It's a fairly thick fabric which makes binding a little more tricky but it worked well; just a bit more attention while sewing was required.



And that's it. One more quilt done. Sadly I am so busy right now with non-quilt related activities that I won't be able to start a new one for several months I fear. Instead I am knitting a lot as it is easier to pick up when I have a few minutes here and there. It's quite possibly therefore that this blog may turn into a knitting blog for a while.

Painted Hexagons - a finished quilt-

A finished quilt ! In the end, the quilting and binding came together very quickly. I spend a few days agonising if I should quilt a crosshatch but in the end decided on simple diagonal lines.

And looking at the quilt in the picture confirms that this was the right decision. The single diagonals work well with the shape of the hexagons.

Although I took great care to reduce bulk when I pieces the hexagons by ironing most seams open, there was still a lot of fabric in the hexagon centres. My machine manages this well but ditch quilting which I briefly contemplated would have provided quite a challenge nonetheless.

I quilted with a 28w Aurifill thread in beige which blends in with the newspaper fabric and with the overall tone of the quilt.

When I started this quilt I (thought) I knew that I wanted to choose as backing the same newspaper print I used as background on the quilt top and also the same as binding. Well, I changed my mind and had to laugh at myself for being surprised about it. I always tell my students when they want to choose backing and binding on the first day of a quilt making class, that they should wait because they'd change their minds about a half dozen times at least. It appears that happens to the teacher too....

The backing fabric I finally settled on is "Spotted Owl" by Alexandre Henry in grey. It works perfectly for this quilt because the grey has a tinge of purple in it that blends with the purple on the front. I have had this print for so long and only used some of it on a smaller quilt ages ago. It's a tricky colour and never seemed to work with anything but finally found its match.

Once I had settled on the back, the choice of binding was an easy one. Of course purple and of course dots (K. Fassett).

The quilt is smaller than I had envisioned it when I started with 57" by 54" inches but I used 90% of the fabric I had and that was my aim. When the top was finished I however added a small border in newspaper print around it to make it a little bigger.

I hope you enjoyed my frequent updates on how this quilt came together and my aim is to keep doing this rather than just showing one or two updates. After all it's all about the process, isn't it ?

 This quilt is for sale in my Etsy shop.

Painted Hexagons - part 4

Finally a finished quilt top !
I say this seldom but am I glad it is finished. This was a surprisingly tedious job and whilst I am very happy with its outcome, I struggled over the last 15 or so Hexagons. It just dragged on too long.

Things looked up when I put it all together with the gorgeous newspaper print as background.

And I love how each hexagon is framed by the solid fabric which I think brings it all together. I had enough fabric fro 39 hexagons. Actually I would have had enough for a few more but not enough for another row of hexagons, so I left some of the purple fabric out as I thought I already have enough of it in here and I am not that fond of purple. 

It was a bit of an odd experience to just use the prints in this collection because I have not done this in a long time. It was sort of restrictive and possibly added to my being a little bored with the hexagon making in the end.

But I do love the way it looks and how each some of the prints change their characteristic through the hexagon shape.

And although paper piecing took a long time I am convinced it was the right decision because I would have had a lot more issues with biased cuts otherwise.

I kept the paper on as long as I could and removed first just the bits that covered the solid fabric when piecing the hexagons to the newspaper triangles and then later on once I created the diagonal rows, the rest. In this way the whole thing kept its shape rather well.

Now onto basting and quilting. But how to quilt....

Painted Hexagons - part 3 -

A little peak today. I now have over 20 hexagons and probably need about 40. I will sew until ALL the fabric is gone, determined to use every scrap of it. I cut the strips so that I have minimum waste and maximum usage.

This coming weekend I hope to produce a couple of sets more. I always sew or six hexagons together so that I have a bit of a production line going but this still takes a couple of hours (would you believe it) and I am not slow on the machine. Still I enjoy it and sew whenever I can set aside 3 hours, so this will take a while until it is completed.

Painted Hexagons - part 2-

So what did I do with those 2 inch strips ? No I did not do a strip quilt although that is on my to-do list of things. I have a couple of K. Fassett books and when looking through them for inspiration for the Bloomsten fabric, a hexagon quilt caught my eye. It is called 'Drifwood My Fair Lady' and is from Brendon Mably and you can find it in the book ' Kaffe quilts again'.

And I thought this would be perfect as I could use the large amount of newspaper print I bought as background. I changed the pattern somewhat in that I made myself a foundation paper template for the hexagons. The pattern in the book advises to piece strips together and then to cut out the 6 triangles for the quilt using a template but I find this not accurate enough. The triangles are basically cut all on the bias and loose form the minute they are cut. Sewing them on paper ensures they keep there form until the hexagons are done. Whenever I paper piece I keep the paper attached as long as I can handle it.

So the long, very long  process of paper piecing has started. Although it can be a bit tedious, I do like it as it is methodological and it is fun to see the hexagons coming together.

Painted Hexagons - the start of a new quilt -

Back in February I bought a full fat quarter set of of the "Paint"  collection by Carrie Bloomstone. 

I knew I wanted to do something special with it and I also knew I wanted to use the entire collection in a quilt. I suppose this is called the easy option as it requires little effort in coordination but sometimes this works best and was just wanted I needed to get me going again after a summer of little quilting.

 So I cut it all up in 2 inch strips......

 Any idea what this is going to be ?

A finished Single Girl quilt

Things have settled back to normal here at needlesandlemons headquarters after Quilt Con and in fact I should be popping in here a bit more regular for a while with posts about quilts in progress and not just finished quilts.

I have currently no deadlines for any of the magazines I worked with last year and am free to show what I want. I really love working with LP&Q but there is a small downside to it in that I can't show much of the work I do for them until the issue is out and then it is only the finished quilt. I hope I will work for them again in the future but right now I am a free agent !

Alas this post is also only a finished product; one that was a commission for a client and which I could have shown but didn't have time....

Anyhow, here is a picture post of the Single Girl quilt I started here. My client commissioned me to make a quilt with the 'Single Girl' quilt pattern as a single bed quilt for her lovely daughter. A size I have worked with only once before for another client. It's an interesting size as it is long and narrow and this pattern lends itself wonderfully to it.

The quilt is 2.20 m x 1.20 m which is a great size for a single bed. The fabric used are all Kona colours and the background colour is Kona Slate which is a bluish grey that is fresh and sets of the bright colours of the rings.

I quilted in my favourite quilting pattern, the continuous circle of course and added on two corners a partial circle for a bit of interest.

The backing fabric is the 'Palette in spakle' print from Carrie Bloomsten's paint collection which I think is a great print for a young girl.

I make no secret that this quilt pattern by Denyse Schmidt is probably my favourite of all times as it is utterly modern and contemporary and I again loved making this quilt and collaborating with my client on fabric and colour choices. It was fun and she and I are both happy with the result. Isn't that what's all about ?

Stash Note 95

New to my stash is the 'Paint' Collection by Carrie Bloomstone for Windham. This is her second collection after the very succesful "Collage" the year before. I sort of missed that one or let's say it took me a while to like it and when I finally did it was mostly gone. C'est la vie.

So with this collection I went all out and bought a fat quarter set of all prints. They are wonderfully different and the colours are to die for.

The collection has many prints and quite a selection of marbled solids. I have tried to bring the vibrancy of the colours out in the photographs but they really don't to the turquoise, yellow and orange justice.

The pattern is very similar to the 'Collage' collection and to be honest which is great given that I missed it the first time around. 

Look at the wonderful flowers in these prints.

And the newspaper strips above.