Ulani - A Quilt Full of Sunshine

Ulani

66” x 66”

Ulani is full of sunshine. She’s a shining light in a stressful time. A reminder to look for light. She is a bright girl who brings joy to everyone she meets.

This sunny quilt comes from the leftovers of our family travels. I brought a stack of 6.5” squares with me to Egypt and Turkey. I made many into some improv blocks as a travel diary. When I got home and there were leftovers I made a quilty plan to use them. The scraps became this quilt, the rest are here (with a few extras to get to this size.)

After my long arming tension disaster I spent the entire 3rd season of Ted Lasso and then some ripping out all my quilting stitches. When I went back to the long arm I was prepared with extra fabric to test the tension. With the test done and all clear I proceeded with the exact same free motion quilting. There is absolutely no point to trying to follow the previous stitches. Really, that would just be a recipe for too much stress. Besides, any needle holes will disappear with the first wash. The whole quilting pattern is just a loopy stipple with stars interspersed here and there. Nothing fancy, but just the right texture for this quilt.

You can really see the quilting on the dark fabric on the back of the quilt. This blue print was purchased on our Egypt trip. The sightseeing guides (which is the best way to navigate the many sites in Egypt) conveniently build in shopping opportunities. Needless to say, I was looking forward to the trip to the Cotton Store! Buried in the basement were a few rolls of fabric on the bolt. There was my spot!!! (Did I get a pic? No.) I only bought 2 pieces of fabric. One, we would later see as a windbreak used by our Beduin guides on an overnight in the dessert. The other was just pretty. I did not have enough of either, however, to make a full back for this quilt without messing up the gorgeous pattern of the fabric. So I decided to simply frame out the one and use it here.

I absolutely love having this extra memory on the back.

If you know me, you know I love a contrast binding. Here I decided to use a blended binding, however, so that the stars stood out more. I almost went with a white print, but in the end, went with yellow because I had a lot of it.

Now this serves as another, cozy reminder of our trip. Not that we need cozy when we think of that trip because we will never forget that heat and that sun!

Beginnings of a Portrait Quilt of my Baba

Meet Nettie Ciona, my Baba.

This photo is nearly 22 years old, my Baba is long gone from our physical lives. But it is a photo and a moment I can always remember. We’d taken her out of her tiny town nursing home to visit the old house and garden. She was feeding the dogs, laughing at my sister-in-law selvaging an old, rotten chair, found out she was going to be a great grandmother, and my whole family was together in the Saskatchewan sunshine. For years I’ve had this image spinning in my creative mind.

The self portraits of 2023 were leading to this project. I wanted to explore the different ways to make a portrait to see how I might translate this one. In the end, I’ve gone back to my original, over the top idea.

You can see that I’ve pixelated the picture. I used a random, free app I found online. Upload the picture and they pixelate it for you. That’s all it does, so the next step is on me. I need to translate those pixels into a piecing plan. Again, I know there are fancy programs out there that could probably help, but the way I am doing it makes sense to me.

After pixelating the picture I opened up Excel. One square for each pixel. I’m creating a colour map. As I go I am simplifying the colours a little bit. For example, using 4 whites, 4 pinks, 3 blues. I don’t want to have to buy a million new fabrics! I also want to simplify it for the making process as well. I’m going to have a lot of colours as it is. This level of planning is way out of my comfort zone!

My plan for sewing is the truly over the top part. Each square will finish at 1”. But I am not using straight squares. Instead, each square will be an improv X block. That’s right, I’ll be making all the blocks as little Xs. You see, my Baba was a phenomenal cross-stitcher. She sewed millions and millions of little Xs in Aida cloth and on linen over her lifetime. This quilt will truly be an homage to her.

So far in my planning I’ve determined I will make the quilt square. It will be 90” x 90” More than that and it will be a lot of extra sewing for nothing but background. The composition of the photo will still work so I’m sticking with it.

So this is my Morning Make until I finish. With breaks, of course. In the meantime, I need to go shopping and buy a bit of fabric. My stash is deep, but not that deep!

Radha - An Exploration in Scale in Quilt Design

Radha

80” X 80”

Just 16 large blocks. They literally took me an hour to sew. And then hours contemplating their layout, but that is beside the point. When you want to play with scale, going big is the easiest way to do it!

To make this quilt I took roughly 2 meters of a black on black fabric and 2 meters of a white on white. I split it all into even squares. Depending on the width of your fabric that ends up about 21” on each side. (A meter is about 40” so I used a bit more than that to get them to be squares.) After making pairs of black and white I sliced through each pair on the curve, freehand. This improv curve technique is a comfort and a classic to me. After sewing each set back together I was left with 16 blocks.

Then they sat. And sat. I thought I was going to use them for one thing, then another. Then, this spring, I was hunting my stash for ideas. Our oldest nephew was getting married and of course I was going to make him a quilt! In conference with my mother in law and niece it was determined that black would be a favourite colour in a quilt. Not my norm, but I could do it. Then I remembered these blocks!

Once uncovered, pressed, and measured it was clear they weren’t all the same size. rather than trim everything down to a smaller size I decided to add some strips to make those few blocks bigger. And what better option than neon solids? I added them randomly based off of what I had available.

Then I spent hours over days trying to come up with a layout that worked. You can see some of the ideas here. In the end I went with something that felt more black. Perception is everything, right?

Continuing with the neon theme I quilted the whole thing with a bright peach thread. A few episodes of Revisionist History while on the long arm rental at My Sewing Room and it was finished. Then the mad scramble to get binding on before I left on our big summer trip. The wedding was the first weekend we were away.

Normally, I don’t get too fussed about finishing wedding presents on time. Maybe I should? That’s another story though. But I was feeling a bit guilty that my daughter and I were missing the wedding so I really wanted to have the gift available on time.

The backing is a combination of Tula Pink neons and that great green whose name I cannot remember. The Tula was perfect not only because the colour but both my nephew and his bride are big animal lovers. Now it has the black side and the bright side.

If you’ve been at a trunk show with me over the years you’ve heard me tell the story of how my first quilt was made after I found out my future sister in law was pregnant. It gave me permission to try quilting. My first quilt ever was made for this same nephew. Well, when I was binding the quilt I realized I still had 1 scrap from that very first quilt! It fit perfectly on the binding. I adore this full circle moment in both family and quilting.

Sadiya - Our Trip Diary Quilt from Egypt and Turkey

Sadiya

36”x 42”

Our trip is long over, the tastes gone from our mouth, the smells disappeared, the noise in the distance. All we have left are our memories.

Our journey to Egypt and Turkey this summer was beyond memorable. I am so glad that my last minute decision to bring sewing supplies resulted in this special piece. I’ve been sitting with all the memories as I stitched it. Opting for hand quilting/embroidery in all the blocks meant I’ve been sitting with it nearly daily for a few months. Bit sad to be done, really, because that means the trip is truly in the past.

Make sure to check out the post I made right after the trip with block and trip details.

To see details of the stitching on each finished block, I made a reel that you can see here. It was a lot of fun to pick stitches and patterns to both highlight block elements and sometimes reference the original block inspiration. I played around with thread weights, brands, and colours. Not to mention, a collection of stitch options!

While the back of the quilt is not a perfect reflection of the front, I did try hard to be as neat as possible. This meant thinking through my movements as I stitched, burying knots, and a constant aiming for consistency. Oh, and a pick a busy print to give yourself a break!

The binding was a special experiment. Inspired by ancient linen seen in the Grand Egyptian Museum I wanted a fringe element. Knowing that linen frays so nicely I embraced this instead of fighting it. Stay tuned for a tutorial on that.

In our house we have a no quilts on the wall rule. Considering that vast number of quilts here, I think it is a pretty fair rule. But even my husband agreed we could break it for this special quilt. Now to find the perfect spot to hang it so we can all smile at our shared memories. Oh wait, I guess I have to sew a sleeve on it first!

In case you missed it, here is the small quilt I made with the scraps from this one.