Designing "Blessed Tiles"

Once the third challenge for this season of Project Quilting was announced, it didn't take me long to decide I was going to make a whole cloth quilt inspired by the ceiling tiles in my old church.  But bringing that vision to life was another story.

First I had to create the design for one tile.  I wasn't able to find any photos that showed the tiles in any detail, but cropping and zooming in as far as I could before it got too blurry on one of the pictures I did have showed me enough to get started. 

I began with a design grid.

 And used that to start sketching out various options for my tile design.   The grid lines helped me to keep the design elements consistent and evenly spaced.

I actually went through three different versions before I finally decided on a sort of hybrid between two of them.

Even though I used the design grid to draw my tile, I knew it wasn't perfectly symetrical and if I just made multiple copies as it was, not all of the elements would line up when placed next to each other.

So I had to redraw it one more time.  I used a technique I had seen demonstrated awhile back on an episode of The Quilt Show.  While I remembered how to do the technique, I can't remember who the guest was who demonstrated it.  Sorry.

As you can see, the design grid I used is made up of 8 identically shaped wedges.  So to create a symetrical tile, I really only needed to draw one wedge of the design and then trace that multiple times.

Using a piece of tracing paper, I drew a square the size of my tile.  Then I folded the square diagonally, taking care to make sure my lines matched up corner to corner.  Fold that in half two more times.  

When I unfold the paper, it looks like this.  Notice the fold lines are the same as the wedge lines on the design grid.

So now I can trace the wedge I drew onto a wedge of the tracing paper.  

Once that first wedge is traced, I fold the paper in half on the diagonal and trace the design onto the next wedge.  And now one corner is complete.  

I continued folding and tracing until all the wedges we filled and I had one full tile drawn.

The rest was pretty easy.  I made 4 copies of the completed tile on my home printer, cut them out and taped them together.  

I taped this to the table and placed my fabric on top and then taped the fabric to the table too.  Now I could trace the design onto my fabric without worrying about it slipping and having to line everything up again.  

Once the fabric was marked, I layered it with my backing and batting and then used water soluble thread to baste around the tiles to be sure they stayed square once I started stitching.  I then stitched over all the drawn lines.

Then it was just a matter of stitching all the extra details. 

Blessed Tiles
For Project Quilting Tune in to Texture challenge - January/February 2017

inspired by the ceiling tiles at Immaculate Conception Church in Fairbanks, Alaska

Size: 18" x 18" 

I create in Casa Grande, AZ

Find my full blog post for the Tune in to Texture challenge is here.

Check out all of the wonderful and creative challenge entries at Project Quilting

Tune in to Texture - Project Quilting challenge 8.3

For the third challenge in the Project Quilting challenge series, we were asked to be inspired by texture.

When I think of quilts and texture, for me that means the quilting.  And where is the quilting more highlighted than in a whole cloth quilt?  The designs on many whole cloth quilts remind me of mosaics and tiles.  From there my mind went immediately to the beautiful pressed ceiling tiles in the church my husband and I belonged to when we lived in Fairbanks, Alaska.

I think all of this went though my head in less than a minute after I read the challenge post.  Inspiration rarely comes to me that swiftly, easily or completely so I was super excited to get started.


I thought I had some pictures from my wedding that were taken from the choir loft of the church and would show the ceiling tiles.  But I was not able to find them.  I still have friends who live there so I sent messages out asking if they might be able to pop in to the church to get some pictures for me.  My dear friend Lori W. took up the call and made a special effort to go that very day.  Unfortunately, by the time she was able to get there, the church was closed and locked up for the day.

Luckily Immaculate Conception Church is a historic building and frequently visited by tourists, so I was able to find some images online.  None of them showed the detail of the ceiling as much as I would have liked but I was able to use a couple of them along with my memory to make out the basic shapes/design of the tiles.

I have written a separate blog post detailing my process for creating the tile.  You can read about it here.

But basically I started with a design grid to sketch out the main elements.  Once I decided on the design I made a symetic tile by starting with one wedge of the design and then tracing it multiple times.  ,Then I made four copies of that on my home printer, cut the tiles out and taped them together.  I used that to trace the design onto my fabric.

After stitching all the drawn lines, I went back to the paper copies and sketched ideas for adding detail to the tiles before I stitched them out.

Referencing the church photos, I added an arched border to the tiles and then crosshatching beyond that to finish it off.

Because it was inspired by the church where my husband and I were married, this quilt has a lot of personal meaning to me and I am thrilled with the way it turned out.

Blessed Tiles

For Project Quilting Tune in to Texture challenge - January/February 2017

inspired by the ceiling tiles at Immaculate Conception Church in Fairbanks, Alaska

Size: 18" x 18" 

I create in Casa Grande, AZ

Check out all of the wonderful and creative challenge entries at Project Quilting

Seeing Stars - the scrap saga continues

This is another quilt top from my scrappy summer.  But this one is still a work in progress.

When my friend Maggie showed me this pattern, Starstruck by Amy Barickman I knew right away I'd be making it as part of my scrap reduction quest.  After reading the directions I decided I'd constuct my version just a little differently in order to accomodate using random scraps rather than yardage.

The pattern is made from all 4.5" squares and 4.5" half square triangle units.  So I pulled all the fabric pieces I had that were at least 4.5" wide and cut everything into 4.5" by however long I could get strips.  Using my half square triangle tool I cut both triangles and squares from each strip.  I let the length of the strip determine how many of each I could get out of any one strip.  I didn't really have a plan.  I just knew how many of each I needed and kept track of my totals as I went along.

Then I cut some 4.5" strips from my background fabric and again used the HST tool to make background triangles for all of the HST units.  I did not yet cut any squares from the background fabric, just the triangles.  After sewing and trimming all the HST units I brought those and my 4.5" squares of print fabric to my design wall and started playing with color positions within the star layout.

I was very surpised and pleased to find I had exactly the right number of HSTs and squares to create the two inner stars out of the orange, red and yellow fabrics, with the blues, greens and purples creating the outer rings.  After getting the center star and concentric rings in position on the design wall, I was able to determine the size of background strips I needed to fill in the space between.  For instance, instead of cutting three 4.5" squares and then sewing them together for a section of background, I simply cut a piece that was 4.5" x 12.5"

The only drawback to using larger pieces of background rather than all individual squares is that the quilt top could not be constructed with the simple rows and columns grid we quilters are most used to.  I had to sew it in sections to make larger panels that could then act as very large blocks to form a grid for final construction.

After I got the quilt top sewn together I just loved it!  My plan was to donate all of these scrap quilts to a couple of different charities, but I think I may have to keep this one.  So I will probably be more ambitious with the quilting.

Not sure when I'll get around to that though, so there's still time for me to think about it.

Carolina Lily - Project Quilting Challenge 8.2

1/15/17

The second challenge for season 8 of Project Quilting was announced today at 11:00 AM Arizona time and I was online to find out what it was by 11:01.  I had most of today free, but the rest of my week is incredibly busy so I knew if I was going to have any hope of completing an entry, I would have to get the majority of the work done today.  I was really hoping that inspiration would hit me immediately because I would need to get started right away.

So I was doing a happy dance when I saw the theme/inspiration for this challenge was the Carolina Lily.  Any other week, I might have tried to come up with something original featuring the gorgeous orange color of the flower.  But knowing I was under a serious time crunch, I had no time to think or plan.  Luckily for me, there is a traditional quilt block called the Carolina Lily and a version of that block is in the quilt (designed by Jinny Beyer for the Craftsy 2015 BOM) I just finished last month.  It has been my plan all along to make a couple of throw pillows to go with that quilt so this was the perfect opportunity.  I would make a pillow using the Carolina Lily block from the quilt!

I dug out the pattern, templates and fabric I used in the original quilt and found what I needed for this one block.  I was making my first cuts of fabric by noon!

By about 5:00 the main part of the block was done and I added framing strips and setting triangles to put the design on point and make it big enough to be able to make an eighteen inch pillow.

At about 6:00 my quilt top was done and my wonderful husband announced dinner was ready.  I was SO ready for a break.  His timing was perfect.

After a quick but delicious meal (thank you Tom 💖) I was back in the sewing room to work on the quilting.  No time to think about how to quilt it, so I used the same designs I used on the bed quilt.  Which is fine since they are meant to go together.

By 9:00 the quilting was done and I was completely done in for the day!  The quilting shows up way better on the back side.

I will be away from home for the majority of the day tomorrow and by Tuesday afternoon, my sewing room needs to make the transition to guest room in preparation for a visit from my sis-in-law, Lise who arrives Tuesday evening - flying in from North Carolina.  How's that for a coincidental tie in to our challenge?

Hopefully I will be able to find enough free time before then to turn the quilt top into a pillow.  Because Wednesday morning Lise and I are heading out to the Road to California quilt show in Ontario California and we won't be back until Saturday evening.  So I really need to have it all done before we leave.

Stay tuned to see if I make it.

1/16/17

As I expected, today was a crazy day with no down time at all until well into the evening.  Luckily I didn't really have that much work left to do.  Just put on the overlapping panels to turn the quilt into a pillow sham and then add the binding.  I probably could have saved myself quite a bit of time by sewing the binding completely by machine, but I've never been truly satisfied with the results when I do it that way so I stayed up watching late night TV and hand sewing the binding to finish it off.

Now it's done and just needs a name.  My husband named the bed quilt Electric Garden because of the way the flower fabrics glow against the black background.  So I think I'll call this

Electric Lily.

For Project Quilting Carolina Lily challenge - January 2017

Size: 18" x 18" 

I create in Casa Grande, AZ

Check out all of the wonderful and creative challenge entries at Project Quilting

My Year in Quilts - 2016

I finished up a couple of quilting projects in late December and it got me wondering about just how many quilts I had actually completed in 2016.  I try to take pictures of all my completed projects before they go to wherever they are destined for, and here, in no particular order, are all the ones for 2016.

Three queen sized bed quilts, one table runner, five wall hangings and five couch/throw quilts. It's been a busy year.

 

Eight is Great - Project Quilting Challenge 8.1

The first challenge of the 8th season of Project Quilting was revealed on the first of the year as 8 is Great. 

Just before this announcement I had
been working on a quilt where I stitched a design into a circle that reminded me of a figure 8.  It also made me think of a flower.

So with that fresh in my mind, I decided I would make a small whole cloth quilt with eight of these figure 8 flowers on it.  Or maybe four of those and four flowers with 8 petals on them.  Good.  I had a plan in mind.  I would begin in the morning.

But when I woke up, while I was still drinking my first cup of coffee, I started thinking that maybe instead of just a plain whole cloth quilt, I would add a little bit of applique for the flowers.  Something cute and whimsical.

By the time I stepped into my sewing room, I had decided that if I was going to add applique, I needed something more than a plain piece of fabric for a background.

A few months ago, Grace Errea was the speaker at a meeting of the Tucson Quilter's Guild and she showed several quilts with beautiful, randomly pieced backgrounds so maybe this was my chance to try to do the same.  And I could use 8 different fabrics to create that background.

I used a stack and shuffle technique to come up with this.  I am really happy with it.  But it definitely doesn't say cute and whimsical to me.  I needed a new plan for what to add to this background.

I decided on an 8 petal flower.  After a bit of investigating online, I discovered that several varieties of Dahlias have only a single row of 8 petals on them. Bingo!  I based my flower applique pattern on those.

I have long been a fan of  Melinda Bula's work.  So once I got the flower petal pieces cut out and fused onto the background I knew I had the perfect opportunity to try some Melinda Bula inspired thread sketching.

I used several different thread colors to add highlights, shading and texture.  SO FUN! I thought about using 8 threads in the flower to keep with the 8 is Great theme.  But I lost track at about four, so I don't know how many threads I ended up with.

 And it all really came together when I added the center applique and yellow/orange thread.

After I was done with the thread sketching, I loved the flower, but thought the background area was too large in proportion to the flower.  But I didn't want to trim any of it away either.  So I decided to add a frame around the flower.  If I had thought of this in the beginning I would have pieced it in.  But at this point, that would have meant ripping out seams I had already sewn and I'm never in favor of that if I can help it.

Since I was in applique mode, I would applique the framing strips too.  I decided to quilt the background first and then add the framing strips which worked out great.  Once the framing strips were stitched down, the quilt was ready for trimming and binding.  Not bad for two days work!

What a terrific start to this challenge series.  I got to use two new techniques I've been wanting to try out and I ended up with a piece I'm very proud of!

Now to figure out where to hang this little beauty....

Dahlia

for Project Quilting 8 is Great challenge - January 2017
8 fabrics in the background, 8 petals on the flower
Size 15" x 15"
I create in Casa Grande, Arizona

Check out the other challenge entries at Project Quilting

New Challenge Series

Ever since taking part in the Focus Through the Prism challenge in 2015, I've really embraced the idea of quilting challenges.  They help get me motivated to create something of my own instead of always following patterns and the deadlines keep me from procrastinating too long.

For several years now, the organizer of the Focus Through the Prism challenge, Kim Lapachek of Persimon Dreams, has been hosting a yearly challenge series called Project Quilting.  Think Project Runway for quilters.  Last year I really wanted to join in the fun but just didn't have time.  This year I'm determined to take part.

A new challenge is posted every other week for 6 weeks and participants have one week to complete their project.  Pretty much anything goes, as long as the completed project meets  at least one of these requirements:

• Include patchwork.
• Include appliqué.
• Have 3 layers stitched together by hand or machine.

Oh, and did I mention there are PRIZES?

The 8th season of Project Quilting got underway yesterday, January 1, with a theme of 8 is Great.

I can't wait to get started.