Blogger's Quilt Festival - Recycling Blues

I am so excited to participate in another Blogger's Quilt Festival! 

For those of you who read my blog regularly, this is not a new quilt.  I was really hoping to finish a new quilt for the festival, but it just wasn't in the cards for me this time.

Instead, I am linking up our families favorite quilt.  I designed it around the idea of using a pile of blue fabrics from my stash in addition to some upcycled fabrics.  The quilt includes some upcycled work shirts belonging to my husband, some old jeans and a bunch of non-standard quilting fabrics.  Unfortunately, one of those fabrics in particular did not work out as planned.

See that shiny fabric (roughly in the center)?  The one to the left of my husband's initials from his work shirts?

It was a Chinese brocade made of polyester/nylon.  I knew it probably shouldn't have gone in the dryer, but... well... sometimes these things just happen.  And sometimes they happen more than once.  I didn't realize when I made it that it would become the house favorite and greatly abused.  It has been used as a picnic blanket, a throw, a dog bed, it's gone camping...

... but the dryer has destroyed that brocade and, clearly, it needed a rework.

But what to do?  How do you fix an old quilt?  I really didn't like the idea of trying to somehow replace all of those pieces.  Should I try and patch it?  Then I thought about how hideous a patch would be.  And then I thought some more... and realized that an applique is basically a fancy word for a "patch."  Eureka!

So, I carefully went over the quilt and marked every troubled seam and tear with a pin (and made them really obvious so I wouldn't miss any).  Then I dug out the only applique template I own.

After I sewed them all down by hand, I quilted over the top of each applique to help give the underlying fabrics a little more stability.  It worked.

I think I like this quilt more than some of the others I have made because it was a product of truly leftover and used fabrics, more like how quilts used to be made long ago out of whatever fabrics women could scrape together.  That fact that it is a bargello doesn't hurt either.

Did I mention that this quilt is much loved in our house? 

When I spread it out in the grass to photograph it originally, I only had about 3.4 seconds to snap pics before my son came running over to make use of it.  It sort of became a great big bulls-eye.

 

Oh.  And it also climbs trees.

 

I've washed and used the quilt dozens of times now since I added the applique hearts and it is holding up beautifully and is still the most well-used and well-loved quilt in our house.

I hope you enjoyed my entry to this seasons BQF... and I can't wait to see all the other beautiful entries!

"Folding Screen" - Blogger's Quilt Festival

Hooray!  The Blogger's Quilt Festival is here again!  And I finished my latest quilt just in time. 

It's called "Folding Screen," because that was what I was going for... a Japanese folding or rice paper screen.

Originally, I had contemplated several different patterns for this group of fabrics that I collected over time, but they all involved cutting up the fabrics too small to make good use of all of the bold prints. 

So, I took a different (for me) tactic and thought about what kind of pattern I could come up with that involved large pieces, including the panel and a bunch of fat quarters.  I chose grey for the "structure" of the folding screen because it worked well with all of the purples and pinks and I thought that black would be too much.

The fabrics themselves led me to the idea of trying to recreate the geometry of a folding screen.  And the fabrics also dictated the quilting designs as well.  I pulled the design from the swirls in the water in this fabric.

Here it is from the back...

 

Someone's always trying to get into my photo shoots.

This quilt has really helped me see that a quilt does not have to be complicated to be pretty and that the fabrics should really dictate a quilt.  That probably doesn't sound like much of a revelation, but I have a way of complicating things when left to my own devices.  :) 

The final quilt is 88" by 104" or roughly for a queen-size bed.  I made it for my sister and her husband and hope they'll enjoy it for years to come.  And I hope YOU enjoy the rest of the Blogger's Quilt Festival!

I'll also be linking this up to many of my favorite Link Parties, including Met Monday!  Enjoy!

Waves of Gratitude

I am so happy that it is finally time for another Blogger's Quilt Festival!  Hooray!

I think I may have mentioned a couple weeks ago that I am obsessed with bargello quilts.  I made my first early this year.  This is my second and I just love the combination of the smaller pieces and the wave effect of the fabrics as they move through the quilt.  It will not be my last either.

I picked out the majority of the fabrics in one trip to the fabric store.  It makes for a long trip, but for me it is really important to have all the fabrics together as you pick them out so you can more easily eliminate ones that don't belong and make sure one will flow well with the next.

As usual, I did not use a pattern. Basically, bargellos are made by sewing strips of one width together in some order and then cutting the sewn together strips again in the other direction at varying widths. I cut the first set of strips at 2 inches (so the finished width would be 1.5") and then cut those pieces again anywhere from 1" to 4". When you piece the strips together, you just stagger them by one block. For this particular one, I added one more step by having the image turn back out on itself from the center. They're not nearly as complicated as they look - one day I'll write a pattern or tutorial for it, but probably not for a little while.

It took me quite a while to decide on how I would quilt it.  I wanted the quilting to have curves to soften the geometry of the piecing and I also knew I wanted the quilting to follow along the waves.  In the end I decided on feathers.

I wasn't sure I'd be able to pull it off, not having a long arm, but I'm happy with it.  Which is good, because I almost ripped it all out on several occassions.

The quilt measures roughly 67" square and I backed it with flannel to make it extra snuggly. 

I named this quilt "Waves of Gratitude," because I actually made it for Quilts of Valor.  Their mission is "to cover all service members and veterans touched by war with wartime quilts called Quilts of Valor.  This foundation is not about politics.  It's about people."

Throughout the quilting process, even as I was first choosing fabrics, I was thinking about the person that would eventually get to take this quilt home.  I can hardly imagine what they may have seen or done in service of their country, but I thank them for it.  And I probably won't ever meet him or her, but hopefully they will know that they are appreciated.

Now that the quilt is finished and I've taken what feels like 4,000 pictures of it, I'll be taking it to my friend, Rita, who runs our local Quilts of Valor group called LOLQOV. 

I'll also be parading this quilt all through blogland via some of my favorite link parties, including Met Monday!  Check out my link parties page - they're all awesome! 

And I can't wait to check out all of your entries in the Blogger's Quilt Festival!

Getting excited...

It's coming, y'all!  The Blogger's Quilt Festival, hosted by Amy's Creative Side is just around the corner.  The festival opens two weeks from today.  It's a juried festival and you can link up any quilt, you just need to write a new post for it the week of the festival and link back to the festival.  It's super easy and a great way to see tons of super inspiring quilts and some amazing quilters around the world!  The last one was prompted me to start this blog so, of course, I'm super excited!  For more details on entering click on the button.

I'm hoping to finish one of my UFO's in the next two weeks (while simultaneously writing two big papers for school).  Should be a fun filled couple weeks!

If you're a quilter I hope you consider entering or at least checking out all the beautiful entries once the show starts - it really is fantastic and provides loads of inspiration.