Seeing The Forest - Blogger's Quilt Festival

Yay, it's Blogger's Quilt Festival time again! I'm very happy to be sharing my Seeing The Forest quilt. If this is your first time here, welcome! For those who saw this quilt last week, please indulge me a little longer. :)

This quilt started out at as a fat eighth bundle of Westminster shot cottons and Helen Howes' Twelve Trees pattern that I got from Mad About Patchwork.

I'm not great at sticking with a pattern though so I added in four more trees, and flipped half of them so they looked like a reflection of the top eight.

For the quilting, I went with horizontal matchstick quilting (kind of like bark?) and I LOVE the effect on both sides of the quilt. I used a Sulky variegated thread that went from burgundy to plum.

The quilting lines are spaced anywhere for 1/8" to 1/3" apart. I was worried that the tight quilting might make the quilt too stiff. Nope, the shot cottons handle it beautifully.

The full reveal:

Seeing The Forest - Front

I love the back almost as much as the front! The insert is made from scraps from the front.

Seeing The Forest - Back

Maxing and relaxing on the steps

Final stats:
Quilt name: Seeing The Forest
Measurements: 40" by 59"
Special techniques: Slash and insert piecing
Machine quilted: Matchstick quilting by me
Entering this in the ROYBGIV category for the Blogger's Quilt Festival.


Here are my entries into past Blogger's Quilt Festivals:

Fall 2012

Spring 2012

Fall 2011

Thanks for stopping by! For lots more inspiration, check out the other entries in the Blogger's Quilt Festival at Amy's Creative Side -- it's always a fabulous show. Thank you, Amy, for putting all of this together!

TGIFF! - Seeing The Forest

Welcome to this week's TGIFF!, where every quilt finish deserves a celebration!

I'm very happy to be sharing my Seeing The Forest quilt. This started out at as a fat eighth bundle of Westminster shot cottons and Helen Howes' Twelve Trees pattern that I got from Mad About Patchwork.

I'm not great at sticking with a pattern though so I added in four more trees, and flipped half of them so they looked like a reflection of the top eight. I'm such a rebel.

Figuring out what to do quilting-wise was a challenge. This is the first time that I wanted the quilting to work for both the front and the back.

I considered free motion quilting leaves on the trees, all over leaf pattern, irregular spirals in the backgrounds of the blocks, wishbones in the sashing, etc.

It came down to vertical or horizontal matchstick quilting (kind of like bark?). I went with horizontal and I'm so glad I did. I LOVE the effect on both sides of the quilt and what's more, I actually loved doing the quilting. I used a Sulky variegated thread that went from burgundy to plum.

The quilting lines are spaced anywhere for 1/8" to 1/3" apart. I was worried that the tight quilting might make the quilt too stiff. Nope, the shot cottons handle it beautifully.

The full reveal:

What? You don't hang your quilts on a hockey net?

Seeing The Forest - Back

Quiltography: "Seeing The Forest," by Michèle-Renée Charbonneau, Ottawa, 40" by 59", 2013.

Maxing and relaxing on the steps

Have a great weekend, all!

Q1 FA{I}L

I thought I was being pretty conservative (about the only time in which I am conservative - lol!) when I pinkie swore to finish Su{Brrr}nova and Seeing the Forest For The Trees as my Q1 Finish-A-Long (FAL) goals with Leanne at She Can Quilt, but I did not foresee spending half the quarter in a cast. Soooo...we're going to make these my goals for Q2!

1) Su{Brrr}nova - It's basted and on the machine. Woo hoo! Free motion quilting this quilt is harder on the wrist than Snow Crab Nebula so I have to make sure I take regular breaks. I have to say that I'm enjoying the process of quilting more now that I have the Gidget table. The Gidget table is even with the tables I put out for quilting and I don't have to worry about the quilt catching on my sewing machine's extension table. It's much easier on my shoulders and arms. That said, I'd still like to raise the whole table about an 1" so my thighs don't rub against the machine bed (I'm 5'8" so this may not be an issue for some folks). I'm thinking of adding a piece of 2" by 4" under each foot. Anyone else have the same issue? What did you do?

Anyway, here are a couple of progress shots of the quilting on Su{Brrr}nova:

2) Seeing The Forest For The Trees. Um, I've got the thread picked out?!

Seeing The Forest For The Trees - Top

Seeing The Forest For The Trees - Back

I'm hoping to finish Su{Brrr}nova for this week's TGIFF!, which I'm hosting. I hope you'll come and link up one of your own recent finishes!

Seeing The Forest For The Trees - A Work in Progress

Seeing The Forest For The Trees top and back are together and I couldn't be more pleased! Before we get to that though, I wanted to share a quick tip about getting different sized blocks to a consistent, but unusual size.

With this piecing style, you can imagine that the finished blocks were all different sizes. I got them all roughly to 9"-9.5" by 13.9"ish for playing with the layout. However, before I pieced the top, I needed to make sure they were all a consistent size. I could have trimmed them to 8.5" by 13.5" but I wanted to maximize the size of the tree blocks, even if it's only by .25" or even .3" -- it adds up over a number of blocks!

I tried putting tape guides on my 12.5" by 12.5" ruler, but the height of my block is larger than that.

I found the smallest block, which was 8.85" by 13.8". I put masking tape on my cutting board to the size of 8.75" by 13.75", and used the cutting lines of the mat to trim the blocks. I'd line the block against the tape and cut along the mat lines.

Block lined up against the tape guide

Trim using the mat grid

This also worked perfectly for getting the sashing the right length for the blocks.

Sashing strip lined up against the tape guide

Trim using the mat grid

As these blocks didn't require centering, this technique worked beautifully and I was done much quicker than if I'd had to measure each block and sash piece using my ruler.

So, wanna see the top and back? Without further ado, this is the top I completed with Helen Howes' Twelve Trees pattern. Without flash...

Seeing the Forest For The Trees - Front - No Flash

With flash...

Front - With Flash

Detail of the Back

As you can imagine, the true colours are somewhere in between. The natural light has been terrible around here lately and I find shot cottons are tricky to photograph.

And here's the back. I took scraps leftover from the front in 2.5" and 1.5" widths and random lengths and sewed them together in one long chain and then cut them to 45" lengths (the width of the backing). Very improv, very quick, very fun! And I used up almost all of my scraps from the front. Bonus!

I played around with the layout of the rows a bit to try to balance the placement of the yellows. I then added some burgundy shot cotton to either side. I'm loving how the back turned out too!

Seeing The Forest For The Trees - Back - No Flash

Back - With Flash

The truest photo of the colour
was when my little monkey posed in front of it.
I'll spare you the sillier photos!

Now to figure out the quilting. Thoughts and ideas are always welcome!

I'm linking in to WIP Wednesday at The Needle and Thread Network and to W.i.P. Wednesday at Freshly Pieced. 

Hoping that you are having a wonderful Wednesday!

Works in Progress Wednesday - The Early Edition

First WIP post of 2013! I'm posting this early because any non-child time tomorrow will be spent prepping for my lecture at the Richmond Area Quilt Guild tomorrow night. Very excited, but nervous too.

So what have I been up to since my last report? A lot!

New Projects:

Scrappy Trip Along: I took a sip of the Scrappy Trip Along Kool-Aid last week and I'm hooked. Did another 'test block' to see if this is what I'll ask my bee mates to make for the Simply Solids Carmine group (so my colour!). I suspect that I may 'test' this block some more. ;)

Original test block

New test block

Completed Projects:

Commissioned Wee Spy: Started and completed. Will share photos once the quilt arrives in sunny Burbank, California.

Current Projects: 

Su{Brrr}nova: Top complete and I love, love, love it! More details here.

Seeing the Forest for the Trees Quilt: It's back on the design wall this week and I can't thank you all enough for your feedback yesterday. I tried out Debbie's idea of flipping the trees so the 2nd and 4th rows are reflections of the 1st and 3rd. I also played around some more with the layouts and tried having the trees all upright. I think I've settled on the layout now, but I'll leave that as a surprise for Friday. :)

On Hold/UFO Mash-up:
Travellin' Pic Stitch Blog Hop

Don't Worry {Bee} Happy Bee
Appliqué/Quilt/Paint Thing
Mini I Spy Charity Quilt

Stained Glass Lillies

Modern Block Monday Sampler 

Chop Suey

Collage Tree 

Asterisk Christmas Table Runner 

Red and Tan Bargello in the Round 2

Happy Villages

Kingston quilt

Fibonacci's Not Random

Red and Cream Amish Wedding Ring

Wedding quilt

Nine patch colourwash

WIP Wednesday Recap: 

New projects: 1

Completed projects: 1

Current projects: 2

On Hold/UFO: 16

Bucket List: 30

I'm linking in to WIP Wednesday at The Needle and Thread Network and to W.i.P. Wednesday at Freshly Pieced. 

Hoping that you are having a wonderful Wednesday!

Back On The Design Wall

Guess what's back on the design wall? Seeing the Forest For The Trees! I made the four other blocks so it's now 16 trees rather than 12 trees.

Here are the new trees:

I also flipped the bottom eight trees so they act more like a reflection of the top trees. I think I'm good with the layout of the trees, but I'm curious where your eyes go when you look at this?

Now I'm playing with the sashing. It might take a bit as this isn't doing it for me right now.

So I tried this....

 And this...

And this...

Getting closer. Any ideas or suggestions are most welcome!

Linking up with Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times!

Seeing The Forest For The Trees - A Work in Progress

As I mentioned in a W.I.P. Wednesday post a few weeks ago, I'm working on the Twelve Trees pattern by Helen Howes using a fat eighth bundle of Westminster shot cottons from Pam @ Mad About Patchwork. I saw this quilt on Lily's Quilts and I knew I had to try it.

I have to say that I did not like this technique at first. I like to chain piece and do leaders/enders when I'm piecing, but you can't do much of that with these until you get familiar with the technique. You need to work on one block at a time, which I'm not a fan of, but you don't have perfectly accurate 1/4" seam allowances. A huge plus in my book!

I've finished nine of the twelve trees for this pattern and loving it more with each completed block. I was really nervous about the colour pairings of the tree and sky, but they are turning out okay. Yay!

The first three:

The new ones:

Linking up with Fabric Tuesday!


Happy Tuesday, everyone!