Broken X

I am a month late with the February challenge of the Mighty Lucky Quilting Club. But I can blame QuiltCon for that, and that is not a bad thing.

The February Challenge by Emily Herrick was the X- Block. I immediately had a design in my head that I would just not finish all the blocks but have them halved, quartered and three-quartered. Very quickly I had a name as well: Broken X.

I chose Robert Kaufmann Essex Linen and a very bright turquoise solid from Michael Miller Cotton Couture. The colours are just so vibrant and the fabric feels so good, too!

The individual blocks are 4" square (unfinished) and Broken X is 24 x 24" big, or rather small I should say. It's wall hanging in my new sewing corner now and I love how the grey quilt and the grey painted wall harmonise!

I actually combined the February and March Challenge in one quilt. The March challenge was all about quilting with your walking foot by Jacquie Gering.

I opted for an X in the centre of the quilt and then echoed the lines in. The challenge actually was to mimic shashiko stitches but I had difficulties enough with these straight lines.
The pressure foot pressure on my machine cannot be adjusted and that causes me trouble since quite some time. First I thought the puckering and fabric shifting issues I'm having was me and due to improper preparation but believe me it's my machine. Very unfortunate that is, actually.

Anyhow, the quilting did turn out ok, but puckering appeared and the fabric shifted slighly. It could have been a lot better. (Obviously I only took photos of the good looking parts of the quilt... you can see it slightly at the X in the photo below)
I don't think I can do this design with a bigger quilt.

The quilting stitches are 1/2 inch apart and I used beautiful Aurifil wt40 thread in colour #5005. The thread really stands out on the Essex linen and matches the turquoise solid perfectly.

I really enjoyed the challenges and will attempt shahsiko quilting another time.
Can someone just please tell me I NEED that Juki?

Linking this to Finish Up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts
Modern Patch Monday

Transforming Inspiration into Original Designs

I have always taken photos of structures, patterns or anything interesting that catches my eye without knowing what to do with these images, I just found them interesting. Since I'm quilting these photos got a whole new meaning: inspiration for quilt designs!

So far I have not put these images into quilt designs though, there were other ideas that need to be turned into quilts.

Insofar I found the January Mighty Lucky Quilting Club Challenge especially helpful since I was now turning these images into an actual quilt design!

There were several topics we were ask to photographs of first. This is what I've found:
Topic: Graphic Design

I've been to Munich in January to attend a huge building and construction trade fair. I really liked their logo on the facade panels!

This is a painted sign for the delivery entry of a shop on my way to work. Nice flying geese!

Topic: plants, leaves and such

It's a bit challenging to find plants in winter but this ivy is on my way to work, and I've never really noticed it. There is so much interesting detail in these little buds!

Topic: Architectural Detail

As an architect I could fill a whole blog post about that topic but I won't bore you. I picked two images:
Top: This is the 'Excenter House', a landmark in my home town. It's build on an old bunker from WW2, has 3 x 5 stories turned at different angles. The facade is most interesting where tinted windows create a very interesting facade.
Bottom: Stairs at a sub way station between escalators. I liked the ceiling design!
(Don't ask me what that lift is doing there half way down the stairs...)

Topic: Fence 

Well, this is not really a fence, rather a facade but I still liked all the different angles it created. It's a cage for a little skater park on top of a clothing shop. Pretty cool.

Topic: Bridge/ Supports of bridges

There are probably prettier bridges than this one but the photo still created an interesting play with colours and angles.

Topic: Skyline
Bohooo! Couldn't find anything appealing.

But I found other interesting patterns like this old tiled floor. (My shoe is in there for scale.)

You could just 'copy and paste' this into a quilt!

Or these illuminated 'train tracks' at the HQ of our public transport service.

 Topic: shadows from angular structure

This is our back garden, the photo is taken out of our kitchen window.

And that's the image I was stuck with.
I sketched a few designs and and came up with this block:

It was nice to sketch again and get my Copics marker out. They still work!

I played around with layouts and since I don't have any fancy quilt design computer programs hand sketches have to do.

And this is my 'Mini Quilt Design':

I stuck to the colour scheme of the original photo and threw in a little bit of pink and I like it!

I loved this exercise and will definitely consider making this quilt!
And, hmmmmm, a quilt design computer program is now on my wish list.

Thanks, Amy of DuringQuietTimes, for this great challenge!