solids

Charity Blocks

Posted on by Tisha

Valerie over at Pink Please organizes a sample quilt for The Heroes Foundation.  It’s a cancer charity staying in Indy.  Love supporting local, so it really fits.

Rarely do I make blocks anymore, but this block really intrigued me.  This quilt was her inspiration for this years quilt.

Heroes Quilt Inspiration 2013

This pattern is great and I knew it would be a positive creativity challenge for me.  Since I was going through my scraps I started pulling my solids out for this project.  I should have read through the full write up again from Val before I started.

She really wanted bold colors.  My first block was a bit more light colors, almost pastel.

charity block

The real challenge was creating the curves and getting the block to 14.5″ square.  Off to design block two and see if I couldn’t do better.

charity block

I am much happier with this block.  The curves were still a challenge, but I had the hang of it.  Great way to use up some of my larger solid scraps.

Val showcased some of the blocks she has received and how the quilt is coming together here.  Can’t wait to see the finished product very soon.

Have you made blocks or contributed to a charity quilt?

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A little piece of family history

Posted on by Tisha

My list of custom quilts this summer has been quite long, but this one was just a bit different.  A new grandpa reached out to me to incorporate a piece of his mother’s crocheting into a quilt for his first granddaughter.  What a lovely idea.

I will tell you cutting into another woman’s handmade work made me cringe at first and took forever to safely remove the four squares he asked for.  The nursery was being done in pinks and browns and he preferred something in solids.

While out shopping for the fabrics at the local quilt store, someone recommended a pinwheel pattern.  What a good way to keep it simple and a bit more traditional.

Here is the entire front.

Can you imagine the work that went into crocheting the center piece?

The back was very simple in a coordinating print.

Have you ever used a family heirloom as part of a quilt or project?

 

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More baby quilts – June Challenge

Posted on by Tisha

This quilt has been a work in progress for some time.  With the Indy Modern Quilt Guild’s June finish challenge, I thought this would be perfect.  The top and back were done a bit ago, but the back wasn’t big enough.  So I cut it in half and added the white stripe, nice touch. I am loving how the close quilting turned out.

The finished turned into a quilt for a friend’s baby shower.

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Solids and Stripes Part 2

Posted on by Tisha

This is #2 of the three baby quilts I have been working on.  My neighbor wanted something for her friend that is having baby #2 very soon.  I knew this could be bold and bright.  Baby boy quilts are the hardest especially since you try to keep things from getting girly.  Finding fabric can be really difficult.

I was out with another friend shopping and came across this dress at Saks.  We were just passing through, I can’t convince myself to purchase anything from there.

Mrs O was seen wearing the dress a few days later.

Solids and bold colors, I loved it and the neighbor approved.  Here is what I started with.

I cut the fabric into 5 strips measuring 1.5″, 2.5″, 3″ and 4″.

I started piecing and the whole quilt came together pretty quickly.  I gave my neighbor a sneak peek last week and she was loving it.

For an added touch I hand embroidered Sam onto a scrap to use on the back, similar to the Mother’s Day quilts.  I finished that part up over ice cream with some IMQG ladies.

Here is the finished results.  This quilt has become my favorite of all the quilts that I have done.  I’m loving the color combination and the back.  The binding fabric really tied the front and back together.

Off to go work on baby Sam #2 quilt.  Two friends requested baby boy quilts for Sam’s both due in June, odd.

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Solids & Stripes Part 1

Posted on by Tisha

Indianapolis Modern Quilt Guild was apart of the Robert Kaufman Charm Pack Challenge.  Our theme was “Spring”.  Only stipulation, the charm pack fabrics had to be the focus and you can do whatever.  I had my idea in mine the minute I got my hands on my charm pack.

My brother in law was looking for a baby quilt for a friend that is having a girl later this month.  They are not doing traditional girly colors, they did go with purple and orange.  I looked around before the challenge for fabric that I wanted to use and didn’t really find anything that inspired me.  With the brights charm pack I instantly thought rainbow.  I wanted to sort the colors from dark to lightest and showcase them that way.  Sewing a rainbow wasn’t exactly what I wanted to do either.

I started cutting the charm pack into 1.5″ strips of each square.  Each color was sorted darkest to lightest and sewn in that order.  Finding a gray that would brighten the colors and still look springy was key.  I chose a Kona solid, can’t remember the exact color.  Piecing was easy with 3.5″ gray strips.  Here is what was left.

left over charm pack

This is the finished product.

Close up of the quilt
quilt back

This quilt was a lot of fun and I LOVE the final result.  Bring on more solids!!

 

 

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Frugal & Fancy

Posted on by Tisha

The Indianapolis Modern Quilt Guild met late last month at the Indiana State Museum to see the Frugal & Fancy quilt exhibit.  Exciting to see what previous Indiana quilters did many years ago.  Little did we know that a Yo-Yo contest was going to be taking place.  Not fabric yo-yos that sewists create, but real Yo-Yos.  Did you know they had competitions?  We were shocked.  Here is some of the action from the day.

in action!
lots of colors for just string.

Rachael was tempted to buy the string to see what she could create.

Off to the exhibit we went.  The best part of the exhibit was that they were not perfect.  Triangles were not lined up and corners were off.  It was refreshing to see quilts from 100 years ago that could still be considered modern.  Solids and wonky log cabins were pointed out by all of us.

log cabin
solids. this was one of my favs!
just impressive work.
pinwheels

This was a great exhibit.  We had a really nice time having lunch after out on the deck.  We were watching people run on the canal, saw a quinceanera, and don’t forget the Yo-Yos.

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