Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Last One of the Bunch

I had every intention of quilting this little top before I sent out all the quilts to C&T Publishing for the in-house photography but that just did not happen.

I have been hand stitching a lot lately. If I don't have hand work in the evenings, I miss it. Winding down while 'Watching' tv is just not the same.

It is far from perfect, just the way I like it. No two triangles are the same in spite of being made from a stack. These free-form blocks are pretty cool!


It must be my publisher's favorite quilt since it made it in two of the chapters in my book. It is one of the reasons why I chose to teach Hourglass Twist class at MAQ. Some of the blocks from this technique land themselves into more than one quilt. The possibilities are endless and I can not wait for my students to explore more. 





It has not found it's permanent home yet. I am still wondering what to call it.

Movement, texture and contrast all in one - It packs a lot of punch for it's size.

  
It would be an Amish quilt if the HSTs were precise.


It would be an Indian ralli quilt if it had borders and some reverse applique added to it. 


It is somewhat close to perfect to be a Gee's bend quilt.

 
But it reminds me of all three cultures. I am calling it The Red Quilt. 

I finished it with freehand, organic hand quilting using Valdani silk thread.

If you would like to read about my classes, please visit earlier posts. 
I am ready for some piecing fun.

I hope you all are having a great week!
Sujata





Thursday, April 2, 2015

A finish!

It was back in summer of 2012 when I started this quilt. My first post said, ''I will have what she is having''. Click here to read about it.
  
It took me almost three years to finish this quilt! My plan was to finish hand quilting before going to India and have the binding ready so I had something mindless to work on after coming back.  But as they say, plans don't always work out... I did not get to it until the middle of March. 


I am extremely happy the way it turned out. It is warm and soft and quite colorful as you can see. Makes me think of spring and summer even though the lawn is looking quite wintery.

Painted Zigzag is entirely made with women's clothing from the Goodwill store. I liked the challenge of making something bright and beautiful with used clothing. It was fun seeing those prints together. Each block was like a new quilt. Once the blocks were finished it was even more fun to arrange them on the design wall and work on the layout. I chose to keep all the backgrounds in blocks.

What's this picture doing here? I will tell you about it at the end of this post.

Moving along with Painted Zigzag...

I hand quilted it with Valdani Variegated Pearl Cotton threads I bought when I was in Houston. They were a dream to work with. Went through the layers like butter.


I stayed with the obvious lines of the zigzag pattern. Seams were pressed toward the darker fabrics so it made sense to quilt on the lighter zigzag. At some point, when I had basted this quilt, I was thinking of machine quilting but, what can I say? I am a chicken when it comes to quilting a huge quilt on the machine. My shoulders just don't care for all that stress but if every evening I hand quilt a little at a time, at some point it gets done.


On March 20th when it snowed, at first I was thinking NO!!! But there was just enough snow on the ground to make me run out and use that clothesline again.


Can you see the binding? I ended up using all the leftover bindings for this quilt. I like how it extends the scrappy-ness of the quilt.

For the back, I used up some of my pink fabrics.. I am generally not a pink person but had enough to put a queen size backing together! I must have liked them at some point.


 And now on to another news..and about that picture...

I taught a class at Burkholders Fabrics yesterday. Windmill is one of my favorite quilts from the book. I took plenty of samples to show my students. 


I have taught this pattern few times before but this was my first time teaching a class after becoming an author. As an instructor, it is always refreshing to see work in progress by students and watching them enjoy making the blocks. It was nice to meet everyone from central New Jersey to Harrisburg and places in between. Victoria from The Silly BooDilly was also in the class. I am looking forward to their quilts.

I answered many questions regarding my fabric selections and inspirations. How I see myself as a quilter and what I expect from myself as a quilter. It was fun chatting with each and every one of them. 


Here are few more dates and places I will be presenting and/or teaching a class in 2015.
 
1 May - I will be speaking at Tompkins County Quilters Guild in Ithaca, NY and also teaching a two day workshop. If you live near Ithaca, I hope to see you there. I will have lots of quilts with me.

13 May - Presentation at Calico Cutters Guild in West Chester, PA

I will be also speaking  and teaching three classes at Mid Appalachian Quilt Conference at Mount St. Mary's University in Emmitsburg, Maryland. I blogged about it earlier. If you missed it, please click on the link.
http://therootconnection.blogspot.com/2015/03/mid-appalachian-quilt-conference.html

10 July - Presentation
10 July - Workshop - Windmill 
11 July - Workshop - Hourglass Twist
12 July - Workshop - Peppermint Pinwheels

14 August - Presentation - Thimble and Thread Quilt Guild of Greater St. Louis
15 August - Workshop - Thimble and Thread Quilt Guild of Greater St. Louis

13 October -  Presentation at Brandywine Valley Quilters, Concordville, PA

Phew! This was a long three posts in one!

Have a great weekend with family and friends.

Kavita is coming home this weekend... I am excited!
Sujata

 



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