Mighty Lucky Quilt Club Challenge Announced

The July Mighty Lucky Quilt Club is out and I am so excited to share it with you. This month I am sharing a fun and pretty easy challenge. Dive into your stash for a favourite fabric and see if you can use it to make a single block, even a single quilt with just that fabric. You'd be surprised how fun and very doable that challenge is to do.

Have you heard about the Mighty Lucky Club? It is a monthly challenge for quilters. it's all about pushing ourselves creatively and with technique. You can sign up for one month or the whole year. It is a great collection of designers working hard to inspire you. For only US$5 you get a delivery of a PDF to your inbox with all the challenge details. It is $50 for the year's worth of challenges.

The quilt above is from my July challenge, available now. In the challenge I give you tips and tricks for using a single fabric in a quilt, share different examples, and even provide a block pattern for playing. Actually, the pillow is another example from the challenge. Want to learn more? Check out the Mighty Lucky Quilt Challenge!

You can also learn more about the challenge and hear me chat about a bunch of topics on the new Crafty Planner podcast with Sandi Hazelwood. I was really excited to formally chat with Sandi. Her interviews are always so thoughtful and she asks great questions.  Obviously, I'm biased, but I think it was a great interview.

Pickets, A Quilt from Uppercase Fabrics

Pickets

Many of you know Uppercase Magazine. If you know the magazine you know by now that Janine Vangool, the editor and publisher has her first line of fabric coming out this spring, with Windham Fabrics. If you don't know Janine, the magazine, or the fabric I strongly suggest you seek them out. Creativity abounds, with no shortage of inspiration!

I am lucky enough that Janine is based here in Calgary. This means I can pop into her office with my son in tow. He can play trains while Janine and I can chat all matters writing, magazines, quilting, fabric, and more. Janine is a beautiful and hardworking woman. She is tremendously inspiring to me. So when Janine asked me to create a quilt with her upcoming fabrics I was thrilled to give back.

While the entire Uppercase line is full of bold colours (and prints pulled from the magazines spine designs) I went with the lighter prints for my quilt. Janine encouraged me to make something that was me, that was my style. So, of course, I was drawn to the more low volume prints and some improv work!

That alphabet print in metallic silver is destined to become an all-time favourite print of mine. And the oranges. Such perfect oranges. So perfect that I had to add them in to the stack for good measure.

Then I did what I generally always do. Hacked apart the fabric and just started sewing. I wasn't sure what it would be and had little intention when I started. The only direction I gave myself was that the pieces of orange would be skinny bits.  That's it. The rest of the fabric was cut into my usual small, medium, and large pieces. Then I put on some good music and got to sewing. Definitely my favourite part.

After awhile I stopped to evaluate where things went. I always do this. Start sewing then stop. Up on the design wall I get an indication of direction - what do the blocks want to be? It was at this point I made the decision to only place the orange strips vertically. First layout decision done, I made more blocks. The next evaluation had me seeing that some blocks had more dark orange than others. Rather than try to balance things out, I decided to concentrate these snippets. That meant now making blocks that had few or none of the orange pieces in them. After that it was a matter of making enough blocks to get to a decent size. Then puzzling the top together. (For an idea on how that process works check out my Creative Live class: Improv Quilting Basics.) 

All over texture was the name of the game when it came to quilting. The most perfect grey thread - Aurifil 2600 - came into action. I chose to do a repeating free motion U motif in a nod to Uppercase itself. It was easy, quick, and effective. 

At this point I was still unsure about including that pink fabric in the quilt. It initially seemed at odds with the silver, turquoise, and orange. But I pushed myself to go beyond that popular combination by adding the pink. It tripped me up a few times in the process, but something in me kept in in there. Once the quilt was finished I was happy I took the risk. Makes it just a bit different and a lot more dynamic.

When I finished the quilt Janine invited me to help her out with her look book photo shoot. Kirstie Tweed from Orange Girl did the photography for her. It was a wildly busy and creative day. Janine did so much work, so much sewing herself, to showcase the potential of the fabric. All day we played and styled and shot. Heck, the shoot was so successful that Kirstie went out and bought a sewing machine within a week and taught herself how to sew! 

That's just how inspiring Janine and Uppercase are - it gets us to action, to creative delight. Check out the website for more on the Uppercase Fabric, to see the look book itself, and go behind the scenes with Janine. 

Improv Applique With Boundless Fabrics

Sometimes you just get an idea in your head and until you actually act on it the whole thing nearly haunts you.

It is no secret that I have an addiction to hand applique now. But I also really love improv. A few weeks ago I wondered if the two techniques would play well together. Applique is often thought of as requiring prep and planning. Even to me it seems to contradict the spirit of improv. But if we don't worry about all the planning and embrace the process of applique then just maybe the two can play together.

To toot my own horn, I was so right!

Focusing on shape and contrasting fabrics it is quite easy to use the simple tools of scissors, needle, thread, and fabric to improvise with applique. I started with a charm pack of Boundless Fabrics from Craftsy (it is their own fabric line) that I was given back in a swag bag back in January. After that I picked a shape - the wedge - and just started. With little thought to colour I cut some wedges and grabbed contrasting backgrounds.

As much as I am improvising I am still using good technique. I took the time to baste each wedge my hand - my preferred method. Then I am needleturning to finish the applique.

Who knows where this will go? That is the spirit of improv after all: starting without knowing where you will end up. I've finished 7 blocks so far, but there is more fabric left and I'm quite enjoying the play. 

Giant Dresdens

How fun to start a new project. It's been a while since I started something brand new, right from the fabric pull. (I have another project that I'll share next week too).

This project is destined for the lap of an almost 90 year woman. I don't usually take commissions, but my closest cousins asked if I would make something for their Baba on the other side. I had an idea I wanted to try and some

Allison Glass fabric that has been sitting around forever

that I wanted to use. Those two things combined into a yes to the project.

And so I'm playing, experimenting, trying something new. I'm in love. These are giant Dresdens. I had a

Fat Cat ruler

in my QuiltCon swag bag. I'm not exactly likely to make a cat block, but the same ruler works perfectly for 30 degree wedges for a Dresden Plate. These completed Dresdens measure about 26'' in diameter! And it only takes about an hour to cut and sew each one. Pretty good time investment for big impact. Just need to get some background fabric and sew these down. But maybe I'll make at least one more first.