Curves, Wedges, & Wonky Log Cabins.
On January 31, 2015 I attended a Workshop hosted by RCQG taught by Maggie Vanderweit on Curves, Wedges, & and Wonky Log Cabins. It was an excellent workshop and I had a lot of fun.
Maggie's first demonstration on how to cut fabric to create a curve was worth the price of admission. I have avoided curves for a long time and to see how simple it really was made me excited to try it out. I got a bit crazy doing it with my first set of fabric and ended up making too many cuts and it did not turn out pleasing in the end. However, I ended up restraining myself for the next trial and put two pink "flames" into a blue background and got this:
for me this is reading as a sky with pink wispy clouds - will have to explore this a bit more in the future. I am thinking of appliquéing a flower in the lower right and quilting it with horizontal curves that mimic the pink "flame" shape.
The wedges portion of the day, was interesting, I have done work with wedges and triangles before and made interesting shapes with them. Arches and curved works to snake around, the technique for cutting curves was used to cut triangles and I can really see how this technique can be used to attach odd shapes together in the future (I used it to add the border to the wonky log cabins I did – see below). For some reason the wedges did not excite me as much as the curves and flames did or the wonky log cabins did.
The wonky log cabins was fun, wile Maggie did not think mine were wonky enough to start with, I really like how they turned out – I took 6 bold colours (of the rainbow – minus indigo) – red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple, and cut a rectangle of the same size of each colour. Then used that as the start of each log cabin, but did not repeat that starting colour in each of the blocks. I then joined them together with a black background fabric (using the technique we discussed in class). I think it looks like a stained glass window – thus I am calling it “Wonky Stained Glass”
The key to the technique that Maggie showed us was to keep the two fabrics you wish to join face up when you cut them. Then join fabric A to fabric B. You have to line them up as you sew, when you fold it open it lays flat. This seems so obvious to me know, but could not come up with it on my own. – Thanks Maggie.
RCQG - Show Challenge
The Royal City Quilters' Guild's Quilt Show is this year. They have challenge fabrics for a nightscape.
The owl fabric is a bit intense, however, I think I have come up with a way to use both fabrics and give a nightscape. I took a silhouette of a Japanese Gate (Torii) and placed it in front of a moon with a purple background and had two owls on it and a branch of a yellow cherry blossom in the front on the right side.
Then I shrunk the moon and centered it just on the owls. Trying to figure out which of the two I like most. Will probably make both and see which one turns out better.
I am going to get to use a brother ScanNCut (borrowed from Monica B.) to cut out the cherry blossoms and then will appliqué them on to the quilt and thread paint over them. To give them the detail I want.
Will post updates as I get moving with this project, would like to get it mostly done this weekend.
Use Grey
The Modern Group decided the next challenge was to use grey as a common element.
I found some great fabric in Calgary that had a gradient of grey from dark to light then back to dark. I cut it in half to get a piece that wheat from dark to light, then I quilted it using two shades of grey thread to have the thread and fabric match, however in the bottom third I used purple thread doe a small section and couched a shiny purple ribbon on to outline the section of purple quilting.
I then free hand thread painted a butterfly on purple silk and attached it to the upper right of the quilt.
My plan is to do this one again and use a technique I learned at a Royal City Quilters' Guild Workshop, by Maggie Vanderweit - "Curves, Wedges, and Wonky Log Cabins". (Jan 31, 2015)
will add a purple wave instead of the purple ribbon.
About the Chickens
First Post
Well, I thought it might be good to start a blog, I am not sure what I am wanting from this. However, I am looking to improve my writing and I thought that this would be a good way to do that. I hope to post once a week at minimum, I will try to do more than that, I don't really expect anyone to be following me here, but if you stumble in here and want to say something, feel free.
I don't have any expectations on what I want here; I will explore and will find a voice. The one common element will be quilts.
One of my favourite quilts is the one I did for my mother. I pieced this quilt and love how the design turned out (Burgoyne Surrounded by Marsha McCloskey in "Quick Classic Quilts"). The quilting was done by Creative Sisters in Kitchener.
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