QuiP #8 - Splinter

Remember this quilt?

Porcupine Playground Front + Back

The back of my 'Porcupine Playground' quilt just never ceased to amaze me. I knew that someday I would have to revisit this design and make an actual front out of the back I initially designed. So the upcoming QuiltCon submission was a good opportunity to do so.

My plan was to achieve high visual impact with contrasting colours. So I opted for black and white solids, mixed with the ever so amazing cross hatched fabrics by Carolyn Friedlander and the same orange solid I used in 'Porcupine Playground'.

For the back of 'Porcupine Playground' I used left over half-triangles for the off-centered vertical strip. I now improvised the piecing for that dividing strip. I used this tutorial by Debbie of 'A Quilter's Table' to make 'improv spikes'. First back ones.

Then white ones.  My aim was to use a lot of negative space beside that vertical strip of spikes and have indistinct edges, so basically you don't see where the black fabric ends and where the white fabric starts.

I repeated the idea of having little orange areas in the quilt as focal points to add a little interest.

Whereas the back of my 'Porcupine Playground' quilt was to use up scraps and left over fabrics there was a lot of editing and careful arrangement of colour and fabric placement this time round.

I quilted straight lines with white Aurifil 40wt thread first and wanted to quilt with black thread as well, but that didn't go according to plan. I don't know of you have ever tried to sew with black thread on white fabric, but it just doesn't look good.

I spent an entire weekend trying to figure this out. I thought it's my thread tension (which was a bit off) but it seems as though a lot of people had similar difficulties. Apparently the loop from the bobbin thread is so visible on the white fabric that it just looks odd.

So I used dark grey thread instead, and I was so happy that I did. Black thread on black fabric is invisible. Not so the dark grey, it created a such nice texture. Exactly what I wanted.

I used a lot of orange solids for the back. The different coloured thread looks so good on it!
And I applied the binding again by hand. Three evenings. That seems to be the standard time frame for my size of quilts. This one is rather big though with 60 x 84" (1.52 x 2.33m).

I just finished it in time for the QuiltCon submissions. Fingers crossed that it gets accepted!
Stay tuned for the full reveal of  'Splinter'.

Bee blocks for Yara and Vicky

I have both bee blocks to show today I made for Yara in Sept/ Oct and for Vicky in Nov/Dec 2016.

It was Yara's turn for Sept/ Oct and she went with a scrappy wonky triangle block design.
The colour scheme was red/ orange/ yellow/ and purple, happy colours for one happy quilt. 
You can see all her bee blocks here.

These are all my colourful blocks. They have different heights but needed to be 4.5'' at the base. I really enjoyed a bit of Improv piecing!

And here are Vicky's blocks:

Vicky designed her own fish block, how cool are they? The requirements were azure blue background fabrics, bright yellow fish with black accents in the body of the fish.

This Allison Glass fabric was perfect for the background and the yellow Kona Citrus couldn't be any brighter. I improv pieced the black accents into this fish's body.

Since I don't have that may azure blue fabrics I went with a solid colour which matched the required blue tone. Yellow purl bracelet fabric and black cross hatch fabric complete this fish.

I had so much fun with these blocks and I'm looking forward to the see the finished project!

These were the last bee blocks for 2016. We have scheduled 2017 already and it's my turn in January/ February!