Friday 24 October 2014

Bloggers Quilt Festival - Fall 2014

First a huge thank you to Amy for - again - making the festival a reality. 

This is my quilt for the fantastic Bloggers Quilt Festival Fall 2014 in the modern category. 
My second entry is in the large quilt section.

This quilt is a bright and happy modern quilt made up of four different types of blocks. Overall it has a very crisp and modern feeling to it - improv piecing, paper pieced stars and geese with straight line quilting in the negative spaces. 5 of the 6 stars came from the 3x6 Quilt Bee back in 2012-13.


Some facts: 
Size: 75x75 inches
Fabric: lots of different lines Kate Spain's 'Seranade', Riley Blakes 'For the boys', Noteworthy by Sweetwater, 'Salt Air' by Cosmo Cricket, 'Smallville' by Lucy Sommers, 'Marrakesh' by Hoffman, Robert Kaufmann's 'Architecture', and many more.
Techniques: Improv piecing, QAYG, paper piecing
Paper pieced stars: by (1) Deb's Doodlings, (2) Jyllybean (3) Suerand49, (4) Ange, Heart of Charnwoods, (6) Alixkottke
Binding: Andover by Modern Quilt Studio
Pattern: made as I went along but with some fab paper pieced stars as center.



I started this quilt about a month ago and finished it only last week. There was no big start-to finish plan. It just grew bit by bit. One night I couldn't sleep and I was thinking colors at patterns. I eventually gave up on sleeping and went downstairs to start some improvised books. I was pulling fabric of the shelf like a madman and cutting random strips between 2 and 4 inches, sewing them into the improvised blocks.



Next day, looking at the improv blocks, I thought of some old orphan 3x6 bee blocks from 2012-13. I dug deep in my cupboard and pulled them out. They  were so amazingly perfect I keep thinking that maybe there was purpose for all the late night mess anyway. I decided to let them be the centre of the quilt. 




I then decided on some geese strips and once I was finished with them I thought the quilt had only one problem. It was too small. 



I showed it to my friend Linda, who cleverly suggested using a bit more white and square shapes so after a few tries I ended up with the square blocks.



The blocks was QAYG allowing for some different lines in the white spaces. I used some the softest, thick, luxurious fleece background, so it is very thick, warm and soft - almost duvet feeling. 






This quilt will definately be a family crowd pleaser. Several family members has already suggested it would fit them. However, soon my nephew Anders is moving into a new apartment. I have a strong feeling he will find this quilt under the Christmas tree :) A quilt is still the best way to send a kind thought and give a big warm hug from a distance.



As much as I do like this quilt, it's gotta be enough information for y'all. Can't have you go into information overload mode as there are still lots of great must-see quilts in the festival  :) 

Thanks for stopping by. 

I don't know about you, but I'm off to enjoy, look and find lots of inspiration at the Quilt Festival.

Blogger's Quilt Festival - AmysCreativeSide.com



8 comments:

  1. It's a lovely finish. I would be dancing around the christmas tree if I found one like that under it...

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  2. Beautiful. I love it when a quilt evolves.

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  3. I am so excited to see this one finished! I loved how you worked through piecing the top and it finished beautifully. Good luck picking a category for the festival! :)

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  4. I like your improv piecing, and how you got everything to work together so well in the end. And you did this quilt fast too!

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  5. It is very cool - and makes it all worthwhile to have been unable to sleep huh?! Good luck in the festival!

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  6. love this ~ what a fun quilt ...so much fun to make a quilt as you go right? xoxox

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  7. Love the colors--how awesome to use up some orphan blocks and end up with a beautiful quilt!

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  8. The columns really draw your eye in to view those fantastic stars. Even though, when viewed closely, there is a wide variety of fabrics and colors, it's all very cohesive when viewing the entire quilt. The quilting really accentuates the piecing too! This is a lovely piece; family or not, it would fit me just fine!

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