Sunday, March 23, 2014

Hidden in Plaid Sight


He's all done!

Here's how it started:
A gorgeous pack of charm squares plus 2 extra sets of 8, that I bought about 5 years ago at Sew Worth It in Sarasota.  They came in a tin, so cute, along with a pattern for a cute little 12 3/4" square quilt.  This line is "Follow Your Heart" by Kathy Schmitz.

The problem was that I didn't want to have all these pretty fabrics reduced to such a small quilt!  So there they sat, flipped through and admired, pattern looked at, and lid snapped shut again.  In this winter of finish up some of these old projects, I had to face all 3 sets of charm square packs and do something with them.  This one was the second one.  See here for the first.

I am so proud that I designed this lap quilt.  No pattern, just gut instinct and creativity.  It was fun!

What if...
I kept the same colours together, and graduated them from dark to light on the diagonal?  Hmmm...

I liked it, but it wasn't very big.  I had leftover light fabric from "Winter Night", so wondered what would happen if I used rectangles as spacers.  I didn't have enough for light sashing, so decided to go with my stash of Kona black cotton.  Hmmm, again. It just might work.


Laid out a few rows to get the effect
It DID work!

Framed in black.
I had bought the Craftsy class, Dot to Dot Quilting, with Angela Walters, back at the end of November.  Prior to beginning to quilt this quilt, I decided to watch some of the lessons to see if I could use any of the techniques here.  Well, it turned out that this was the perfect quilt on which to try the designs, and techniques to create my own quilting designs!


In the two lower right corner black squares diagonal from each other you see a wedge design, which is basically a quarter of her starburst design, expanded.  Also, in the black with red hearts square and going up diagonally in the other two black blocks is my own dot to dot design, created thanks to the principles learned in class.

In the top row, middle red square, is a nod to Angela's Free Motion Feathers class I took and used extensively on Seaside Rose.  Also I wanted to see what would happen if I combined the wedge designs with their points going inwards.  That example is the red square on the bottom right.  It ended up making a central diamond pattern!

Her diamond design is in the top left tan square, and the others have various combinations of her designs.  The bottom right square is my own design again.

I tried to get some back light on the quilt to show off the quilting.

Here is the border design, showing the corner.  I used the wedge triangle shape combined with half diamond designs.

I used Sulky rayons on the top and The Bottom Line and Gutermann cotton in the bobbin.  I decided to go with the burgundy through the cream and black lattice to emphasize the plaid look. I was a little concerned at first, especially about using it on the cream, but I think it looks good.

A glimpse of the backing.

The label, again as an integral part of the backing.

Against the flowering shrubbery.

Ahh!  Feels good, in more ways than one!
Quilt details:
Name:  Hidden in Plaid Sight
Size:  46 X 51.25"
Pattern:  by moi, Sandra Jane Walker
Fabric:  Moda and Kona cotton, 100% cotton
Backing: Moda "Renewal" by Brannock & Patek (purchased this at Quilts n' More! in Port Charlotte, FL)
Machine-pieced and machine-quilted on my Bernina Artista 180 using Sulky rayons with The Bottom Line and Gutermann cotton in the bobbin




3 comments:

  1. it's outstanding! I love the dark to light gradation and the closeups of your quilting. You should pitch this pattern to one of the fabric companies!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh, thank you Janette! I thought I might just do that... I might make another in a similar simple setting (ahem, I bought a new charm square pack!), and see what the results are, and then perhaps approach Moda.

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  3. thank you for the free pattern , I am very excited to try quilting it .
    I am a novice quilter so hopefully this is for me .

    ReplyDelete

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