The challenge for January at my guild, Valley MQG, is to use Pantone color of the year, ultraviolet. That means, pulling out all of my purple fabrics, turns out I have quite a few.
Purple is a very hard color to work with. Some love it, others hate it. I find that blues, greens or reds, all play nicely with one another, but the difference between a blue-purple or a red-purple can be jarring. I’m up for the challenge.
Now that I have the Lemoyne Star ruler, it should be easier to make these stars. I’m still trying to figure out the size. I thought this was going to be a 12.5″ block, it’s more like an 11.5″. 
Tilting the star changes the block size.
At this point, I’m still playing. Needless to say, I won’t be making a pillow, or a small project, this will become a quilt. I decided to make it medallion style. I found a feather star pattern I like.
Unfortunately, it is paper piecing and I wasn’t in the mood. So I tried to adapt to piecing, using the paper piece pattern and adding seams.
It worked ok. As you can see, the complementary color of purple is yellow. This background has a lot of green in it, although it didn’t photograph that way. I worked along and it wasn’t going all that well.
The pattern is available for 12″ and 18″. I am using the 18″, except by accident I used the 12″ center. then there were problems with the corners….
Halfway through I switched to paper piecing after all.
Combing both my pieced and paper-pieced sections, I put the star together!
Now, to start building up the medallion. I like quilts to be used, therefore it is much better if they are rectangles. So right off the bat, I start elongating the block. I had a lot of fun figuring out the first border. Now to incorporate those first stars into subsequent borders as well, and to share what I’ve done so far with the guild.
Leah
With the holidays over, it’s fun to have shows and events popping up. Every year it is fun to drive down to Ontario and see the quilts as well as enjoy a great shopping experience. I have to say, I often find the booths and vendors more enticing than the quilts.
This quilt grabbed my attention. Because with all the hatred of Israel it’s nice to find a little piece of love. I didn’t take down the names of the quiltmakers, I was running around enjoying the show. I know, everyone wants recognition, but I’m not publishing a book, just a blog.
The Ventura modern quilt guild is collecting blocks to make quilts for the victims of the Thomas fire. My guild is making quilts as well, I was happy to bring some blocks here. They have already given out 40 quilts to displaced foster children. Nothing warms a heart like a handmade quilt.
Had to get a picture with Latifah, she started the modern quilt movement and now is busy making a living with her own products. More power to her!
Red and white, right after I shot this picture I was told, no pictures. In this day and age, I don’t get that. If you don’t want images shown, then don’t put your work in shows. I understand a vendor saying no photography, they are selling items, and often taking a picture of something will mean you won’t buy the product. But a show is a show. 
Here I am trying to figure out how the designer made the overlay image fit perfectly into the background. I think it’s easiest to see with the giraffe, it’s all the same pattern, but the colors are different. I didn’t read the label, just stood and admired.
What I love, take a pattern, and make it different ways. 
Combine the idea of a woven coverlet and yet make sure that it looks like a quilt.
I’m pretty sure that most years the winner of the big award has applique. Yes, I am impressed with the workmanship here. Color, design and quilting are also exquisite. 
English paper piecing, I’ve seen this quilt done before, but usually have only seen a picture. Nice to see one IRL.
Nothing in particular about these quilts, I just liked them. There were many others I liked just as well, but I didn’t take pictures of everything.
I fell in love, I knew the pattern wouldn’t be available until at least September. When it was, it seemed to be sold mostly as a kit with these specific fabrics. Makes sense, Annie Brady is a new fabric designer and to showcase her line, she designed this quilt. Luckily I was able to purchase just the pattern.
With most of my quilts, I’m happy to dig into my stash, but it’s always fun to buy a few new fabrics as well.
I like calling this method of construction the Elizabeth Hartman method. Using half square triangles, all kinds of snow balls, one creates the animal. In this case Annie Brady used some pattern pieces as well.
At this point, I called the quilt done. I hadn’t paid attention to the size listed on the pattern, 60″x 70″. Numbers don’t mean much to me, but this is a baby quilt. Another row of 10″ blocks all around would make this a very nice youth or lap quilt. So I stopped here. 
I usually use cotton batting for a baby quilt. No more! All I had was wool and it made the quilting so much easier! I used my ruler on most of the bear, you can see it in the ear. I also did ruler work to create diamonds in the background. It worked really well.
Then I went off on vacation in Belize. I was anxious to get back and finish up this bear. This picture is taken after a wash and dry in my machines. Unlike cotton, it crinkled up some, but not a lot, which to be honest I prefer. I find that with cotton batting crinkle, you lose all the quilting definition. Here it isn’t quite as crisp as it was before washing, but the quilting designs still stand out.
See what I mean? Especially on the background. Where you can’t really see the quilting is on the very busy print fabrics.
I mentioned having fun with rulers. I used them all over the bear itself. 
I’m so happy that my ruler work is improving. Using wool batting is a big part of that success. Working on a small quilt is also much easier.
Using up stash fabric for the backing. You get a better sense of the quilting on the back.
Some artistic shots.
This was the first brightly colored yarn out on the market that I remember. It is still going strong. So my DIL requested a new scarf, just like the old one, which has been destroyed from use. I had made another scarf a few years ago, but not with this yarn. So I placed an order and it arrived right after Christmas.
A simple garter stitch on the biggest needles I own.
I found another skein of Noro, in pinks and orange and combined it in.
I haven’t blocked this, I won’t. With time the scarf will simply stretch out on its own.
Sometimes the old tried and true are the way to go.
And then there is quilting. In May, at the Spring Quilt Market, this fabric line and pattern were debuted with Moda. I fell in love with this pattern. I had to have it. What is shown at market usually doesn’t make it to the stores until months later. So I stalked an online store that said they’d notify me when the pattern arrived. Turns out that they were selling it as a kit with the fabric. You know me, I don’t like kits, and I really don’t like working with just one fabric line. Luckily I was able to buy the pattern on its own.
Got to work, this bear is similar to Elizabeth Hartman’s animals. But it is much larger than I expected.
Love seeing how the bear grows from row to row.
Here the bear is complete, now to add the borders.
I’m stopping here. Yes, the pattern calls for another round of borders, but that will make this too big. This is a baby quilt, it is quite large enough. I might make this again and if I do, I might make a larger size, but not on this project.
To end on a bright note, while the rest of the country is suffering record-breaking cold, my roses are sending out their final blooms of the year. In a month or so, the gardener will prune them back, so they can build up strength for next years blooms.
I gave them to Roberta, every year she puts them out. Nice to see them getting used.
This year as I was wrapping gifts (Hanukkah comes much earlier than Christmas), I had a very special gift in mind.
Here she is opening her present.
Yup! The Urbanology Red and White quilt I made, it has moved to it’s permanent home.
Roberta was speechless, it takes a whole lot to get her speechless.
Best of all, cuddling up on the couch under the quilt.
I thought I’d try to hand quilt around the applique. Yeah, right! It’s probably been 20 years since I’ve done hand quilting. I even went and bought a quilting hoop! No go! Within five minutes I realized that I couldn’t do it. Maybe I could do it on one block, but the quilt was heavy and unwieldy. Echoing the shapes on the machine worked out just fine.
I only used 26 of the hundred blocks on the front of the quilt. So most of the rest ended up on the back. Sure if I had bordered each block they might have stood out more, but this is why I don’t like samplers made of small blocks. There really is no place for the eye to rest.
Of course, the quilting has no relationship to the blocks on the back, which also means – no focal point.
But for the back of a quilt – this is impressive. It also makes the quilt much heavier – all those seams and thread. Since this is going to be my snuggle on the couch quilt – both sides will be visible.
The small blocks all got a lot of detailed quilting. The border bands got none, which means they stand out as real frames. I used wool batting which was wonderful to quilt with, really smooth. It does give the quilt more loft, definitely more than cotton.
I’m very pleased with the result. I shared this image on the Splendid Sampler Facebook page. Pat Sloan herself commented on it. She really liked how I made the project work for me. 
It’s not about having cookie cutter quilts, it’s about personalizing the project.
I embroidered a simple label, after all the work, I simply wasn’t up to making an elaborate label.
Laying out the quilt, I like breaking the symmetry.
Here is the final top, you’ll notice that I have a section of the background in the gazelle block. I love that secondary design and it only showed up once, so I encroached on the gazelle.
Here is the result, nice clean ruler work, but what would happen when I go home and work on actual patchwork? Eyals’ quilt was the testing ground.
See how nice and straight the outline is? I’m showing the back here, because the quilting is invisible on the print fabric I used.
It wasn’t all ruler work, on the animals, I tried to highlight their shapes and then echo around them.
Using the quilting to emphasize the owls’ eyes.
On the dark brown chevrons, you can actually see the ruler work, on the green diamonds you can’t even see the quilting.
Finished! Well, except for a label that I need to embroider.
How cute is the back? I used up a lot of my animal prints, a whole forest back there.
I showed the quilt to the Dads and put Eyal on it, he is still small, it will be fun to take pictures of him on it periodically. Right now, I need to make a label, show it off at my guilds, and then give it to Eyal.
Loaded up in a bag, ready for a field trip.
I know this quilt is destined for a bed, but quilts are often used outside as picnic blankets, beach blanket or to build forts. Quilts are very resilient
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Once home from the photo shoot, I washed and dried the quilt in my washer and dryer, using regular laundry detergent. I always do this before giving someone a quilt, I want them to know that they can do the same. The quilt will be fine, it is meant to be laundered.
Back home, I wrapped myself in this big behemoth and took some more pictures.
This was after the laundry, so I’m being very careful that it doesn’t drag on the ground. Once Leigh has it, she can do that on her own.
Since it is going to live permanently on a bed, I felt I need some pictures there. This is a king size bed, it is clearly long enough but not wide enough. If I were keeping it, this would be fine, I can’t ever see myself making a king size quilt – too hard to deal with all that bulk!
My favorite paper-piece designer is 
Another one of her owls.
Side by side, she does realistic and whimsy so well.
Nope, but she did design a goat, which looks more like a gazelle than a deer. So now the quilt will be much more personalized.
This is how the blocks look in the book. A trick I learned from a class I took with 
I did, I really like the secondary designs that emerge. Yes, I’m sure people using EQ 7 are familiar with this technique, but for those of us who don’t want to be on a computer with a design program, this works really well.
First, make an actual block, not in the colors of the quilt, just to practice.
Then, tile it, yes, I am really liking the results.
Now to choose the actual fabrics. Yoch loves green, Yishai, not so much. But orange is also a good choice. So a little bit of green, hopefully not overwhelming.
I really like this, but, yes there is a big but, I think the cream background will end up competing with the animals, they might not stand out as much. Back to cutting up the fabric. Once again, people using EQ 7 will tell me they do all of this on the computer, well, I’m old fashioned, I like the hands-on planning.
Have you noticed that I am incorporating owls in the fabrics as well? Do you see the mistake I made? I didn’t see it until I tried to tile the pattern and it just looked weird. 
While fixing my mistakes, I changed the color of one of the small squares, why not?
Here I am so far, I really like the balance of shades and colors. I’m not sure exactly how I am going to lay this out, it’s a baby quilt, it will be easy to figure out.
Here is the quilt, loaded on the machine, one large backing that I ordered from 
I put so much time and effort into this quilt top, and it’s busy! So I needed to simply the quilting, not an easy thing for me to do. I have been watching 
5 hours, that is all it took, from loading to unloading the quilt, with a break for lunch. Not bad at all for a queen size quilt.
Here it is, off the frame and draped over it so you can see how extensive and large the quilt is. I absolutely love the quilting, it ties everything together but doesn’t overwhelm the pineapple pattern.
Trying to capture the whole quilt on the ground. 
I was considering piecing together the binding, but once again, I felt that would be too much. This is a very busy scrap quilt. Having one unifying binding would pull everything together. Luckily I had bought a large piece of fabric on sale, I think at the time I thought I’d use part of it in the backing.
Ironing the binding folding over.
It’s a good thing I have this large pergola to hand my quilts from. Even so, this one is dragging on the ground. You can see how different a quilt looks when you can photograph it straight on.
A glimpse at the backing fabric. I really lucked out, on sale and it fits the quilt top perfectly.
A closer look at the chickens. I quilted more detail on them, I really tried to emphasize the eyes with quilting. Then I echoed around, so they stand out from the background. Another chance to see how pleasing that background quilting is.
Outlines and echoed the bees. I did add antennae with the quilting, not that it’s that visible. Then for my reward, I got stung this weekend by a bee. A neighbor had a beehive on his fence, no he’s not doing anything about it, even though we told him that I got stung. People!
The name was pretty easy to come up with. Leigh raises chicken, bees, and veggies in her garden. Maybe some of the pineapples can represent some lettuce or beans.