Saturday, January 25, 2025

Winter Blues PQ 16.2

My quilt for the second challenge of Project Quilting is done. We were to make something that shows the visual effect of ombré, which is a colour shift in value or hue. As you know, my favourite colour is blue, and a couple of things came nicely together - a set of fat quarters sitting on a shelf and a random test block from a few years ago I'd pulled out as a possible candidate for the SAHRR. This is the result!

I first thought of calling it Twilight Hearts but as the design came together in fabric, and with talk of Blue Monday last week on the CBC Music programme I listen to, the name came to me: Winter Blues. January is a hard month for many of us in the northern hemisphere and I am no exception. Blue Monday, the third Monday in January, was actually designated by a UK travel company as the most depressing day of the year back in 2005, and the moniker has stuck. A couple of serendipitous connections made the name stick.

The main fabric I used is The Blues by Janet Clare, Jazz It Up a Little, for Moda Fabrics. It was an eight-piece fat quarter bundle from @thefabricsnob part of a three-month-long gift subscription from Dayna a few years ago. I do not recall pulling it out, but it happened to be sitting (for a few weeks) on one of my yardage stash shelves. Two of the pieces here are not in The Blues line but they are by Janet Clare, called Textures. I don’t know whose fabric the ombré is on the left but it is Moda. The checked fabric at the top is one I had originally thought to use either on the front or the back of the quilt.

The idea to do the gradient of blues as a heart block came to me thanks to my backup centre block choice for the SAHRR. So I had my block and fabric; next I headed to EQ8 and drew up the block and then played around with a possible layout. I wanted to keep it 40” or less so that I wouldn’t have to piece a back.
Yeah, about that…

This would either become another take to yoga class quilt or perhaps one for my Etsy shop.

I really wanted a shot on frozen Lake Erie, but as usual, the wind played havoc, so this was about as still a shot as we could get!

The lake isn't frozen all the way across, and I was hoping a 'quilt against the lake' shot might show the contrast between the whipped up snow and ice at the shore and the midnight blue of the deep water way out. The shot on the beach was not to be because of crazy winds so we headed to the ferry dock hoping for a little protection. I do love the blue of the windswept ice in the bay to the left of the quilt. It contrasts wonderfully with the white snow in the sheltered area, and blends in so well with my quilt. And look at the ombré in the sky!

I cut a 2.5" strip from each of the fabrics I'd chosen to make the ombré. Wanting to use the 8-FQ bundle as much as possible, I determined that the navy and the cream would be two different backgrounds for the hearts and the ombré fabric would be sashing. That meant there were five fabrics left, so I needed a sixth. Into my stash of yardage and drawers of under .5 yard I went. I found the grey-blue tonal you see third from the right. It's also a Moda, a fat quarter Lisa of Sunlight in Winter Quilts had sent me a few (maybe more than a few) years ago. 
Had I not been using the stripe, I wouldn't have used it as the others are all prints and it jumped a bit.

In order to preserve my fabric, I cut the 2.5" triangles for the top of the heart using my AccuQuilt Go! cutter,

and I also made a 6.5" template for the bottom of the heart triangles. I pieced gradually shorter strips for the heart bottom.

The ombré effect goes from light to dark on the navy background heart blocks and from dark to light on the cream background heart blocks. This wasn't originally intended, but I needed to do this because of only a fat quarter of each fabric! And I just LOVE this originally-unplanned design element! It's in the vein of what quilting often was originally, isn't it: using what you had and making it work, (and making it sing)! I did still have to piece four (I think) strips to get enough 12.5" lengths. After I made my first heart, I took a photo and looked at it in greyscale to see how the flow was. Pretty good, so I was off to the races.

So this fairly simple top took longer because I had to really be careful with cutting since my fabric was minimal. However it was worth it because I was so pleased to get the entire top out of the eight fat quarters in the bundle plus the one from Lisa, so nine fat quarters total. Back to my yardage stash I went for borders. I kept them 1.5" wide finished to keep that ~40" size. It crossed my mind to piece the leftovers to make a pieced border but the longest length I had left at this point was perhaps 15", so that would have been a lot of piecing. You may notice the sashing is also an ombré of light blue from the lower left running on a diagonal to medium in the upper right. I really liked that! I had to cut the sashing pieces on the warp, or lengthwise grain of fabric as opposed to the weft or crosswise grain to get the appearance of several shades of blue being used.
Two choices, one a half metre, the other about 1.4, pinned into the design wall to peruse.

In my EQ8 drawing, I had filled in the border with one colour, but when I was sewing, and had such success with the ombré sashing, I decided to use two colours, a light and a dark, for the borders. These two were perfect. Even more perfect was the light blue because it has hearts on it! 

I cut one light blue border strip along the lengthwise grain and one on the crosswise because I didn't want the hearts sideways. Details like this are important to me and worth the extra time.
Wonderful! The quilt measures 40.75" here.

Now about the backing. You might recall the checkered one I had at the beginning. Well, there wasn’t enough of it to do the entire back so then I had the idea to use the light blue striped one with the hearts on it that I had used for the border since I had plenty and it was the perfect theme. However, I had had to cut about 3" off it along the selvage in order to get the vertical border so that meant this wasn’t wide enough though it was long enough.😖 I was annoyed, but back to my stash I went to see what might work to widen the stripe. Well, was I pleased to find the deep blue trees fabric called, wait for it, Snow Day! There was about 15" of it. I had to use this, so a pieced back was meant to be! 

Finding that blue birthed the idea of making a bit of a gradient for the backing, (squeal) and I found the perfect medium to go between the two, and then used a piece of a gorgeous ombré fabric I’ve had forever that ended up being the binding. The name of this fabric? Aurora. You may recall I was lost in making aurora borealis for my cousin’s quilt for the past couple of weeks. Curiouser and curiouser!

I had several ideas of quilting motifs from hearts and swirls to straight lines to flowing lines… I really like a stable quilt, so I knew I would do stitch in the ditch to stabilize the narrow sashIng, So then I decided to just do a large meander for speed. This was Saturday morning, and I wanted some afternoon sunshine photos.
Aurifil 2815 was the perfect shade for the quilting; Hobbs 80/20 batting - had a 42" by 112" piece!

I did snap an inside photo in indirect bright sunlight before we left in case the wind put a damper on things. (which it kind of did)
Love the ombré binding

I saw on one of Yvonne's recent posts a reference to taking photos of ourselves with our quilts. I'm not sure what that's about, but my husband was giving a valiant effort to get a flat shot in the hopes of me cropping it at home, but then I thought it might work for this idea. So here I am, windblown, cold fingers with my quilt and Lake Erie behind me. Finding some joy in my blue and white surroundings, at a gorgeous marina, parks and walkways area, on another blustery day. So the hearts are for finding something you love even in cold, long, dark days to lift your spirits. 💙


Almost forgot. Here is the label. I attached the binding to the back of the quilt and topstitched it onto the front so I didn’t have to change the bobbin thread. This is also a good close-up of the beautiful backing fabrics.

OMG. That gorgeous light blue hearts fabric I've only just now paid close attention to the designer. I knew it was a Lecien, one I picked up at Fat Quarter Shop several years ago. Well! It's called Winterfall (the synchronicity of the fabric names is mind-blowing) but the fancy cursive of the designer's name is a bit hard to make out: is it Wenche or Wencke, Wolif or Wolff, Batling or Hatling. or Latling? Into Google I go...

And find an article on the Aurifil website from 2013, 11.5 years ago, written by Pat Sloan about a wonderfully talented Norwegian designer (of the month) and shop owner, Wencke (pronounced Ven-key) Wolff Hatling! Here it is. You're welcome.

Quilt Stats:
Size: 40.75" x 40.75"
Fabric: The Blues by Janet Clare for Moda Fabrics; borders: Winterfall by Wencke Wolff Hatling for Lecien, and one by Beth Ann Bruske for David Textiles; binding: Aurora by Takako for RJR Fashion Fabrics
Batting: Hobbs Fusible 80/20% cotton/polyester (note that I did not fuse it)
Backing: Snow Day by P&B Textiles, a marbled one for which I no long have the designer info, and Winterfall as above
Pieced on my Bernina
Threads: pieced with Aurifil 2715; quilted with Aurifil 2815

Thanks again Trish for a great challenge, and Kim for dreaming this whole idea up and keeping it going for the 16th year!

Linking up

19 comments:

  1. I love your quilt, especially the way you used the striped fabrics. Very nice!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I enjoyed reading about your process. The quilt is lovely. Congratulations on the PQ finish and thank you for linking up with me for TGIFF!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Everything about your quilt is lovely. Great fabrics.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Blue Monday is gorgeous, Sandra! I love how you alternated the ombre effect in the hearts. And then the sashing, borders, and backing are even ombre! A beautiful finish!

    ReplyDelete
  5. A gorgeous interpretation of the prompt. Beautifully done!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Oh Sandra, this is sumptuous! I love how the fact that you needed to be careful of the use of your fat quarters lead to a light to dark and dark to light layout and there are so many little kismet moments with this quilt. It's beautiful!

    As for the reason for snapping pictures of ourselves with our quilts - it's another form of documentation. Do we have to share it? No, but our maker's hands and hearts put so much into our quilts it seems silly NOT to step into the photo of the items we created, if only for a single photo.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I like it!! I like how the ombre works top to bottom and bottom to top. Photos against the lake are amazing - but whoosh - so cold!!! Your title for it is just perfect - I just told my husband... I am over winter today - give me 50 and bring it back tomorrow... I don't think it is going to work ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  8. Congratulations Sandra - you NAILED it!!!

    ReplyDelete
  9. I love it! How good that those fabrics were sitting there calling your name for this challenge as they sewed up so beautifully. So good to have the photo of you with your quilt too, it also shows the Lake colours you were after too.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Love it!! A good meander is often just what a quilt needs.

    ReplyDelete
  11. I am always so amazed at how fast you can take a suggestion and create a lovely quilt in so little time. Imagine, not only having the right fabric but having it sitting on your stack near your cutting table. Then to be able to pull all the little ideas that have been sitting in the back of your mind together and BAM there it is. Your blog is full of wonderful details. I'm sitting here shivering after looking at the picture of you holding the quilt in the wind. I do think putting ourselves in the photo is important. It allows us to add another layer of documentation for history.

    ReplyDelete
  12. What a great quilt and a great story behind it. Not sure if it's kismet or serendipity, but this quilt was meant to be. And, yes, this past Monday was definitely a Blue Monday for many of us in the US (and, I guess, for many world-wide).
    Pat

    ReplyDelete
  13. I really like the picture of you with the quilt - windblown or not. That is a beautiful ombre project.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Wow, all finished in one week. That is impressive.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Love it. And love all the synchronicity of the fabric names, brilliant. I think it would be stunning in any colour.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Love the snowy photos and that heart quilt is divine. Take care and stay warm.

    ReplyDelete
  17. I love this quilt...so pretty and such wintry hearts. I feel your pain with the wind not cooperating but I do love you and the quilt in the cold!

    ReplyDelete
  18. That is so cool, Sandra! Your photos make me shiver, though! I am not a fan of cold, especially cold, frozen water. The quilt really does brighten up the day though. Thanks for sharing.

    ReplyDelete

I wholeheartedly appreciate you taking the time to leave a comment, as they make my day! I answer every one by personal email. :-) Unless... you are a "no-reply" blogger, which can occur for a few reasons. You can get around that by writing out your email within your comment so that I can answer you.