Spinning Wheels – 2012 UFO Challenge for July

Quilt # 97

  

One more UFO completed!

Spinning Wheels was my #3, the number picked by Judy Laquidara at Patchwork Times to be completed for the July UFO Challenge.

Spinning Wheels 

The blocks were sewn together when I started. The blocks were made using all different stripped fabric along with my own hand-dyed brown fabric and muslin.

Spinning Wheels UFO

I added one border in the same hand dyed fabric.

I quilted the diagonal lines and then stitched spider webs in each square.

I also added some webs along the borders and small spider webs in the corners.

I did not add a label but I signed my name and year on the front of the quilt.

DOCUMENTATION:

Quilt Name: Spinning Wheels

Description: pinwheel blocks set side by side

Pattern: pinwheel

Size: 48” x 58”

Fabrics: 100% cotton, hand dyed muslin

Predominant colours: brown, white, red, blue, gold

Construction Techniques: pieced

Back: stripped brown cotton

Batting: cotton

Edge finish: Double fold french binding

Quilting: Free motion quilted on Domestic Machine

Quilted by: Terry Whyte

Sleeve: no

Label: signature & date

Maker: Terry Whyte

July's FMQ Challenge with Angela Walters

These are my samples for Angela Walters' Challenge for July 2012 FMQ Challenge at Insights from SewCalGal.

Tiles - front

For this sample. I used YLI Variations 2-ply Trilobal thread on top and in the bobbin and wool batting.

The quilting design is Leah Day's H2O.

Tiles - back

I want to quilt this design on one of my UFO which is all strips sewed in straight line and think that the irregular and Jagged variation would be a better option, so I made another sample.

Irregular and Jagged variation - front

For this one I used a heavy 12 wt Egyptian Cotton thread, Wonderfil Fruitti. I left the Trilobal used in previous sample in the bobbin. I really like the looks of this thread but found it a little heavy when travelling back over the lines.

The quilting design is from Ann Fahl's tutorial “Loop and Twist”. I used cotton batting since that will be what I will be using in my quilt.

Irregular and Jagged variation - back

 Not sure if I will use this thread but I love the look of the jagged tiles better than my wonky tiles in my first sample.

Great tutorial, thanks Angela!

Grey and Red Sampler

Quilt # 96

More documentation!

Grey and Red Sampler

This is the second sampler I made using the quilt as you go technique.

My best bet as to when this was made is the late nineties. I now always add a label or at least sign the front of the quilt with my name and the year.


Lattice was added to each block and each block was quilted individually and then stitched together by machine. 

Grandmother's Flower Garden and Drunkard's Path variation and lattice

Another Drunkard's Path variation and Dutchman's Puzzle

Wild Goose Chase and Ohio Star variation

School House and 6" Sawtooth Stars

Borders were sewn together and added to the blocks.

Grandmother's Flower Garden variation, borders and binding

The back of the quilt had to be stitched by hand around every block and border.  The lattice and borders were then quilted by machine.
This was a lot of work and it was the last quilt I made using this method.

This was also the first quilt where I started keeping track of how many times fabric was used in the making of the blocks. I learned that each fabric should be used equally to have a more unified look and so started experimenting with that in my next sampler “Red, White and Blue Sampler”.

keeping track

This worked well but I came up with the idea that using the same background fabric in all the blocks and also one specific fabric in all the blocks would really make a sampler all come together and get rid of the hodgepodge look that makes a lot of people “dislike” samplers.

That is my “recipe” when teaching sampler classes and it works like a charm.

DOCUMENTATION:

Quilt Name: Grey and Red Sampler

Description: 25 sampler blocks set with lattice

Pattern: Traditional Sampler

Size: 94” x 94”

Fabrics: 100% cotton

Predominant colours: grey, red and navy

Construction Techniques: 12” traditional blocks using different techniques, pieced and/or applique.

Back: 100% cotton paisley print

Batting: polyester

Edge finish: Double fold french binding

Quilting: Free motion quilted on Domestic Machine, hand quilting on some blocks 

Quilted by: Terry Whyte

Sleeve: no

Label: no

Date completed: ??? late nineties

Maker: Terry Whyte

Barn Raising

Quilt #95

Barn Raising

Barn Raising was the second king size quilt I made and I chose to do very large log cabin blocks. Each square measures 24”. The strips were cut 3” and finish at 2½”

The red centres were cut 4½” and finish at 4”.

24" log cabin block

My only criteria when choosing my fabrics was that each fabric had to have some red or pink.

For the light side the background could be white, off-white, beige.

The background for the dark side had to be black.

I cut 3” strips from any fabric that fit my rule and dropped them into 2 paper bags, one for light and one for dark. The strips were then pick at random and stitched into log cabin blocks. This was a fun, mindless and no stress way to stitch up the blocks.

back of Barn Raising

The 16 blocks were then arranged in the barn raising pattern and quilted in a diagonal grid.

3” strips were used to make a wide (1¼”) binding, it was machine stitched on.

Quite a few of the fabrics have really faded as you can see here.  This is the binding front and back (same fabric).

Black fabric faded to grey

DOCUMENTATION:

Quilt Name: Barn Raising

Description: 16 blocks, in 4 x 4 setting

Pattern: log cabin

Size: 98” x 98”

Fabrics: 100% cotton & polyester

Predominant colours: white, black, red, pink

Construction Techniques: pieced

Back: 100% cotton

Batting: polyester

Edge finish: Single fold binding stitched by machine

Quilting: Diagonal grid by machine

Quilted by: Terry Whyte

Sleeve: no

Label: no

Date completed: early nineties?

Maker: Terry Whyte

Love Birds

Quilt #94

I have 3 king size quilts left to document, these were all made in the early nineties when I was just starting to quilt, so bear with me.

This is the very first bed quilt I made and it is king size. What was I thinking!

Love Birds

I really cut my teeth on this one. I can see so many things wrong with it now but at the time I thought it was great.

Let's see:

Fabric selection – some cotton, some polyester.

Values – not good, some very light and some very dark, a medium would have been nice, did not know that,  then!

Piecing – not good

Hand quilting – so-so, for the amount I had done. I quilted this without a frame or hoop.

Here's a close.  The blocks were mirror images, stitched together where the beaks meet.

detail

And this the back, it looks brighter here than the navy that it is.

back

We all have to start somewhere and at the time, there was hardly any books and only a few magazines available, mostly with patterns only, not a lot of technique.

There weren't any classes available locally but I did manage to take 2 - one week workshops at Canadore College's summer program in North Bay in the early nineties. One was with Jackie Black of Thunder Bay and the other with Judith Dingle of Toronto.

DOCUMENTATION:

Quilt Name: Love Birds

Description: pieced

Pattern: pieced birds on heart pattern from magazine

Size: 89” x 98”

Fabrics: cotton & polyester

Predominant colours: grey, pink, maroon and navy

Construction Techniques: mirror pieced blocks

Back: navy polyester

Batting: polyester

Edge finish: back folded to front and hand stitched

Quilting: Hand quilted

Quilted by: Terry Whyte

Sleeve: no

Label: no

Date completed: Early nineties

Maker: Terry Whyte

June's FMQ Challenge with Cindy Needham

Practice Piece

The 2012 Free Motion Quilting Challenge for June instructor was Cindy Needham and she gave us the  fun challenge of "divide and conquer" and doodling different designs in each space.


This is my practice piece, which I really like, and may have to figure out something to do with it. 

close-up

close-up

Every month I have been finishing one of my UFOs, of which there are many, using the technique of the month.


This month, I really struggled trying to find one that would work.  I have ideas for starting lots of new projects using the above, but the plan is to finished something already started.


So I picked a project that I thought would never see the light of day again, ever.  I made this at least 20 years ago, I'm guessing, but I think that would be close.  I wanted to learn to hand applique and purchased a book that had this project in it.  It is not my style at all and I soon learned that hand applique wasn't either.  A lot of the applique was completed on the machine using the invisible hem stitch.


I have been reading Melanie Testa's book in which she draws an outline and then places a grid behind it.  Each square in the grid is quilted using a different design, leaving her outline not quilted.  In my mind, it it a somewhat divide and conquer type of thing, similar to Cindy's technique, only not so free flowing.


I thought this would be a better option for this quilt and there are already a lot of curves in this quilt.  I have part of it quilted.  This is what I have so far.

Out on a Limb

I think I will call this quilt "Out on a Limb".  I will do a post when it get finished.

I really enjoyed doing this kind of doodling technique, thank you Cindy Needham for the great tutorial.

Terry