Quilt Diva Julie had an ideas post recently. I really liked the methodical way she went about deciding what projects from inspiration would turn into actual quilts AND when!
I last wrote about my dream projects in March. Since then, I have, actually and surprisingly, made a little progress on this list. This makes me kind of feel like writing down dream quilts isn’t a terrible idea. Of course, many of the potential projects on the list haven’t changed.
Art Institute of Chicago Fusible Applique’ (Ticker Tape Style) Quilt
- Status: Dream state
- Pattern: Original, I do have a version of the pattern I used for the Whole Cloth quilt and I will use it as starting point.
- Fabric: Turquoise and red, mainly, but other colors for the leaves and flowers, perhaps
- Steps: need to fuse a bunch of turquoise to some piece of fabric in the ‘ticker tape’ style so I can cut it up into small pieces. I am thinking of making it similar to the Whole Cloth Quilt and using red, again, for the background.
- Thoughts: I might make another one with turquoise on top of red with just two pieces of fabric. I’d really like it if someone else would apply fusible to a bunch of turquoise for me.
Art Institute of Chicago Fusible Applique’ (one sheet of fabric) Quilt
- Status: Dream state
- Pattern: Original, I do have a version of the pattern I used for the Whole Cloth quilt and I will use it as starting point.
- Fabric: Turquoise and red, mainly
- Steps: need to fuse a big piece of turquoise to SoftFuse or similar, then cut out the image and fuse it to the background. I would satin stitch all around the image. I don’t know that I can make one continuous piece, but will try. The image would be similar to the Whole Cloth Quilt and using red, again, for the background.
- Thoughts: I might make it with turquoise on top of red with just two pieces of fabric.
- Added: 9/14/2017
- Status: Dream state
- Fabric: Scrappy
- Pattern: Fons & Porter, series 1000, episode 1005
- Thoughts: I like the challenge of piecing this quilt and using a lot of partial seams for the piecing
Blue Rectangles Gradation Quilt
- Status: Hunting and Gathering
- Fabric: blue 2.5×4.5 rectangles
- Pattern: similar to FOTY 2008
- Thoughts: I can’t decide if this is still a dream or if it is already started and I just need to arrange it and start piecing. I have done a lot of cutting, so I think I have started it, thus it may not be a dream anymore. The original idea stemmed from the FOTY quilts. I just decided to do a monochromatic version – using just blues, in this case. I probably have enough patches now and just need to slot the time to work on it into my schedule.
Blue Lemonade
- Status: Hunting and Gathering
- Fabric: blue, purple and green scrappy
- Pattern: inspiration from TFQ’s Pink Lemonade quilt
- Thoughts: I probably had enough squares to make this quilt, but then I used a bunch of them to make En Provence. Now I am working on cutting more. I hope to slot the time into my schedule int he not too distant future.
Easy Street
- Status: have pattern/ dream state
- Fabric: pinks
- Pattern: Easy Street by Bonnie Hunter
- Thoughts: I really liked Daisy‘s version of Easy Street, which she calls Cherry Bomb (she thinks of the best names for her quilts) in terms of color and feel. I don’t want to copy her, but if I do this quilt, I’d like to have the same pinky-red feel to it. One challenge about a mostly monochromatic quilt is getting enough contrast. I look forward to that challenge. Not sure this will become a reality.
En Provence #2
- Status: Dream state
- Pattern: En Provence by Bonnie Hunter
- Thoughts: I loved the one I made before and can’t stop thinking about it. I have to make another one, but I can’t figure out what colors to use next. The ones I used before were almost perfect.
Feathered Star Block (or quilt?)
- Status: Dream state.
- Pattern: I haven’t decided on a particular feathered star
- Thoughts: use the Triangle Technique for the HSTs. I also saw a pattern, Star of Chamblie, at a shop in Reno that I might want to use as a base idea.
Good Night Irene Quilt
- Status: dream state
- Pattern: Good Night Irene from the Missouri Star Quilt Company’s Block magazine, Spring issue v.2, issue 2, pg. 54
- Fabric: I decided not to use a layer cake and will use the scrap 2.5 inch squares I have been cutting. I love the cheerfulness of Scrapitude Carnivale, as I say over and over, and am not done with that fabric combination yet.
- Thoughts: I thought about using dots on a white background as the background, as I did with the Scrapitude Carnivale quilt. It makes the Scrapitude quilt look so cheerful. I probably wouldn’t call it Good Night Irene.
Interlocking Triangles Quilt(s)
- Status: dream state
- Pattern: This is an idea that I designed myself. I made two quilts and have variations on the pattern to make more.
- Fabric: I have a few different collections of fabric I want to use. Most are rainbow colored; I also have a lot of stripes to use
- Thoughts: This is a quilt from which I get a lot of bang for my buck. The visual impact is tremendous. The easiest way to do the spiky triangles is with paper piecing. I am not that big of a fan of paper piecing (read my laments about the Spiderweb‘s paper piecing). I made Spiky Stars using templates and that was meditative and won a prize, so it is doable.
Jack’s Chain Quilt
- Status: dream state
- Pattern: Jack’s Chain, a continuous pattern
- Fabric: bright scrappy, consistent centers
- Thoughts: This is one of the first quilts I saw hanging in a quilt store and thought of making. I have seen a number of variations lately using different hexagons in the center. It occurred to me recently that I could do four rings and make a pillow cover instead of a whole quilt. Partially, I thought of this because I saw an EPP pattern for this quilt. Taking on another large EPP quilt right now is not in the cards. I could also make the pattern larger, making the piecing for a quilt much quicker. I still like the smaller version better.
Music Quilt
- Status: dream state, but not very inspired
- Pattern: Top will have a piece of music the Young Man can actually play. That will probably be applique’
- Fabric/Colors: music prints and tone-on-tones with a little red
- Thoughts: The Young Man has requested this quilt as his high school graduation quilt. I missed that deadline and now I have missed the college graduation deadling. He has sent me a piece of music, which I printed out. Now I need to make into an applique’ or do something else (print on fabric?).
Pineapple (Hunting and Gathering)
- Status: I have some strips cut.
- Fabric: dots. Have most of the strips cut. Will be much more selective about which strips I use.
- Pattern: Pineapple log cabin
- Thoughts: I haven’t given up on a Pineapple quilt despite my frustration with the previous attempt. I bought a different ruler: a Creative Grids Pineapple ruler in hopes that it will work better for me
Silk Colorblock quilt
- Status: I have the fabrics and the plan
- Fabrics: silk dupioni and cotton in brights (of course)
- Pattern: Similar to Colorblocks 2
- Thoughts: I have made a couple of, what I call, Colorblock quilts over the years. One was the Kona Challenge in 2011, another was my 1990 Colorblocks 2 and the first one, Colorblocks, also made in about 1990. I bought the silk fabrics at the Marin Needlearts show about a zillion years ago and they have languished waiting for me to learn to back them so I can use them. I think I have that covered now and there is nothing stopping me except time and will.
Spin Wheel
- Status: Hunting and Gathering
- Pattern: Fons & Porter Spin Wheel, 1200 series, episode 1201
- Fabric: Scrappy with controlled scrappy background
- Thoughts: I like the construction of this quilt and am convinced that I will make it. Another one just waiting for time and will. I have added the correct size piece to my cutting sheet and now have a huge stack of patches waiting for a background color.
Windmill (Hunting and Gathering)
- Status: half cut; need more greys for the background
- Fabric: Scrappy. I will use a grey for the background, because if I use more of the cut fabric patches, the pattern will be lost. The pieces are too oddly shaped and I don’t want to lose the pattern in a mass of scraps.
- Pattern: Come Quilt with Me Rotary templates
- Thoughts: I thought I would buy the Sizzix template and cut grey windmill pieces with that instead of by hand. Friend Julie tested the Sizzix die and found it to be the wrong size, so back to cutting
Out of the Dream State: Below is a list of projects that were on this list at some point that I actually made or am working on:
- Box Full of Letters
- Flying Around – in process!
- Food quilt #2
- Food quilt #3
- Half Moon Modern Quilt I made a Chubby Charmer instead of a quilt and am happy with that choice.
- Medium Mondo Bag – I actually made the Midi bag. I think I might have another pattern to make another one, so I will have to try it out without the class.
- MetroScape quilt is finished, working on the binding
- Stepping Stones #2 –finished.
Reader Colleen was kind enough to leave a comment about her experience with quiltmaking Go bags. She wrote, which reminded of more detail I should have included: “I do have a go bag. It’s one of those big, flat bags they sold about 10 years ago that holds an 18×24 cutting mat and a 6×24 ruler, plus lots of pockets and sections for smaller tools and a project.
I don’t actually like it for carrying projects. I got plastic lidded totes that are about twice the size of a shoebox, that seem to work well.
While I do have some duplicate tools, I have created a list of what I need to take, so I can grab the items quickly when packing up. I just joined my quilting group last year, so I also wrote down everyone’s name and a brief description, so I could refresh my memory before going the first couple times.”
A go bag like the black one I showed doesn’t include everything I need to sew at Sew Day, on retreat or in a class. This bag includes basic supplies. I also have a flat bag like Reader Colleen describes. I probably wouldn’t have made myself a bag like this, but I got it in a swap. I find that it is very useful. It keeps a large rotary mat flat, a few rulers and a flattish, portable ironing board ready to go on a moment’s notice. I don’t always take this bag, but I have it available if I need it.
The point, however, is that I can’t just grab the black bag and go. I need to pack. The black bag does not include projects or fabric, specialty supplies or a sewing machine.
As Reader Colleen says I also put some of my active projects into ArtBin project boxes. I just started this practice in the last year. I also use larger bins (larger projects, quilting) from the Container Store. As I said in that post from last year, I like the fact that they are stackable and I can keep all the stuff for one project (or a group of projects like the Crafty Gemini Organizer Club bag supplies) together. This helps A LOT with Grab & Go.
Whatever is leftover and loose, I toss into a Chubby Charmer. Sometimes, these items end up in the project box/bin later; sometimes not. On a good day, I have 4-5 bags and boxes with me plus a sewing machine sometimes. This is a lot of stuff, but it is much more organized than having to cannibalize the supplies from my workroom, hunt through fabric for a project and find notions. I like to be organized in this way, because it gets me sewing or working on my project faster.