Two Years Of 12 x 12 Art Quilts

A group of local quilters has recently completed two years of making 12" x 12" art quilts -completing one every two months working to a selected theme for each one.  I really enjoyed this experience and am now taking part in a 20" x 15" challenge working to colour themes.  We have three months to complete these. 

Here are some of my 12 x 12 quilts

"Spring"

 

"Vintage"        

"Temptation"  -my idea for this was "The Grass Is Always Greener" and it is made in my favourite style of sewing small crumbs of fabric together.

"Perspective"

"Nursery Rhyme" - "Rain Rain Go Away"

"Autumn"

I will need to track down some of the other images on my computer and will put them in another post. 

It has been a long time since I last posted but we have been having a conversation about blogging in an on line group I belong to and it has inspired me to have another go at this.

QUILTY 365

This is my first 8 weeks of Quilty 365.  This will be linked back to http://quiltyfolk.blogspot.co.nz/2016/01/january-quilty-365-linkup.html

I started my blocks on November 1st and have decided to sew them together in 2 week strips.  I am thinking that I will end up with too many blocks to make a well proportioned quilt so may have to incorporate the last few months into the backing -we will see how it progresses.  My blocks are 4.5" square and I am varying the size of my circles.  I am using scrap pieces of my low value fabrics for the background -even piecing many of the background squares to use up smaller scrap pieces.  As I do a lot of scrap quilting and love working with tiny scraps of fabric I am also making some of my circles scrappy.

I belong to a private facebook group of 50 fellow quilters and several of us are playing along with this project. 

Fantastic Fusion and Flow

This is the quilt I started in Lisa Walton's Fantastic Fusion class.  It is 100" x 107" and is completely fused.  There is no sewing until you start the quilting.  This is the most intense quilting I have ever done.

Above is the 12" x 12" art quilt I have made with some of the offcuts from the original quilt.  I am calling this "Flow On From Symposium".  The topic is Flow.  We have our reveal for this round on Saturday.

Next two 12 x 12 quilts

We are now on to our fourth 12 x 12 topic - FLOW.  I am working on a fused piece using left over pieces from a quilt I started at symposium. 

We have had two other reveals since I last wrote about our group. 

VINTAGE - I did the following crazy patch mini quilt for that topic.

TEMPTATION - My piece for this topic is called "The Grass Is Always Greener"

 

This was made by sewing small scrap pieces of fabric together and has been hand quilted with a few beads added.

Mason's Quilt

 

I am so slack at posting on my blog -it has been several months.  In that time I have completed several projects.

This quilt was finished today and it is for one of my grandsons.  I have a very similar matching one on the quilting frame at the moment -it is for Mason's younger brother Kobe. 

The sailing ships were won from block lotto many months ago.  I ended up with 36 blocks and have now used 24 of them.  The letters in the name and the wonky stars are pieced.  The other blocks with the whales, seahorses fish and starfish are all raw edge applique.  For the first time I actually appliqued these blocks with the sewing machine -much quicker than doing it by hand.

Since winning these blocks I have won twice more so still have at least two more "Block Lotto" quilts to make. 

This month for Block Lotto we are fusing batik flower to a low value background fabric. We will not be appliqueing these but leaving it for the recipients to decide which method they will use.

 

These are my first three blocks.  I can make up to nine blocks.

New 12 x 12 group

I have recently helped set up a new 12 x 12 art quilt group in our area.  I have been playing in the background of another local group  for about a year - I made small quilts for there first six topics but was not part of their reveal.  Now that we have our own group up and running I have stopped making quilts for their themes. 

I held the first meeting at my house and chose the first theme - spring.  I chose this theme for several reasons:
                -the word has several meanings
                -it will be spring when we have our first reveal later in September
                -I thought it was a relatively easy topic for those who have not done this sort of work    
                 before.

I have made the following quilt and will call it "Spring Garden Festival"  - we have a fabulous annual garden festival in our region every spring.

 

I will also be revealing a second art piece that I made for another textile group I belong to.  I will call this "Spring Homecoming Ball".  Although there is very little fabric on this one it is made with a front, batting and backing.  I found the idea in a recent Cloth, Paper, Scissors magazine.

 

 

 

I am really enjoying making these art quilts.  I will blog about some of the others soon.

 

 

New Toy

I am feeling so chuffed - I have shouted myself a new Juki sewing machine and swiftquilter frame.

 

When we set it up we didn't realise that it had an extension for larger quilts - will have to rethink how I set it up as I wouldn't be able to use the extension at the moment. 

 

However I have quilted one cot sized quilt already.

 

 

This quilt has been sitting around for awhile although I have only recently added the 4" squares in the border.  I made this quilt in response to a challenge on http://www.15minutesplay.com/ to use low value fabrics.

 

I also rescued a much loved small quilt from my daughters place that needed a few repairs.  Because of my love of using small scraps of fabrics I don't always use 1/4" seams and have had a problem with seams coming adrift.  I mended the seams with invisible thread and the quilted it all over.  Hopefully it will last a lot longer now.  I have no photos of this one.

Tumbling Bricks

 

I  am working through my pile of UFO's and have recently finished this bright lap quilt. 

My pile is reducing but unfortunately I cannot resist starting new ideas so I have many WIP's as well.

I am entering this one in the small quilt section of Amy's  Bloggers Art festival.

Bloggers Quilt Festival

There are several categories in this years Bloggers Quilt Festival. 

Here is my entry in the mini quilt category.

 

I have been playing along in the background with a local 12 x 12 group.  I missed out on getting into the first group and we are waiting to start a second group.  In the meantime I decided to make a small quilt for each of their topics.  I am using as practice to improve my skills. 

The topic for this quilt was "Link".   This is my daisy chain - it is the first time I have made a 3D quilt with the addition of the netting and large daisy in the centre.

Textile Art Classes

Over the last few months I have been taking part in an informal textile art class.  There are usually only around 4 - 6 of us at each class and we have learned some fabulous techniques which I hope to put into practice.  In the most recent class we did sun printing.  I have carried this on at home and these are some of he pieces I have produced so far.

 

The above piece was produced by twirling the fabric and then leaving it to dry.  This piece of fabric has been ironed flat and the apparent creases are an optical illusion.  I love the depth to this piece.

The rest were created by overlaying stencils on the fabric.

 

Wow it has been so long since I last blogged - I hope to include some more examples of our work in future blogs.  

Cone Flower Quilt

I have just completed my first Craftsy course   - Pictorial Quilts with Wendy Butler Berns. 

I used the pattern that she supplied with the course to produce this gorgeous quilt.  I am really happy with how it has turned out.  This is the most quilting that I put on a quilt so far.  I am starting to become more comfortable with free motion quilting but have a lot more to learn yet.

I am now hoping to progress on to producing pictorial quilts from my own photos. 

This is the first one I want to attempt.

 

It is a photo of one of my granddaughters taken a couple of years ago. 

Happy Scrap String Quilt

 

I am addicted to working with scraps and seeing what I can produce.

 

I recently finished this scrap string quilt.  I sewed many various width strips of scrap strings and then joined them with scrap pieces of a blue batik which had been cut of a backing of another quilt when preparing that quilt for binding.  I purposely kept the blue strips different widths and didn't straighten the edges either so as to produce a wonky look to the piecing.  The side edges were constructed from some of my scrap 4'" blocks cut into half square triangles.  I only quilted along the blue pieces stitching in about 1/8" from each edge.  It has given the effect of binding applied between each block of scraps.  I also quilted the blue triangles in the same method.

 

At a recent regional day someone commented that it looked a happy quilt hence the title to this blog post.

12 x 12 Play

 Our local regional quilt group TPQ has recently started a small group who are creating 12 x 12 mini quilts to a set theme each two months.  I missed out on getting into this group but am waiting to work with the co-ordinator of the first group to establish a second group of 12 quilters.  In the meantime I am working along in the background using their themes as practice. 

The first theme was energy and I have decided to try something different each time if possible.  The above 12 x 12 was made by using a piece of my made fabric and then threads painting a lightening bolt onto it.  This is my first attempt at thread painting.

The second theme is labels.   I was given a packet of photo printing paper a while ago.  I have previously printed images onto fabric for other people using fabric backed with freezer paper but this is the first time I have used printed images myself.  I took a photo from our trip to Vietnam which I have always liked.  I also downloaded some label images and printed them onto fabric.  I have placed the images onto a piece of linen I found in the cupboard.  The result is rather stiff but I will continue with it as these pieces are just practice for me.  I intend facing this block rather than binding.  I don't think there will be too much quilting as I don't want to quilt over the images.

12 x 12 Water Challenge

 

My mother and I have been considering joining a 12 x 12 group that has been recently formed by our local guild.  We missed out on the first group and are now on a waiting list for next year.  However we have both had self doubts as to whether we could work to a theme. Recently at a local quilt group meeting I challenged her to make a 12 x 12 quilt with the theme of Water so that we could practice.  Another quilt club member decided to join us in this challenge.  They are both still working on their pieces.

I spend a lot of my 15 minutes play time constructing 12 x 12 and 4" square blocks from my scraps which are now waiting to be used in other projects.  The background to this quilt was one of  these blocks.  I hand appliqued all the pieces on - some of which were fussy cut from other pieces of fabric.  The shiny pieces are meant to be jelly fish floating in the water.

Once they have completed their small quilts I am going to suggest we carry on with two other small quilts with them each providing a theme.  I am keen to continue using my made fabric pieces for these challenges but will wait and see what topics they come up with.

Back Beach

 

 

 

It was a beautiful evening to take a walk along one of our local beaches known as Back Beach.   I recently purchased a small samsung waterproof and shock proof video/still camera to take on our holiday to Costa Rica, Ecuador and Galapagos in May and June.  I am really pleased with the quality of the images but will probably have to wait until June to test its underwater qualities. 

Mellow Yellow Monday

Kowhai trees in bloom at Kawakawa Bay 

Foto Finish - The End

 

 

Barbara at Cat Patches blog has decided to end her weekly link up for Foto Finish. At most only around six people have linked up weekly. These are my last images. I wanted to use images taken last weekend on a Women In Action trip to Raglan. We meandered our way to Raglan on Saturday by the back roads stopping several times to view different beaches and natural phenomena. These images are from three different places.



1 - Exiting the tunnel through to the beach at Waikawau

2 - Natural bridge at Marakopa

3 - Underground tunnel at Waitomo.



Thank you Barbara for hosting Foto Finish.

Foto Finish - Birds

This weeks optional topic for Foto Finish at http://catpatches.blogspot.co.nz/2012/11/foto-finish-birds.html is birds.  I have no idea what this gorgeous bird is but the photo was taken in Bali.

Flower Power Quilt

Finally I have managed to add more to my flower power quilt. I am now appliqueing more butterflies onto it and also adding bling with beads and embroidery.  The inspiration for this quilt came from Mary Lou Weidmans Flower Power book. http://marylouweidman-marylou.blogspot.co.nz/  I love the bright and cheerful quilts that Mary Lou and her friends make. I have used some of my made fabric for the border and also in some of the flowers.  I am just starting to teach myself to free motion quilt so hope I can eventually add some interesting quilting to this. 

Foto Finish - Leaves

This photo was taken in Vanuatu earlier this year.  I love the contrast between the green and brown leaves.