Saturday, May 16, 2015

From Hell to Breakfast: Blogger's Quilt Festival



Quilting has made me much more observant. I notice things now that I never used to. I notice how the windows in the Habitat ReStore near our house make the most fascinating, asymmetrical log cabin quilt blocks. I notice colors and shapes in the landscape....and I notice public places where I could take some great quilt photos! I spotted this old truck in a parking lot behind the Eagles Lodge where we basically live during the Fish Fry/Lenten season. I thought it would be a great place to get a good shot of this quilt. I was wrong.


It turned out to be a great place to get a photo of my husband! I've held up my fair share of quilts and I know how sore it makes my shoulders, so I try to be mindful of his arms when he holds for me. I had my shot ready when he had to take a break. I think I'll frame this one.


My own arms got pretty tired when I quilted this one. I started quilting a radiating square in the center of the focal point. I did it with my walking foot, so every time I got to a corner I had to shove the quilt around in my machine to turn it. It was a pain, but I am happy with the result.


I did have *some* fun with the quilting. There aren't a lot of perfectly straight lines in the piecing, so I tried to echo that idea when I quilted it. Every once in awhile I purposely put a giant wiggle in the lines. I tried to do it often enough so that everyone would know it was on purpose and that I hadn't just sneezed. The result is organic and interesting. I quilted this with Aurifil #2452 (dusty rose) on the top and Aurifil #5011 (rope beige) for the back.


The back is pieced with the scraps I had left from making the quilt top. Lately I have been thinking of more efficient ways to store my scraps and I've come to the realization that one of the best solutions is to use them. I am full of other profound insights, should anyone require them.


Here is my original post, back when From Hell to Breakfast was a quilt top entry to the Pantone Quilt Challenge.

Linking up to Amy's Creative Side.

22 comments:

  1. Love your quilt! Beautiful front and back. Hope you don't mind, I shared your post on my A Quilter's Table facebook page...

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    1. Of course not, Debbie. I follow you on Facebook and jumped when I saw my own quilt in my news feed. It was a happy surprise. I am glad you like the back of it too!

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  2. I don't know, that first photo of the quilt with the truck is pretty darn spectacular (although the photo of your husband is swell, too). :) You say your arms got tired quilting this one; were you able to do it in one session or did you break up the work?

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    1. A better woman than I *maybe* could have gotten it done in a day. I added in a few sanity and Tylenol breaks so it took me about a week of work (and more than a few prayers of "please let me run out of bobbin thread soon so I can knot and STOP!!!").

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  3. Fabulous! And I can SOOO identify with the turning and shoving an entire quilt through a tiny space. over and over again... )
    I love your profound insight ~ you make me laugh :-)
    Happy sewing ~ Tracy

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    1. Thanks, Tracy. I'm glad you laugh at my dumb jokes. So far that makes two of us. Believe it or not, I actually ripped out the center rows for the pleasure of stitching them again. Actually because of all the bulk I was shoving in the beginning, I would get this annoying bobble in the stitches after I turned the corner. The bobble drove me nuts, but it was so much easier to do right the second time because a lot of the bulk had been quilted down. Profound insight #2: pre-quilted quilts are easier to quilt. :-)

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  4. I really like it--lots of lovely colour and uneven quilting. It's my kind of quilt!

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    1. Thanks, Margaret! Working with color (and let's be honest...collecting fabric) is one of my favorite parts of the process!

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  5. Such a great quilt. Love the improv. look so much.:)

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    1. Thanks, Audrey! I am liking improv quilting more and more. I love the unique results!

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  6. What a great, great quilt! I read the post about its title, I did not understand everything but I know that I love this improv' quilt ;-)

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    1. Thank you! I love doing improv piecing! I am glad that you like it and that quilts don't need to be translated. :-)

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  7. Your quilt is great--such richness of colors. And I love the back--as well as your philosophy of scrap usage--much easier to use them than to store them!

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    1. Amen, Donna! Thank you. This is a color range I keep coming back to. I love the warm tones. You should see our living room!

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  8. I just exclaimed "Wow Wee!" really loud and scared the dogs. Jill your quilt is so awesome, as is your photography! I really love everything about it, from the exuberance of shape and colors you used, to the way you explained your quilting. I am going to take with me two of your ideas: to use scraps on the back more often instead of storing them and to purposely get wiggly in the quilting so people will know I didn't sneeze. (That cracked me up.)

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    1. Ha ha! I guess I like wavy "straight" line quilting for the same reason I like improv piecing. There is beauty in imperfection. Having too much says "I'm a slob," but just enough says "It's beautiful and I meant to do it like that." Thanks, Lara.

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  9. Love your quilt! In which category did you enter it in the Blogger's Quilt Festival? I ended up here because I followed the link to the Lovely Woods quilt. Now I'm having a hard time deciding which one to vote for! Good luck!

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    1. Thanks so much, Beatrice! This is entered in the small quilt category. When I get by a computer I'll be sure to edit my post to say what category it is in!

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  10. This is a great colourful quilt- I love the back too!

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    1. Thank you, Karen. I usually believe that more is better and I kept throwing more fabrics at this quilt. It's fun to use your stash!

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