DISAPPEARING PATCHWORK

 Recently I taught a great class locally: DISAPPEARING PATCHWORK at Patches & Stitches:

I made it to challenge myself to make a neutral quilt, well outside my usual comfort zone of brights or deeply saturated colors. 

Class went very well and it is an excellent 6 hour class I am pleased to offer to guilds and shops.

Take a look at the students progress. I was very pleased to see a few students chose to not use neutrals. I was sure this was a good design for any kind of fabric choices; it does help to see it in other fabrics.

Evelyn got away before the group photo but I caught her before she left. She says this was a great "stash buster" as she needs to make a quilt for a tall man and it has to be done soon: 

Melody chose a darker neutral palette and her blocks are coming along. She has a charm pack that was a great addition to the yardage she had: 

Anna a used Tim Holtz map and text fabrics for a very LOW VOLUME quilt. She wants to find a few more of his fabrics to round out her blocks. I love how soft and soothing this is:

These blocks were made by Joan and Evelyn, strangers when class began but kindred spirits. They used several of the same fabrics and their blocks are perfect together:

Playing around I put Anna's lovely soft blocks in the middle and surrounded them with Melody and Patricia's blocks:

Glinda is making a Mardi Gras quilt with several fabrics given to her by a Louisiana friend. Nothing neutral or low volume about this, it's beautiful:

Fortunately, I got a group shot minus Evelyn. Joan on the left had a wonderful day--this was her first class ever, though not her first quilt:

I do love to teach. And it was good to know this makes a fun and educational 6 hour class. Several of the students even learned they put their rotary cutters back incorrectly, which explained why they found accurate cutting a challenge. In almost every class, I reassemble a cutter or two.

Let's quilt.

Barbara

Disappearing Patchwork -- the Quilting

 For the past few months I have been working on a Neutral quilt, made from neutral fabrics: white, tan, gray, in various shades of each. That is descriptive but it's not a great name. So, the official title is Disappearing Patchwork.

About 62" square

Here are details of the machine quilting I did with the Bernina Q20 sit down long arm:

Each of the thirty-two 4.5" squares has a different quilting design--some I got from books, some I came up with. Most were done with a ruler: 

A star: 

Just follow the squiggles in the fabric: 

Square on point with horizontal and vertical lines and a square on point with pumpkin seeds: 

Each of the 2" x 4.5" rectangles have the same half circle curve, done with a circle ruler: 

The pinwheels in the four corners have simple quilting, a square on point with pumpkin seeds:

All the remaining pinwheels have more curved quilting, again using a ruler: 

While it is hard to see, the small 2" squares were used to "travel" from block to block, with a simple loop-di-loop squiggle that got me from one place to another: 

Superior Thread: Omni 40 wt #3008 Sesame Seeds and Bottom Line 60 wt  #653 Beach:

On the brown narrow outer border, I used Quilter's Select 60 wt # 739--it matched perfectly for a very simple loop that took me quickly all around the outside edge:

The back in the sunlight--I love the texture of quilting: 

Disappearing Patchwork is named this because this is a simple 16 block quilt, made from pinwheels and 5" squares, cut up using the "disappearing nine-patch" method. 

There has been some interest in using this for a free Sew-A-Long here in the future. If you are interested, let me know in the comments below, and when we reach 2500 followers, I will do that. We are about 2300 now so follow by email or with Google if you  have a Gmail account--it's easy and you don't miss any of the posts, usually twice a week, Wednesday and Sunday.

Let's quilt.

Barbara

More Neutrals

 I am still playing with a Neutrals quilt, using Disappearing Patchwork blocks. Previous posts about this project can be found here:

Disappearing Patchwork --there are several layouts in this post and I asked for opinions

A Neutral Quilt

Two more Disappearing Patchwork blocks have been made--lighter overall this time. The first blocks I made have a few darker fabrics--they have been moved to the four corners. This layout will be 16 blocks, each is 13" square:

Two other Disappearing blocks were made a month ago. I thought I could use them as alternate blocks. BUT they are not the same size. The pinwheel blocks are 13" finished, these are 12.5":

It would take some playing with numbers to see if I can make this one 13" finished without having to use wacky measurements. When I get more of the pinwheel blocks done, I will play with that task.

The other day, someone made the comment that she probably couldn't make a whole quilt from neutrals--as she would be screaming for COLOR. 

I get that. Here is the other ongoing project I am deep into--plenty of color:

This is a small wallhanging from Garden Party Down Under--I still have to complete four corner blocks that are applique and finish sewing the lower left block in place. That has to wait until after July 1 when I do a LIVE video for The Quilt Show featuring that block. It is easier to show just the block under the camera. The Diamond borders are the same style as the original quilt but are smaller. There are also "Floater borders" to add that will make the Diamond borders fit the center perfectly.

I didn't see the need to make a second complete GPDU but I have all the parts I am making this year for the Blog posts, Videos and LIVE videos. Assembling them into smaller wallhangings makes it more likely they will get finished some day.

Here is the other wallhanging, Months 1 and 2:

Back to making Disappearing Pinwheel Patchwork blocks.

Let's quilt.

Barbara

A NEUTRAL QUILT

 Ever since Alex Anderson talked about Neutral quilts, almost two years ago, I have been thinking about making one. I have her book om Neutral Quilts and it helped me look at fabrics in a new way.

My plan was to use a variety of "Disappearing" Blocks---nine patches and four patches--to create a type of sampler quilt with all neutral fabrics. 

The problem? Getting the overall block sizes the same. The more you cut up larger squares to create the pieced blocks, the more seam allowances so the math is different for each block.

Here are the first two blocks BUT they are not the same size:

When working with neutrals, you still need CONTRAST. Remember, color gets all the credit, but contrast does all the work. Just a few of my working pile of neutrals:

Since most quilters are drawn first to color, with a neutral quilt the design is all important. You have to LOVE the design. 

Here are a couple of the ideas I was working on:

 Since neither thrills me, I'll go back to the drawing board and start over.

Stay tuned...

Let's quilt.

Barbara

Something Old, Something New

 Recently, I taught Smitten to several students at a local shop. I love teaching this quilt and loved making my own. The class sample:

A student who was in a class several years ago, made this beauty--shown here in my guild quilt show, a few weeks ago. Leigh did a wonderful job with her palette of soft fabrics:

Leigh's stunning Smitten

The Smitten printed pattern is no longer available anywhere that I could find. BUT the designer now has a downloadable PDF for sale and it is much better than the old printed pattern. Find it here: SunspellShop

Here is a bit of the students' work from the recent class:

Amanda and her blocks

Mazie's blocks

Terri's block

Laura's blocks

Linda's blocks

Holly’ blocks

Mary-Louise sent me this photo a few days after class. She said "I was determined Y-seams would not be the boss of me! Now I can do them." As I tell students--it's not HARD, it's just not FAST:

Next up for me is a Neutral Quilt--a new class sample that will feature a variety of Disappearing Nine and Four Patch blocks. The quilt can be made in any range of colors you prefer. I've been wanting to make a neutral quilt for a while so now is the time:

And these two AdventureLand quilts are almost finished. I saw the pattern on Instagram and bought the PDF pattern, find it here: Suzy Quilts. The pattern includes Twin and Double/Queen sizes also:

baby sizes, 40" square, Adventures by the Sea

Throw size 60' square--Adventure in Kaffe Land 

What are you working on? Do you prefer to finish a project before starting a new one? Not me, I have many in various stages of completion.

Let's quilt.

Barbara