Urban-Inspired Quilting

A few months ago, during the last Blogger's Quilt Festival, I won a $20 gift certificate to Pink Chalk Fabrics (an online fabric store).  I loved all of their fabrics and just could not decide what to get and never got around to using the gift certificate.  The other day I remembered it and started hunting on their site again and came across this book:

City Quilts, by Cherri House.

I ordered it and I am in love.  It pretty much perfectly marries my two loves - quilting and urban planning.  It has 12 patterns in it, but also tons of great tips on designing your own quilts, choosing color palettes, and particularly promotes the use of solid-color fabrics.

Now I have to admit, prior to acquiring this book I had no interest in solids other than for sashing or to set off a whole bunch of crazy prints.  But after pouring over this book I think that I may be starting a new chapter in my quilting adventures.

Literally four days after this book came in the mail I ordered a butt-load of solids from Hancock's of Paducah and already have a plan for them.

This is a version of one of the patterns in the book called City Tracks.  Cherri made her version of in some beautiful reds and oranges.  For some reason I can't get past this grouping of colors.  I was inspired by the colors of glass found on high-rises and sort of grey smoggy colors of late winter in Chicago.

I still have to finish my folding screen quilt, but this is what I'll be working on next.  In the meantime, I think the book is fantastic and inspiring.  Happy quilting!

Building a folding screen

I've made some progress on my latest quilt over the last week.

The finished quilt will measure 88"x104" and should nicely fit a queen size bed.

All four panels are finished and connected; now I just need to add a 4" border of that same gray all the way around to finish the top.

Scrappy Afghan

I finished my son's afghan last week, but am just now getting the time to post it.

It turned out to be a great stash-buster and my son loves it.  

He's had this Spongebob blanket that has been his comfort blanket since his first birthday and as soon as I finished this one he decided that he wanted this one with him at night instead.  Quite an honor, let me tell you.  :)

I just love the way all the random colors came together.  Looking at all that leftover yarn I really didn't think it would turn out as nicely as it did.

And since it's all acrylic yarn it washes beautifully and is surprisingly soft.

Update:  You can find more about the pattern I used to crochet it here.  Basically, it's a (slip stitch followed by a double crochet) repeated all the way across one row; then you double crochet in every slip stitch and slip stitch in every double all the way across the next row.  And repeat!

I'll be linking this up to a few of the great parties in my Link Parties tab as well as Met Monday!

New Quilt in the Works

Some of you may remember me playing around with these fabrics a while ago... I have since decided that a lone star quilt just isn't they right use for them.  They are mostly big prints and I even have a panel that I wasn't making use of in my original idea.  So, I went back to the EQ7 drawing board and came up with this...

 

I based the structure of the blocks off of a Japanese folding screen.  I have it planned as another queen size quilt at 88" by 104".  The grey borders and columns will be 4" wide, finished.  The large blocks make for fast piecing and cutting which is exactly what I need right now.

These will be the center two panels, so that when it lays on my bed, the crane panel will be seen as a whole.  The next two panels will have more of the green and yellow fabrics, but still have lots of the purples and pinks.

 

Progress on the Stashbuster

Mini Double Wedding Ring

I bought a pattern for this mini Double Wedding Ring (the finished top is 29" square) at the Rosemont Quilt Show last year only to realize that I hate paper piecing.  Fortunately, my mom came to the rescue and offered to piece the top for me with the scraps from my Wright's Window quilt (bottom photo). 

Here it is, ready to quilt.  I started drawing some circle chalk lines on it thinking that was how I was going to quilt it, but I'm not so sure I like them.  I am also not sure when I will be able to finish quilting it, but hopefully some day soon.

When it's finished it will hang above my bed and hopefully be a nice compliment to my quilt. 

Physical Planning class

One of my classes this semester is basically about hand drawing urban design site plans.  Later we'll be combining our renderings with some computer programs to make them look professional.  In the meantime, the first couple assignments were just to get us warmed up and actually drawing.  

Both of these were drawn from pictures I already had.  The top one was taken in Lubeck, Germany, probably in 1997.  The second was taken on Chicago's north side at the corner of Clark and Halsted.  Both are ink on paper.