Quilt Too Small?

Red and Blue shown at Durham Orange Quilters meeting, 2022.

It’s been quite a while since I posted here. I’ll try to catch up, as I HAVE been making quilts. But today’s issue is a quilt that is too small.

In 2022, I finished a queen quilt for my own bed. All Kaffe Fassett fabrics with a bamboo batting. But both of us toss and turn all night and the sateen backing lets the quilt slide everywhere. So I’m adding new blocks to three sides.

Fortunately, old and recent Kaffe fabrics coordinate well. The quilt is called “Red and Blue” despite the whole rainbow, black, and white in the fabrics.

New blocks combining old and new fabrics.

New quilt sandwich section ready to quilt.

I’m taking the quilt-as-you-go approach, quilting each new part, then seaming it to the main part. I still had some of the original batting and backing left and have begun quilting the additions.

Not too crazy about taking the 10 yards of binding off, which will now be too short. I found 12 yards of Kaffe binding on ebay and am hoping it will be enough.

2018 – Green Fuse – Finished

Green Fuse – a full-sized bed quilt – was part of the Rochester Modern Quilt Guild’s “Taking Flight” show (September 29, 2018).

I used a bright lime thread for all the quilting.

2018 Green Fuse Floral Quilting Details

2018 Green Fuse Floral Details

I quilted florals on the white area, seedlike ovals on the green, and roots on the gray.

2018 Green Fuse Quilting Detail “Rose”

Also among the roots was part of the Dylan Thomas poem “The force that through the green fuse drives the flower.”

More quilting details in next post.

 

2018 -Green Fuse

Wow, it’s been over a year since I posted on the blog!

Since the 2017 Genesee Valley Quilt Fest, I’ve been extremely busy with two projects: downsizing from a 4-bedroom house to a 2-bedroom condo, and chairing the first quilt show of the Rochester Modern Quilt Guild.

The show will be 10-5 on Saturday, September 29 at First Unitarian Church of Rochester, 220 Winton Road, Rochester, NY 14610. Hope to see you there!

And I’ve managed in the meantime to make a few quilts. I hope to cover them in upcoming posts, but here’s a preview of the free-motion floral quilting on a new queen quilt I’m calling “Green Fuse.” It’s inspired by Dylan Thomas’s “The force that through the green fuse drives the flower.”

 

This quilt should be finished in time to be part of the “Taking Flight” show. More to come!

2016 – Fly Away Home

Finished at last. The “geese” are dimensional, made using the one-seam method popularized by Ricky Tims.

Fly Away Home

It’s baby quilt sized.
On to the next project!

2016 – Rainbow Hearts

The Rochester Modern Quilt Guild is helping the Orlando MQG collect heart quilts in rainbow colors for anyone effected by the June 12 shooting at Pulse. Here are the blocks I’m contributing.

Rainbow Hearts for Orlando Modern Quilt Guild

May we all live in harmony.

Update 2-2016 Fly Away Home

Progress on the Fly Away Home quilt continues slowly. It’s like assembling a jigsaw puzzle while painting the picture at the same time. Here’s one quadrant taking shape on the dining table.

Pieces of Fly Away Home

Update – 2016 Fly Away Home

Progress on the Fly Away Home quilt has been slow recently, but I finally pieced some of the flying geese blocks. I’m using the dimensional technique with one seam down the center, with the “goose” folded out.

Flying Geese Blocks for Fly Away Home Quilt

2016 Fly Away Home

More on the new quilt, right now being called Fly Away Home.

Colors and fabric ideas for Fly Away

Here are some fabrics being auditioned for this quilt. I’m thinking the geese will fade from bright orange at the center through coral to very pale. The white/neutral background will hopefully deepen into aqua, then turquoise, toward the quilt’s edge. We’ll see how fabric selection proceeds. I tried a progression like this before (see Dwindle at https://lotuscove.wordpress.com/?s=dwindle from 2014) with only limited success.

First 3-D Flying Geese

The exception to the turquoise fade is the central “nest” block, here pinned to my design wall. The 3-d geese are easy to make, but the openings need to be pinned until the blocks are joined. Here’s a link to good instructions for constructing them:

http://www.generations-quilt-patterns.com/3d-flying-geese-quilt-block.html

 

Plans for a New Quilt

I have been working on an idea for a modern quilt using three-dimensional flying geese.  This was my first idea:

Beginning plan for Fly Away Home

Definitely modern with its alternative grid and negative space. The geese finish to 2″ x 4″ and are flying toward the “nest” which is, of course, not in the center of the quilt.

After sketching this, I decided to enlarge the geese to 2-1/2″ x 5″, so the outside dimensions on these sketches no longer apply. I made a few blocks to try on my design wall, but the negative space just seemed too much, so . . .

Second variation for Fly Away Home

The exact placement of the extra geese will probably change, and I think I will also scatter some white-on-white geese around for additional texture. I’m also going to try shading the white to turquoise toward the edges of the quilt.

More to come.

Completed – 2015 Not Much of a Path

Not Much of a Path

This lap quilt is now finished. I used 4″ and 8″ Drunkard’s Path blocks in a sampler layout to show differing ways to use this flexible and easily pieced block. Here are pictures of some details:

“Not Much” detail

The quilting started at the small circle and spiraled out to cover the entire quilt.