TGIFF! - Colour Pop!

Woo hoo! Colour Pop is done! Happy dance! This quilt started in an Elizabeth Olwen quilt design class with the Ottawa Modern Quilt Guild last April.

It was time to break into my black and white fabric collection and try something new for me. Okay, the rainbow isn't new, but it's all prints!

Here are the elements I wanted to play with in this quilt:

• Asymmetrical design
• Progression of the values of black and white prints outward from the rainbow
• Progression of the size of the coloured triangles
• Ruler quilting
• Getting more comfortable with prints

I am very, very happy with the design. :)

It fits perfectly!

I talked a little more about my experience with ruler quilting in this post. I will say this -- while I love the look of ruler quilting, it was very hard on my hands and arms and I probably won't try this again on a quilt this large.

When it came to the quilting, I did a concentric triangle in all of the black and white prints using a ruler and my favourite white Aurifil 2021 on both the front and the back. For the large coloured triangles, I did a different straight-line motif in each one in a matching thread colour.

I love this spirograph.

Here is the back - stuck with the black and white theme. It was the first time that I was successful at getting the pieced back to line up straight with the front. It's the little things, I tell you.

Final size: 53" by 71"

Some lessons learned:

• All black and whites are not the same. While all of the prints looked to have the same white in my studio, when I took the top outside, I found that they were not. Since this quilt's natural habitat will not be outdoors, I didn't bother fixing it. 
• I wanted to make sure that the strong backing did not show through to the front so I doubled the batting. Added bonus -- the quilting shows up more.
• Because the triangles have bias edges, they can stretch more easily and I found there was some stretch along the edges of the quilt as I was quilting each triangle. To prevent or minimize this next time, I would quilt along the perimeter to stabilize the edges after I've done the grid quilting foundation and before I quilt in each triangle. Blocking the quilt also helped remove some of the waves along the edge. 

And the most important lesson with this quilt? EaseOut is awesome at getting rid of crayon or marker marks on black and white quilts. To be fair to my kids, it does look like a colour book. ;)

As this was finished during Q1 Finish-A-Long, you can bet I'm linking up there.

I'm a little early, but I'm also linking up with my TGIFF peeps over with Cynthia this week.

Colour Pop - A Work in Progress

A cold has sapped my energy this week so not much is happening on the quilting front. Except that I've started quilting Colour Pop. I put in two layers of batting on this one so the quilting will really pop.

The triangular spiral quilting is simple in look but tricky to do. If you use a walking foot to get nice straight lines, there is a lot of turning of the quilt. Free motion quilting goes quicker, but is hard to get nice straight lines, which is what I want in this case.

I am trying rulers for the first time. Bernina came out with a ruler foot for their new long arm machine and it is compatible with the domestic machines (NB: check your machine warranty before you go out and get one). I've been wanting to try ruler quilting since I took the Quilting With Rulers on a Home Machine class on Craftsy.

I'm learning a lot and some areas are not very pretty, but I've got it about 1/3 of Colour Pop quilted. It's going faster than the walking foot, but slower than free motion quilting.

A couple of sponsor news items for you! Sew Sisters Quilt Shop is having an online sale today only. 20% of yardage! Sweet! See their sale notice for details.

Canadian National Fabrics always has some great treasures in their Sale section! Remember, there's free shipping on order over $50 in Canada.

Mad About Patchwork has some gorgeous Cotton + Steel on sale right now!

Hope you have a great weekend! 

Best of 2015: Quilt Matters

Happy holidays! Cheryl from Meadow Mist Designs is hosting a Best of 2015 linky party. What better way to reflect on the quilty year than to review your top posts of the year? Here are mine -- top views, with a favourite thrown in. :)

TGIFF! - Bubbles for Malcolm

TGIFF! - Welded Links

TGIFF! - Colour Pop top

Bloggers Quilt Festival - October Sky

Birchen - À la Quilt Matters

TGIFF! - Night Flight

Linking up with MeadowMist's Best of 2015.

Now that the holidays are over, I'm back in the studio. More to come soon! :)

TGIFF! - Colour Pop Top

Welcome to TGIFF! I seem to be suffering from work-in-progress-itis. I'm making good progress on several projects, but nothing is close to being completely finished. Carsick and Bubbles for Malcolm are even halfway quilted.

I did finish my Colour Pop top though, just in time for TGIFF! Woo hoo! And also in time for International Left-Handers Day. Serendipitous. As a southpaw, I always appreciate a little asymmetry that leans to the left. ;)

Perhaps more interestingly, all prints. Not a solid to be found. It's all black and white and rainbow. And I love it. I still love my solids though.

These are combinations of 1.5", 2.5" and 8" triangles using the HexNMore ruler. I like big triangles and I cannot lie.

From one purple...

To the other.

The top finishes at 52" x 77". It's going to be a good-sized throw quilt.

Now that this one is off the design wall, I have space for my Meadow quilt that I started last weekend at a workshop with Lizzy House. More to come on that soon...and yes, there will be more rainbow. We'll just call it my rainbow phase.

And speaking of rainbows, the Sew Sisters Quilt Shop deal of the month for August is...wait for it... 40% off rainbow Wonderclips. Seriously, I couldn't have lined this up better if I tried. 50 count pack for $26.39. With the Canadian dollar doing so crappy, this is a steal for you U.S. folks. I have a pack of these Wonderclips (and a pack of red and a pack of neon green) and I adore them.

An InLinkz Link-up

Colour Pop - A Work in Progress

In April, I took a quilt design class with Elizabeth Olwen, surface designer. She has a great aesthetic. It was such a fun day -- hanging out with Elizabeth and the OMQG folks, designing, and quilting. Bliss.

I went into the class wanting to break my solids streak. Don't get me wrong, I still adore solids, but variety is the spice of life, n'est-ce pas?

This was my fabric pull the night before the workshop...

I came up with a few ideas that day, but this is the one that I started during the workshop. Big equilateral triangles. Like 8" ones. :)

Cutting, cutting and more cutting...

When I got home, I played with the layout some more...

Adding more triangles, small triangles...

Liking it so far...not sure about the name, but it will do for now.

I was hoping to finish this for this week's TGIFF!, which I happen to be hosting, but it ain't going to happen. Get your finishes ready to link up -- the more, the merrier! -- and we'll just have to see what I'll have finished...

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Sew Sisters Quilt Shop has a cutting edge deal (ha ha) this month on Olfa 45mm rotary blades -- 2 pack for $12.97. Enjoy!