New Tile Quilt

Jungle Beauty

I spotted this wonderful jungle print (Brazilia by Hoffman) when I was teaching my first Tile Quilt class at Quilter's Cupboard quilt shop in Atascadero, CA and I immediately thought, " tile quilt".  So a couple yards came home with me and I made up 4 Orange Peel blocks to use as class demos.  Awhile back I decided that I would really like to see these blocks finished up in a quilt so I made 4 new demo blocks in different fabrics and went about finishing up these blocks and turning them into a quilt.  

All of these blocks are Block G from our Starry Orange Peel quilt in our book.  I love the way that setting them together without the star blocks in between creates secondary patterns.  Now I always love star blocks but I'm wondering what would happen if 9 or 16 of these blocks were set together.

My blocks are 15'' finished with a 4-1/2'' border on each side.  I machine quilted in the "grout" and machine quilted around some of the flower and leaf motifs in the borders.  The applique, of course, is needle-turn by hand which I love to do.  The background fabric that creates the "grout" is two different polka dot fabrics.

If you are inspired to make a quilt with this idea, please send me pictures.  The pattern is in the book.
Here's a picture of Starry Orange Peel which was the first tile quilt Carol and I made.

And if you are driving Highway 101 through Atascadero, Quilter's Cupboard is well worth a stop.  www.quilterscupboard.com/

One more finished project!

 3 Cheers for the Red White & Blue

I just finished this project and I'm probably breaking rules by posting it here now but rules were made to be broken, right?  (I must be feeling feisty today.)  I belong to an applique group here in San Jose that I won't name and then I won't be breaking the rules so badly.  OK, it's the Applique Goddesses.  Every so often we have a challenge in which you receive a group of fat quarters.  I don't remember the rules too clearly since I'm so good at breaking rules, but you have to use a certain number of the fabrics in the packet and you can add a certain amount of fabrics.  The quilt also has to be exactly 30'' square.  I think I managed to follow that rule.  The quilts are supposed to be a secret until they are exhibited in May at Prairie Queens quilt shop in San Jose so that is the main rule I'm breaking here.

This time the fabrics were red, white and blue -- one of which had roosters on it but I chose not to include the roosters.  (I still recall walking through my Aunt Catharine's chicken coop as a child and getting my feet pecked!)  I used all the fabrics in the packet and I added the blue toile in the corners and the binding.

This quilt is based roughly on a pattern by Lisa DeBee Schiller published in McCall's Quilting magazine, October 2004.  I recognized Lisa's pattern as being based on an antique silk crib quilt called "Framed Medallion" published in Country Living's Country Quilts, Hearst Books, 1992.   Here is a picture of the Framed Medallion from the book.

I had admired this quilt for a long time and I'm happy that I've now finally been able to make my version of the quilt.  Due to the size restriction of the Challenge, I couldn't add the pieced diamond border of the original quilt or the appliqued border on Lisa's quilt.  And, I chose not to include the half stars in the corners of the medallion found in both the original and in Lisa's version.  For one brief moment, I thought about appliqueing the roosters in the corners but quickly regained my sanity and thought better of it!

If you're in the area in May, stop by Prairie Queens www.prairiequeensquilts.com/ to see the rest of the Red White and Blue challenge quilts.  I know there will be some great entries in this challenge.

Shirley G's amazing Tile Quilt

Co-author, Carol Gilham Jones, has already talked about the amazing tile quilt we recently saw at our annual quilt retreat on to her blog http://www.carolgilhamjones.blogspot.com/ but I wanted to "piggyback" on her blog to show the pictures I was able to get of Shirley's quilt top.

Here is a wonky view of the whole quilt top showing the wonderful pieced Tree of Life medallion center and the surrounding piecing. And here are individual views of the tile border.

Shirley has cut out the flowers, leaves and vine from one floral fabric and appliqued them to the background fabric as a wonderful feature in the border.  She then filled in the spaces with other fabrics in the typical random tile fashion.  As Carol pointed out on her blog, the change of color for the grout in the fan-shaped corners adds even more interest with the negative/positive play.

This is obviously a quilt in progress.  The picture of the full quilt top on the design wall on Carol's blog has another pieced border added.  We can't wait to see this quilt completed.   Especially when Shirley adds her wonderful machine quilting.  

Thanks, Shirley, for inspiring us and taking the tile quilt method to a new level.  I'm going to be on the lookout for a floral fabric that might lend itself to this design.

Recent Workshops

I've had a couple fun workshops recently with great results.  It is still so interesting to me to see the variety of fabrics the participants bring to work with.  Someone always seems to bring Asian fabrics and since I rarely work with Asian fabrics, I love to see how they work in Tile Quilt blocks.  I think the answer is very well!

The first workshop was at Piecemakers of South Alameda County on 7 January -- the first Saturday of 2012 and a good way to start off the year.  Here are some of the blocks, with Asian fabrics used in the first one.

I'm always pleased when someone has designed their own tile quilt block.  Here is one Cindy S. designed with images that inspire her.

 Cindy's drawing

 

And her block in the process of fabric selection.












And on January 10th, I was in King City at the Valley Heritage Quilt Guild. 

Holly C. had designed a block based roughly on the Winding Ways pattern.

Here is her pattern and a computer drawing of how it will look with 4 blocks.





 

And here is her first block with the fabrics selected and the applique stitching begun in the center. Great fabric choices.  I hope I get to see all of the blocks when finished!








And here are the rest of the blocks from King City with the usual variety of fabric choices for the tile pieces and the background which becomes the grout lines.

Check us out on the Radio!

Pat Sloan has invited Carol Gilham Jones and me to be guests on her internet radio quilting show! Pat's program is American Patchwork & Quilting Radio, which can be heard live on Mondays at 4:00 ET.  In case you miss the show live, recordings are available later. 

We will be talking about our book, Tile Quilt Revival.

Here's a link to Pat's website: http://www.creativetalknetwork.com/

We will be guests on Pat's show Monday, January 16, 2012.  It's 4:00 Eastern Time, so adjust for your time zone if you plan to listen to the live broadcast.   Go to this link to listen: www.allpeoplequilt.com/radio/index.html live and to listen again.

Just Finished

First of all, Happy New Year to all.  I hope all your quilting resolutions are achieved, especially if it includes a tile quilt!

Last spring I had the pleasure to attend a reunion of sorts with a group of quilting friends who have shared many good times together in many places but mostly in a sewing room at a quilt retreat at Point Bonita, just north of the Golden Gate.  Some of us will be back there at the end of this month.  The spring gathering was in Nebraska at the lovely Lied Lodge in Nebraska City.  On the way back to the airport to drop off those who had flown in for the retreat, we stopped at The Quilt Shoppe in Stewartsville, Missouri for one last shopping opportunity.  I gathered up a group of fat quarters that were nicely arranged and for some reason spoke to me.  I don't usually do "cute" but these seemed to be a more sophisticated cute!  For a change, when I got home instead of just putting these fabrics in my stash, I kept them together and finally found time to do something with them.  Here is the result.

I'm calling it Sweet Shoppe. The fabrics include cakes, teacups, crowns, roses and other flowers, and some words in French. 

I've loved the Winding Ways pattern for a long time.  I think it's the way the blocks create the interlocking larger circles though in the case of this small quilt with only 9 blocks there is only one full circle.  Several years ago I purchased a set of ARDCO metal templates from Quiltsmith, Ltd. http://www.ardcotemplates.com/ in Poquoson, Virginia in the 6'' block size. The templates are available in several sizes.  I found the templates very useful and the accompanying instructions very helpful in assembling the quilt blocks. Someday perhaps I'll get around to making a larger quilt, maybe with larger blocks, but I think the pattern worked well with these fabrics.

The quilt is 23 1/2 '' square and is hand quilted.

Christmas Crafts

Last spring I had the pleasure of watching a fantastic concert as part of PBS fundraising.  It was the 25th Anniversary concert of Les Miserables filmed in October 2010.  The tenor singing the role of Jean Valjean blew me away and I had to find out who he was.  Little did I know that it would change my life.  As I searched online for more information I joined his official website and have made friends from England and the US, one of which is a quilter so I will get to making this about quilting.  But first, Alfie Boe has an amazing voice, an amazing story and is a wonderful person. Just Google his name if you want to learn more and there are lots of videos on youtube but here's a link to one with images of the concert including Alfie singing the signature song, Bring Him Home: 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=RTXGA6l7LDU

The quilter I met is Nancy H. who is from Arizona.  Nancy went to London last September to see Mr. Boe perform the role of Jean Valjean in the stage production of Les Miserables at the Queens Theatre and I was there in October to celebrate my XXth (BIG) birthday seeing Alfie in Les Mis.  After months of online correspondence, Nancy recently came to visit and she brought me a lovely gift that she had made.

These buttons are all hand stitched to the red fabric and then set in the frame with the handsome bow.  Needless to say, I was quite surprised and pleased to have received this lovely gift.

So, in return, I have sent to Nancy this Snowman Door Hanger I made for her.

And while she was here visiting, we thought it appropriate that we should have Afternoon Tea to celebrate our trips to England and our new found friendship -- all because of a certain English Tenor. 

 

Nancy and Bobbi at Afternoon Tea

 

By the way, we both, separately, made quilts for Alfie for his birthday, but perhaps that's for another day's blog.

I hope all of your craft projects are finished and you are as happy to give and receive them as I am.

 

Happy Holidays to all!