27 Dresses or something like that

Last summer I was approached by a friend to do something with bridesmaid’s dresses that were taking up lots of room in her closet.  Okay great, let’s make a memory quilt using the dresses.  There are a variety of fabrics, colors, etc to work with.  The finished product will have lots of embellishments from different aspects of the dresses.  The stack of dresses was quite large, this is a smaller version with the under dresses and most of the non-useable fabric discarded.

My original idea was a quilt as you go but that didn’t go so well.  So I scrapped it.  Back to the design board.  The light purple dress would be a great feature.  Here is a snippet of the blocks.

Hoping to have the quilt completed this week and ready for delivery.

Bali Batiks

The Bali inspired quilt is complete.  Started with a great discussion while we were in NYC.  I love when friends have great ideas and I can help them come together.

Originally I was hesitant to work with batiks.  They seem a bit more traditional for me but I knew I could do something to bring them more into my style.  Gray, of course!  You will be seeing lots of gray in the coming months.

I wanted simple but showcasing each fabric in the quilt.  Frame each block in a solid and then find a coordinating print to bring it all together.  Luckily, my LQS has a good variety of batiks and made the shopping part easy.

Here is a sample of my vision for this quilt.

Just needed to make 15 more blocks to complete the quilt top.

Time to pick a backing fabric.  Here were the two possibilities.

all the left over fabrics

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

fabric compliments the print on the front

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is the actual back, change of design plans.

loving the yellow

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For the quilting I decided yellow would be a great color on the front.  My sewing buddies were pleasantly surprised with the addition.  Very happy with how it turned out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Week of two completed quilts…part 2

This quilt was my submission to the Modern Quilt Guild’s Challenge #3.  Organic was the word we were challenged with to build a quilt around.  Challenge accepted.  I spent lots of time building an idea and looking for inspiration.  Then it hit me.

I was driving with my girlfriend while we were out for her birthday and I was looking at all of the vibrant green trees with brown and purple all mixed in along the road.  When we got to dinner, I busted out paper and started designing.  Later that week I went on bike route along the Monon Trail in Indy and it all come together.  Those same colors were exploding along the trail.  It made riding 25 miles a little easier.

This is my interpretation of the trail with all the bright bold colors of purple, green and brown that outlined the trail.

Organic Challenge Quilt

 

Showcasing my quilt Saratoga.  Made for cheerful betting.

Vintage Modern Monday – Gee’s Bend

Last week I talked about the history of quilting.  As I was writing I kept going back to Gee’s Bend how the women create so freely and it turns out wonderful.  These women deserve their own post because I think they were “Modern”.  They created without real patterns and made their own style.

Here is a story that NPR did a few years ago about these inspirational women, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=970364.

Looking for more information on the quilts, architecture, etc.

Here are some modern Gee’s Bend inspired quilts.

 

 

Vintage Modern Monday

Blue is color that I am usually drawn to.  Hubby and I are working on re-painting our bedroom in the next few months and I’m looking at a variety of dark blues for an accent wall.  A nice light gray will be the primary color.  So I wanted to look at vintage blue fabrics that could be used in our design.

Great accents for a room.

Fabrics and design can’t be overly girly.  I think these would be a great addition to the room and add in some pops of color.