Tom asked if I knew anyone who would be interested in making a quilt with his collection of ties. Who me, did I know someone? So, of course, I am now making quilts out of silk ties. I had to practice with Bob’s before I would commit to taking on Tom’s Ties.
Here is what I came up with for Bob.
The plan for Tom’s Ties is a little different:
Here is what I have so far for Tom:
If you are working with silk in a quilt it is best to stabilize the fabric somehow. You can use a fusible interfacing for this. I have used a light weight fusible woven interfacing with silk in the past. For this quilt I decided to paper piece the blocks, as the paper provides stability. The other thing I decided to do was to spray the silk with Best Press, which worked great and did not harm the fabric.
Keep in mind that silk ties are not dye fast. They bleed like crazy, so be careful with the steam on your iron and when all is put together DO NOT WASH THIS QUILT IN WATER. The only safe way to clean a silk quilt is vacuuming it!
Jane Stickle finished her quilt in 1863. People are still enchanted and challenged by her unique quilt blocks. Even with all of my modern gadgets and fancy machines I still had a lot to learn from Jane. Could not have managed to get through all of the blocks without help from the Jane Stickle Group lead by Pat Kowalczyk at Quilters Common, which met for 4 years starting in 2013.
Checkerboard Skew Revisited, 2020
In 1973 Beth Gutcheon included this design in her book “The Perfect Patchwork Primer”. This book inspired quilters to take a fresh look at quilting and her designs are still making us ask what is a modern quilt and showing how timeless modern is.
Seeing Red, 2020
Are you seeing a red and white quilt? This is actually a pink and white quilt, but color is often a matter of opinion. The design is based on a half scale Fibonacci sequence used to determine the width of strips used. I borrowed Ricky Tims Convergence technique and sewed the strips together, rotated and then cut strips again.
Seeing Red
Storm, 2020
During the pandemic I found myself trying a virtual workshop. I took Mid Century Modern with Carole Lyles Shaw. This is improv to the max. You start out with a big pieced circle and then you just keep slicing, relocating and adding. I posted my progress online and Carole commented that I should keep slicing! At some point I was satisfied with my slicing and this is the stormy result.
Process Color, 2019
I wanted to work with the four colors of ink that I am always feeding my printer to see how bold they might look together. I had been playing with the Ricky Tims Convergence Quilts style so I went from there and here is the result.
Hope, 2020
I am working with a group of ladies in the do.Good Stitches Hope circle of quilters. We are an online community working through Instagram and Flickr to design and share quilt blocks. I designed this quilt, collected the blocks and put this quilt together. It is always amazing how the quilts come together with just a little bit of prompting for fabric selection. The rainbow of colors gives us all hope for less cloudy days ahead.
The following contributed blocks to this quilt: Sherryl Barnum, Jeanine Conner, Angie Fitzreiter, Heather Flegel, Cath Hall, Christie Kline, Suzy Lampman, Susan McKinney, Jennifer Mendola, Sarah Terry
Garden Trellis, 2020
This is another one of my Stack and Wack quilts with a new more complicated block that makes the quilt look like a Garden Trellis. I have a pattern for this quilt and was scheduled to teach it at Quilters Common, but then suddenly everything changed. Hopefully I can get back to teaching classes later this year!
And here are two Group Quilts that the BMQG have put together:
“Orange You Glad We Made This Quilt?” and “Shattered” are group quilts created through distanced and virtual togetherness. The design process began with a group brainstorming in a park. Participants then made curvy starter-blocks using materials provided by the guild, followed by a virtual workshop where the starter-blocks were altered by random prompts. The improvised blocks were brought together at a backyard design session where two quilt designs emerged. Although the two quilts were made from improvisational blocks that were essentially the same, the resulting quilts were very different. The process was truly collaborative and fun.
Orange You Glad We Made This Quilt?, 2020, Long Arm Quilting by Rebecca Loren
Shattered, 2020, Long Arm Quilting by Patrice Denault
I had a comment on my Jane Quilt, which I am now calling “Thank You Jane”, because I learned so much about quilting during my Jane Journey.
The comment was regarding the sashing on the quilt. The sashing was inspired by Tula Pink’s City Sampler Book, as explained in a previous post.
I have come up with some drawings which should help to explain the dimensions I used for the Trellis Sashing. The first thing I did was add a 1/2″ border around each Jane Block to increase the size from 4.5″ to 5.5″ finished. From there I prepared the sashing as shown in the drawings. The dimensions shown are the unfinished sizes. Cut pieces the sizes shown.
Hello to my Boston Modern Quilt Guild friends, and to anyone who comes across this blog post. I have put together a couple of block designs for our next Be Kind Bee quilt.
Both of these Blocks finish to 12″ square.
Here are instructions for the X Block:
The X Block
Fabric and Cutting: For these blocks please select a white or white on white fabric, a dark solid or dark blender fabric and a medium print fabric.
White Fabric: You will need to cut 8 pieces that are 1 ½” x 2 ½” and cut 8 pieces that are 1 ½” x 4 ½” or use a strip piecing method as shown below and start with 1 1/2″ width of fabric strips.
You will then need to cut 4 squares that are 4 ½” x 4 ½”
Dark Fabric: Cut 4 squares that are 2 ½” x 2 ½”
Print Fabric: 1 square 4 ½” x 4 ½”
First I cut out all of the pieces for the block. I just cut 1 1/2″ strips for the pieced 4 1/2″ squares and then sewed the blue squares to the strips before cutting. After sewing the strips on all four sides I trimmed these to 4 1/2″ square. I then arranged the squares into three rows as shown. Complete each row and then sew the three rows together.
Press the seams towards the white squares in the top and bottom rows and towards the print square in the center row. When sewing the rows together press the seams towards the print square.
Here are instructions for the Twinkle Block:
The Twinkle Block
Fabric and Cutting: For these blocks please select a white or white on white fabric, a dark solid or dark blender fabric and a medium print fabric.
White Fabric: You will need 1 Width of Fabric (WOF) strip that is 4 ½” wide. Cut 8 pieces that are 4 ½” x 4 ½” squares. Cut FOUR of the squares in half on the diagonal.
Dark Fabric: 1 WOF strip that is 1 ¼” wide and 1 WOF strip that is 1” wide. From the 1 ¼” wide strip cut 4 pieces that are 1 ¼” x 6 ½”. Cut 4 pieces that are 1” x 3 ½” from the 1” wide strip.
Print Fabric: 1 square 3 ½” x 3 ½”
Piecing:
Sew a tringle to each 1 ¼” x 6 ½” piece as shown. Then sew another triangle to the other edge of the 1 ¼” x 6 ½” piece as shown. Trim each of the four blocks to 4 ½” x 4 ½”. Press the seams towards the dark fabric for these units.
Sew the two 1” x 3½” pieces to the top and bottom of the 3½” x 3½” print piece, then sew the two 1” x 4½” pieces to the sides. Press the seams towards the dark fabric for these units.
Arrange these pieces and sew together into three rows as shown. Press the seams towards the solid white squares in the top and bottom rows and towards the solid square in the center row. When sewing the rows together press the towards the print square.
The thought is that we will create a quilt with this that will end up looking something like this:
Quilting with Patrice 