Wholecloth Experiment

I've been mulling over an idea about doing a colourful wholecloth using the walking foot quilting technique I learned from Heather Lair, which I've decided to start calling Lair Quilting. I first used it on Heathia, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Heather was an amazing artist, who passed away in 2013. I took a class with her in 2011 in St. Andrews by the Sea, NB. She was very generous with her art quilting knowledge and I haven't seen anyone else do her quilting technique other than me. Now that I use it so much, I've decided to call it Lair Quilting after her. Hope she doesn't mind! :) It also looks quite labyrinthian and that fits with the name too, eh?

Usually when I do Lair quilting (Heathia, We the North Since 1867, Triad), it's using one or two colours and it's meant to blend into the background. This time, I wanted to experiment with making the design with the quilting.

First, I laid down some black guidelines, with a mix of straight lines and circles.

Next I started filling in the spaces between the lines in different colours with my favourite Aurifil colours. 

Adding more colours...can you feel the rainbow yet?

Here it is from the back. Mmm, loving that texture. 

Just as I was finishing up the quilting, I thought it needed a little more. I started adding some hand stitching to define the shapes and make the colours pop more. I used 3 strands of DMC embroidery floss -- it adds a good line of colour, but isn't too heavy. 

Finished up the hand stitching this morning and blocked it. 

Updated: Here is the full view of the blocked quilt. Just the binding and hanging sleeve left to go. Calling this one Blessed. 

I'm getting impatient for this one to be done.

Hope you are having a great weekend! 

TGIFF! - Heart Strings

This quilt is two years in the making. I first shared the my design process for this top in September 2015. I wanted to do a vertical version of October Sky, but in reds.

Just as I was starting the hand stitching, my mom got very sick. She spent almost two weeks in the hospital and I brought this project along to help pass the time and manage the fear and sadness.

After her stay and all the emotion from that time, I just couldn't work on this project for a while. She's had multiple hospital visits since and each time, I've brought this project along. It's been quite therapeutic.

I finally finished this in the fall. I'm so glad this one is done. It feels like closure on that time.

With all the emotions stitched into this project, the design and the colours, Heart Strings seemed an appropriate name. To me, this is not a happy quilt and I've been reluctant to share it. Given the events of the last few days in the States and in Quebec City last night, I feel like my heart is breaking again so I thought it's time to share the quilt.

Some photos of the details.

I really love the texture of the hand stitch and machine quilting combination. I used 6 shades of red DMC floss and Aurifil thread for the red section and 2 shades of grey DMC and Aurifil thread for the grey background. 

Final size: 30" by 19"

I'll be linking up with TGIFF! later this week.

Hopeful things will get better. Take care! XO

TGIFF! - October Sky

It may be November, but I'm celebrating finishing October Sky (formerly Layers of Leaves).

I'm very,  very happy with this finish. Major happy dance happening around here!

This quilt has had quite a journey. It evolved quite a bit from the original design, then there was a lot of deliberation over the colours, and finally undergoing a lot of hand stitching and machine quilting.

Even the blocking process proved eventful when the backing fabric started to run -- grrr! A good wash with some colour catchers solved that issue thankfully.

The quilting is about 1/8" to 5/8" max. I'm thrilled with the movement that the quilting and hand stitching gives it -- like air currents.

Hope you don't mind a LOT of photos. ;)

Final size: 24" x 44.5"
Fabrics: Kona solids
Threads: DMC embroidery threads and Aurifil (50wt.)

Happy, happy, joy, joy! I'm linking with Lynette @ What A Hoot Quilts, who is hosting TGIFF! this week.