A good friend of our family has a nephew who we have gotten to know well over the past years via canoe trips, ski trips and adventure travels taken together. He and his long time girl friend announced their wedding last year and of course my first reaction was, "I'll make you a quilt!". Since I like to please recipients of my quilts I let the bride know I would be making a quilt and asked what colors she would like. She replied, 'Emerald, Silver and Champagne, the colors of my wedding.' Thinking my email had been confusing and hoping she would change her mind regarding her palette, I replied to explain that I was asking about colors because these would be the colors that would be in her quilt and that they didn't have to be wedding specific. She replied with the same palette. Oh boy...... this was WAY out of my comfort zone, how am I going to make this work?
I had decided long before I had emailed the bride that the quilt would be 60 degree triangles, made from solids and it would be a over-sized lap quilt. I had been pinning quilts on Pinterest like this for some time. I loved the play of colors and the simplicity. I also loved the secondary patterns that 60 degree triangles make. With the palette given I knew to create interest that I had to include more colors than the three requested so I turned to my Kona color swatch card for inspiration. From a on line class I had taken on color from Rachel at Stitched in Color I had previously cut up the card so that I could rearrange and play with the swatches to create color palettes. I knew I wanted to keep the colors classic and also wanted an outdoor feel since both of them do a lot of out door activities, summer and winter. After a lot of consideration and some input from the on line quilting community I created a palette of Kona Emerald, Aloe, Jade, Champagne, Silver, Medium Gray and Snow.
To make the triangles easier to piece I starched the fabric three times prior to cutting. It was almost like paper but worked well so that there was no stretching in the piecing process. The rows came out very even and straight. Once I had the rows pieced to a suitable length I started contemplating the negative space. Just at this juncture of construction I watched Jacquie Gherings' webinar offered through the Modern Quilt Guild, 'Modern, I Know It When I See It'. She displayed a quilt that was bordered with off centered negative space and I knew that's where my quilt was headed as well. For the insert on the side, I had made a pillow earlier in the year with similar inserts and decided that would be perfect to create some interest in the negative space. One thing I would change about the insert would be to float it versus having it extend the full way, top to bottom. Another thing I would change is the narrower negative space on the top and bottom. I would make it about two inches wider. It was a bit too narrow to comfortably quilt.
The backing is a Micheal Miller fabric (sorry can't remember the name) that our local quilt shop owner suggested. It was perfect! I quilted the quilt on my APQS George and this was the first REAL quilt done with George. There were some frustrating moments which resulted in taking out of some quilting and redoing. I chalk that up to learning curve. I did love the the 20 inches of harp space to work with. The quilt is 68 inches by 72 inches and I didn't even know it was under the harp space. This was the first time I have done Orange Peel quilting. Once I got the first two passes done doing the sides of the triangles I had to tell myself....wait till you do the bottoms of the triangles. With only the sides done it looked like the quilt was filled with bunny ears! I loved the quilting after the bottoms were done.
This is the last large project of the year. Of course that's what I always say! :-) If I had to name this quilt I would name it Breathe. It reminds me of a crisp winter day out skiing where you can breathe in the the cold, piney air.
I had decided long before I had emailed the bride that the quilt would be 60 degree triangles, made from solids and it would be a over-sized lap quilt. I had been pinning quilts on Pinterest like this for some time. I loved the play of colors and the simplicity. I also loved the secondary patterns that 60 degree triangles make. With the palette given I knew to create interest that I had to include more colors than the three requested so I turned to my Kona color swatch card for inspiration. From a on line class I had taken on color from Rachel at Stitched in Color I had previously cut up the card so that I could rearrange and play with the swatches to create color palettes. I knew I wanted to keep the colors classic and also wanted an outdoor feel since both of them do a lot of out door activities, summer and winter. After a lot of consideration and some input from the on line quilting community I created a palette of Kona Emerald, Aloe, Jade, Champagne, Silver, Medium Gray and Snow.
To make the triangles easier to piece I starched the fabric three times prior to cutting. It was almost like paper but worked well so that there was no stretching in the piecing process. The rows came out very even and straight. Once I had the rows pieced to a suitable length I started contemplating the negative space. Just at this juncture of construction I watched Jacquie Gherings' webinar offered through the Modern Quilt Guild, 'Modern, I Know It When I See It'. She displayed a quilt that was bordered with off centered negative space and I knew that's where my quilt was headed as well. For the insert on the side, I had made a pillow earlier in the year with similar inserts and decided that would be perfect to create some interest in the negative space. One thing I would change about the insert would be to float it versus having it extend the full way, top to bottom. Another thing I would change is the narrower negative space on the top and bottom. I would make it about two inches wider. It was a bit too narrow to comfortably quilt.
The backing is a Micheal Miller fabric (sorry can't remember the name) that our local quilt shop owner suggested. It was perfect! I quilted the quilt on my APQS George and this was the first REAL quilt done with George. There were some frustrating moments which resulted in taking out of some quilting and redoing. I chalk that up to learning curve. I did love the the 20 inches of harp space to work with. The quilt is 68 inches by 72 inches and I didn't even know it was under the harp space. This was the first time I have done Orange Peel quilting. Once I got the first two passes done doing the sides of the triangles I had to tell myself....wait till you do the bottoms of the triangles. With only the sides done it looked like the quilt was filled with bunny ears! I loved the quilting after the bottoms were done.
This is the last large project of the year. Of course that's what I always say! :-) If I had to name this quilt I would name it Breathe. It reminds me of a crisp winter day out skiing where you can breathe in the the cold, piney air.
Wow! What a beauty! The colours are beautiful and the quilting is such a compliment to the design. Great job, Ruthann Grace!
ReplyDeleteThank you! It was fun to make. I have quite a of fabric left so might make a smaller version for me!
ReplyDelete