January 2013 mosaic: Fresh Sewing Day

January 2013 mosaic: Fresh Sewing Day, a photo by capitolaquilter on Flickr.

The New Year has been a whirlwind of deadlines and of pushing the envelope for me. I managed to mail off my bee blocks on time even though they aren't all shown in the mosaic.

A lot of FMQ and finishes for me with the QuiltCon charity and both of my Madrona Road #1 Madrona Road #2 challenge quilts completed. I've never spent as many hours behind the machine as I did in January. Bonus is that all three were on my 2013 finish-a-long list so now I'm 1/3 of the way to my Q1 goal.

This month was a social one with two Sew Days and during a Sew Date I dabbled with a metal frame purse that will hopefully come to life in February.

I'm pretty please with it all which feels good. Linking up to Lily's Quilts.
happy Superbowl Sunday

Finish It Up Friday and Flickr

capitolaquilter's photostream on Flickr.

I discovered the "share" button on flickr while my photostream is open. I swear I learn something new every day.  When I hit the button I thought only the top row of pictures was going to show up - oh well,  much more to learn apparently. I crack myself up!

Finish it Up Friday Linky Party - check it out!  I'm excited about my two:

Next month our local Quilt Guild will be having their 35th annual show. PVQA is a wonderful resource and I enjoy the lectures and workshops. They have embraced our Modern Quilt Guild inviting us to exhibit again this year.

SBAMQG is in the process of collecting goodies for a donation basket at the show and I thought a QAYG Echno tote would be nice to make. There are bits of other modern fabric scattered in and it is lined with a lovely Art Gallery.

My other finish was "No Inherent Sense of Direction" blogged about in full detail here. How dorky am I that I took a screen shot of the MQG's facebook page when they included it?! Did you make the deadline the selection is stunning.  I'm so proud of our MQG member and the work they produced - way to represent!

No ISOD quilting detail on the back

For something new... I had the pleasure of pulling some dusty fabrics for Linda's F+F2 February blocks, a very exciting chance to try out a new technique of circles. She makes the most amazing quilts and has the best taste (because it reminds me of mine LOL).  I also have Deb's modified Road to Tennessee block fabric to pull for February MoStash but since it's aqua and yellow those are still haven't been put away from Tassels so I'm good to go.

More on the horizon but tomorrow I get to play in San Fran with some friends with a trip to the DeYoung Museum. Last time I was there I shared this Sidewalk to Catwalk  post. All this time later, I'm still amazed and inspired and unfortunately I'm still not a garment sewist either.

A couple of my friends from MQG are lucky ducks and spending the weekend with the fabulous Heather Ross and Gertie.  Wish I could have pulled off going but I'll have to live vicariously through them - have a blast Anne & Julia!

"No Inherent Sense Of Direction" Madrona Road Entry

The story of this quilt begins at the end of "Driving In Circles" as you can read for yourself here.  You might say "No Inherent Sense of Direction" is a byproduct - it would not have been created if my original Madrona Road Challenge journey had led to where I thought I was going.  Because this second quilt was a happy accident I had free rein to do whatever I wanted - sweet!  No expectations, No preconceived ideas.. my kind of detour.

"No Inherent Sense of Direction"

The abandoned parts from "Driving In Circles" would not go to waste for long - in fact I'm not sure I even paused before starting the design.  It was pedal to the metal.

This component struck my fancy because the half square triangles reminded me of arrows on a road sign and the arches became rolling hills.  Although I do like the linked arrows idea of this layout I wanted to use a FQ of wonderfully bold floral fabric that just didn't fit in with the first quilt.

The evolution of the layout led here with an orderly arrangement that didn't sit well with me either.  Turning the Road Signs every which way actually made more sense to me, up, down, left, right... it's how I feel about directions - hence the quilt name.

Once the final layout was decided, the logistics of joining it all together got tricky. I was using every scrap off the floor to "build" the background - digging a  two inch chunk of chevron out of the trash with glee.

January Meeting Show and Tell SBAMQG 

For the quilting I had become quite the dare devil at this point thanks swimming in the deep end with the QuiltCon Charity FMQ experience.  I decided on pebbles for the background, some playful details on the flowers but the arrows had me stumped.

It seemed like straight line echo would accent well but in the end I chose to get totally random and stitched what ended up resembling a pineapple.

No ISOD back

The guild was kind enough to let me use more herringbone fabric to bind it in and the backing was from my stash.

I'm thrilled to have been included in The MQG facebook page today - the world of virtual quilting rocks!  Thanks for listening to my story - I'd love to know you stopped by.

Specs:  47"x59" Original Design
The MQG Madrona Road Challenge entry
Quick Curve Ruler
Pieced and quilted with Aurifil 50wt on my BabyLock Symphony
Pellon Nature's Choice Cotton Batting
Started Dec 28, 2012 Finished Jan 26, 2013
companion quilt "Driving in Circles" and bonus Bed Runner

EDIT: Linking up to FAL Q1 with Leanne of She Can Quilt as one of the 6 of 7 qualifying projects done.  1) No Inherent Sense of Direction 2) Tassels 3)Driving in Circles 4) Luminosity 5) Sisterly Love 6) QuiltCon Charity. Original Goal post here.

2013 FAL Q1 Goal Mosaic 

"Driving in Circles" Madrona Road Challenge Quilt

Karen's Madrona Road Challenge Quilt - Driving in Circles, a photo by anne @ play-crafts {asdesigned} on Flickr.

I will start at the end of my story and lead you back to the beginning.... One glorious Saturday morning my friend Anne and I played tourist in our own town.  Going on a full fledged photo shoot adventure like I see others do with their quilts was one of my New Year's resolutions.  We set out to photograph the QuiltCon Charity quilt before shipping it to Austin and my quilt entry to The MQG Madrona Road Challenge went along for the ride.

photo by Anne: Natural Bridges 

I think I love the back almost as much - improv is so liberating and clearly it wanted to fly free like a bird at the beach!  Here are a few close ups of the fussy cut binding that can be read on the front as well as the back  a close up of the quilting detail - circles of course.

There have been several blog posts here, here and here about the progress of this quilt so I'll try to share a little more about how the design came about.

photo by Anne: UCSC campus

One might think that the name "Driving in Circles" came to be because of the round wheel-ish shapes in the pattern of the quilt, but it's not.  That design shape was actually inspired by the floral print of Madrona Road shown here:

Flower Shapes - the inspiration 

"Driving in Circles" is about my creative journey - a path that was anything but a direct route and could easily be dubbed "Driving myself Crazy"!  Maybe it was because I tried to set out with an end result in mind rather than let it evolve or maybe it was because it was my first MQG challenge and I wanted to accomplish too much in ONE quilt... (more about that later).

Our MQG generously purchased additional fabric for participants to go along with the fun stack provided by Michael Miller and I ordered several more yards myself.

Using my Quick Curve Ruler was a must - I jumped on the chance to create an original design (at least I think it is). I wanted something I was going to keep since everything I've ever made with it I've given away, like the 4x5 bee blocks  and two table runners.

Quilt Math = cut list

The Goal: a four-by-four layout of sixteen blocks measuring 60" square with an emphasis on scrappy.  Quilt math is the worst for me but I knew I needed a cut list and a variety of fabric amounts so that is what I came up with.

Scrappy Mix and Match... not

As much as I love scrappy this layout of mix and match (one of many) lacked cohesiveness and was visually confusing.  When I overcorrect the design it felt predictable and boring.  Around and around I went.

Playing on the design wall is the sweet spot in the process for me - so when it got to the point where even I was tired of arranging and re-arranging I know something is wrong.  Finally I came to the realization that using all my parts was not in the best interest of the quilt.  Just because I had made 64 arches and 64 half square triangles didn't mean I was bound to them (cringe).

In the end it became a nicely balanced strategically placed three by four layout that you see here:

What became of those abandoned arches and triangle? You can read about the birth of "No Inherent Sense of Direction", my other challenge quilt entry and the bonus Bed Runner .

Six days from first cut to finished tops was a trip to remember.  The moral of the story is that you may not end up where you set out to go but that isn't always a bad thing :)

Specs: 48"x64" Original Design
Quick Curve Ruler
Pieced and quilted with Aurifil 50wt thread on my BabyLock Symphony, binding hand-stitched.
Batting Pellon Nature's Touch Cotton.
Started Dec 28, 2012 Finished Jan 22, 2013.
Companion Quilt "No Inherent Sense of Direction" and bonus Bed Runner.

EDIT: Linking up to FAL Q1 with Leanne of She Can Quilt as one of the 6 of 7 qualifying projects done.  1) No Inherent Sense of Direction 2) Tassels 3)Driving in Circles 4) Luminosity 5) Sisterly Love 6)QuiltCon Charity.

2013 FAL Q1 Goal Mosaic