I’m certainly feeling a new season coming on here in Seattle. Gardening and seasonal cooking seem like kindred spirits to quilting so I’m always torn between the studio, the yard and the kitchen. Luckily the weather has started cooperating by providing us inside time with a squall here and there, and peppering in some sunshine and those huge fluffy clouds I love so much. I want time to do it all, so the weather has been good at compromising.
If you’re living in Seattle during the winter it’s crucial to have indoor hobbies. My Seattle peeps must be feeling the same desire to shift back to the indoor sort and are coming out of the woodwork to cultivate new ideas in Open Studios and request workshop dates.
I’m picking up the bug myself. I’ve been traveling around for months to lectures with the binding half done on my Seeing Stars Quilt and finally caught some couch time to finish it up.
If you’ve taken my improv strip piecing workshop Psychedelic Baby the triangles in this quilt might look familiar. I made the large star from my triangle cast off blocks we create in Psychedelic Baby and now have enough samples for running the Part II workshop.
This in studio workshop will focus on improvisational or traditional layout and design using the blocks from the workshop’s first session.
Here’s the original quilt called Full Tilt that I made with the blocks from the first workshop.
Other quilt examples for this Part II workshop are,
the Intersected Quilt,
and my No Know Quilt.
Some are more improvisational in design and some are simply triangles sewn into rows. Easy to choose a design that works at a skill level you’re comfortable with.
Somewhere along the way stumbled upon a large star layout and decided it was a perfect design for my triangles’ placement.
Keeping with my tradition at this point I pulled from stash for the back. I have a love affair with this Alexander Henry fabric and have some pillows around with it that are in the household rotation.
The binding is a double binding so that the quilt would have a little framing and the quilting is a grid of straight lines.
I really like how it turned out and there’s a bit of star twinkle in some of the fabrics that have silver threads running through them.
A new quilt is always a welcome addition to lectures and for feeding interest in workshops and I’ve got a few of those coming up. October has some opportunities to visit me outside the studio and even the state. I’ll be at Quilting Mayhem teaching my Improv 101 | Coin Quilt.
If you live in Oregon I’ll be at the Stitchin’ Post teaching Psychedelic Baby October 18th and Double-Trouble Triangles October 19th. My Thread Talk is at 6:30pm October 17th; classes are 9AM-4PM. I’d love to see you!
With October being pretty full I’ve stuck mostly to Open Studios, but as always if you see a workshop you’re interested in email me and we’ll find a date that works:) Happy Weekend Peeps!
I completed this lovely ages ago and have just needed a brighter Seattle day to photograph it.
| Inspiration |
| Quilting |
| Binding and Backing |
I love the controlled chaos happening in it. I’m going to make a larger one for our bed once I finalize the color way. Decisions decisions. I am slow moving, but am working on a pattern for this quilt.
And just like Christmas I allow myself a few new Halloween prints. Novelty print generally means pillows. You already know I’m seriously not lacking in pillows and nothing stops me from making more. I believe I’ve added five to the rotation this year for Halloween alone;). Last year my splurge was this zombie fabric by Riley Blake. A huge spiderweb pillow (
Since it needed something matchie-matchie and I had left over test blocks I made a couple more.
I generally buy the forms from 
All have invisible zippers following my 
My favorite made addition of the year is the hanging candy bucket I created using 
So I kind of reincarnated this quilt. It really is the original 
To remake this quilt I took out all the quilting, removed three seams, switched around some rows, and sewed it back together. I know, a little crazy. Some things take more then one try to deliver favorable results. It’s a little wonky around the edges and one row too long, but better in my opinion.
The thing about quilting or practicing any art is sometimes the finish is so satisfying, and sometimes…well, it’s just kind of ‘meh.’ But all these finishes lead to the next great idea. Besides discovering that I should never remove quilting ever ever ever again, I learned a couple of new things. One, I don’t think the imprint from the long arm quilting will ever really dissipate, and two, any quilting that has sharp points to it creates really tiny stitches at the turn that are strong and difficult to remove, even with my 
What I do know is that I still love myself a scrap quilt. Every little bitty one;) You can see more of this block if you want, I’ve collected some of those images 
Happy week Peeps!
Popping in for a minute in support of 
It was a tie for me this year between 
I’ll place this quilt under 
I have a whole write up about this lovely quilt 
Regardless of the pile of quilts in need of quilting, I’ve got a finished quilt top to show you! Another using what I call the 
Where I get my color way inspiration for my quilts is a common question. Since I’ve had a languishing half-written post about the various avenues I take for gathering it, I’ll just share a bit here and there as quilts come together. Like my 
Once I’ve got a color way solidified I try to shop from my fabric stash as much as possible and fill in the holes from there. I try to think of it as a good challenge when I run out of fabric and mix something I have in (even a shade or tint lighter or darker). Though not as drastic as some, this quilt had that going on when it came to the white. I supplemented some white flannel and off-white adding some texture and depth.
This month I’ve got out of town students coming to take 
