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!

TGIFF! - Codex

Welcome to TGIFF! It's been a crappy week in the Quilt Matters household so I'm especially glad that it's just about done and I can celebrate something positive. :)

This quilt began as part of two challenges for our local Modern Quilt Guild -- the Block Design Challenge and the Montreal Meetup/Modern Design Challenge. Running out of time but wanting to participate in both challenges, I shamelessly combined the two. ;)

More than most of my quilts, this was a therapy quilt. To me, the lines in it feel strong and hard and powerful -- the opposite to how raw I'm feeling these days. It's not a sweet or joyful quilt. Funny weird (not funny ha ha) how my other 'therapy' quilt Innocence Lost, Courage Found uses the same colours. Sensing a theme...or dare I say series?

As I mentioned in my last post about this quilt, the design feels like it's a code of some sort so I added hand stitching with some embroidery floss in spots to mimic morse code. The machine quilting, done with a 50 wt Aurifil 2460 using a walking foot, adds a crop circle effect, which we all know is a code from aliens from outer space. ;) The quilting is controlled and precise -- again in juxtaposition with how chaotic my life is feeling right now.

One problem I had with this quilt is bearding. Bearding is when the batting comes through the pores of the fabric. I think I may have put the batting on backwards. Oops. I've been using tape and clothing rollers to remove the lint, but as you can see, there's still some bits and bobs here and there. Hopefully it will settle over time and not get worse.

Finished size: 33" by 40".

Did you hear that Sew Sisters Quilt Shop is having a Mother's Day Sale? 20% off yardage on May 10. Who needs flowers or chocolates when you can receive fabric?!

An InLinkz Link-up

Fibonacci Twist - A Work in Progress

While making Innocence Lost, Courage Found, I kept thinking that the Fibonacci sequence (related to the Golden Ratio) depicted in tile formation could be a cool quilt design. Wouldn't using the Golden Ratio as the founding design principle for a quilt almost automatically assure success? I wasn't interested in the spiral or conch shell look so much, but the graphic look of the square tiles.

I also thought it might be neat to play with complementary contrast and colour ratio (i.e. 1:3 yellow to purple, etc).

I made two blocks using the Fibonacci sequence up to 13 again and rotated one of them to get this:

Hmm, it has potential, but it needs more and I'm not sure quite what yet. Something to balance the colour ratios? Using the Golden Ratio is not so easy. LOL! Thoughts?