Finished Quilt

Hello all!

Big news... I finally managed to finish up the Kelp Quilt!


Even bigger news....

The Kelp Quilt is going to be part of the The Modern Quilt Guild Showcase 2012! The showcase includes 33 quilts will premiere at International Quilt Market and Festival in Houston and travel in 2013 to various International Quilt Festival and Market sponsored shows.

Here's a picture with the names of the bee members next to the strip they made!  Your names are all listed in the information I submitted with the quilt, as is Bernie, who quilted this for me.


Awesome, right?

You know what's not awesome?  I still owe Yahaira a block!  :::hides under sewing desk:::

Block for Blair

I had a lot of fun putting this block together...perhaps too much fun as it is not the appropriate dimensions and I'm out of fabric. Ruh-roh. Well, I have faith that you, Blair, can figure out a way to work it into your quilt top or just slap it on the back!

Beatnik Block

It took me a while to settle on a plan for this, but I enjoyed the challenge!
I hope you like the result!  The block is a bit bigger than what you asked for, Robin, but I'm thinking you can either work with it or find the best way to cut into it.

Block for Rebekah

I'm trying to catch up while I'm on "spring" break. I hope this block works for you, Rebekah! It was a challenge to work on--I think I need to take a workshop on curved piecing as I'm sure I did this the hard way!

Block for Esch

This is based on the roofline and stairs of my parents' home; or, as we affectionately call it, the "very brady ski chalet."

I'm not sure it makes a very interesting block all on its own, but I think once it gets put in with the others, it will work really well.

a chevron for m'lady

I hope it suits you!  20" is big!!!

Leafcloth

Cheryl's request had me a bit stumped.  Curves, not curves, barkcloth, huh?
I thought that once the fabric arrived I would be inspired, but I found the combination odd, stymieing me further.

Robin's blocks gave me a boost of inspiration and I sat down on Saturday resolved to figure something out.  I decided to focus on a single element from Cheryl's inspirations:

And so...

 It will be in the post shortly!

Jess's Block

Hi Jess, Here's the block I made for you.  It was fun to play around with.  I started with the idea of being very simple...just three bars, one being a little shorter.  However, once I had them done and put them on the mat to see how much white needed to go around, I saw that I needed one more bar and then I decided to break it and make it taller than the others..more and more seams eating up your white fabric.

So, ultimately, I ran out of white!

I put paper in that top photo so you could get a sense of how I was composing the block.  I'm going to send this as is, since I know you can handle attaching two swathes of white.  : )

I love this bee.

more 1950s textiles

I want to marry the gray one.  And the other looks ripe for translation into a quilt.

 Pop over to this page on AnotherDesignBlog. to see more and/or get the book!

Oh yes.

Everytime I look at this, I get so pumped.

Strips (from l to r) by Simply Robin, Wise Craft, and Don't Call me Becky.

I can't even stand it.

mid-century textiles

I just wanted to point out this blog post from Saidos da Concha in case anyone missed it.  Lots of images of mid-century textiles.

 I love the pillow on the far right.

Also, I found the book Robin and Lucienne Day: Pioneers in Modern Design at the local library (on of the commenters here recommended it). It has a lot of textile designs, too.

this is the one that most clearly suggests a quilt pattern to me:

Patchwork with the black motifs embroidered or silk screened on? That would be tight, no?

July, July!

Actually, it's still June, but I'm posting these instructions now because I am planning on handing off fabric to Rebekah and Debbie at tonight's Modern Quilt Guild (Brighton chapter). The rest of you can expect fabric in the mail within the week!

Here's the plan for the quilt:

This began as a kelp shape that I doodled and re-doodled.  Inspired, of course, by Amanda's work.
It doesn't really look much like kelp any more, but I still call this "the kelp quilt" in my head. 
Maybe that's what kelp looks like on Mars?

I had originally conceived of doing with it in mineral green colors.  But, I changed my mind and decided on oranges and reds, similar to the colors in this textile by Ray Eames.  I might bind it in lavender, but probably candy blue, as in the painting above.  We'll see.  : )

I hand-dyed these reds and oranges to get the variation in colors I wanted.  I used pimatex fabric which is really lovely to work with, so I think you'll be happy as you sew. (I'll send the white, too!)

(by the way, I used the flat dyeing technique that Robin explained on her blog.  It worked wonderfully.)

This is going to be a twin-size bed quilt.
Here are my guidelines:
--I'd like everyone to please make a 9" tall, 65" wide strip.
--As you can see in the picture, I would like your kelp shapes to be in the center of the strip height-wise (don't stress, just aim for the center, okay?)
--Try to keep the plants less than 4" tall and the stems no more than 1.25" tall.
--Anything goes as far as how many plants you'd like to put in your strip, how long the plants are, whether you do some that are just stems, and where you position them in the strip width-wise.
--I love subtle wonk, but nothing crazy or forced.

Can't wait to see what you all make!
Here's a song to get you fired up!