Sunday, March 11, 2012

Quilting with my Friends

I decided to make quilted valentines for my family this year. After making valentines for Hannah and Emily - which both turned out cute, and will be in future blog posts - I set out to make Scott's, which gave me all sorts of problems! I knew I wanted to use a word - grateful - which is my Word of the Year. Scott totalled our car 3 days before Christmas, and walked away with nary a scratch, for which I am very grateful! :)
Rather than piecing the letters - as I have seen on many other blogs, like over at 15 Minutes Play, and in Tonya Ricucci's book - I decided to fuse them. Melody, over at fibermania, was doing a Quilt Along in February, teaching us how to fuse a small art quilt. I decided to use solids partially because of the great work of my friend, Sujata, over at The Root Connection. So - off I went, preparing my solids with fusible web and cutting out letters. It was all going so well! I laid all of the letters on a nice piece of solid gray fabric....
....and I hated it! My creative flow came to a screeching halt. I remade several of the letters (I hadn't fused them down yet), with different colors...still hated it! I hated all the letters in a row, the same size - even staggering them, still hated it.
So then, I thought it looked too dated, not modern enough - so I cut a piece of this great new black and white print. Fresh, lively, so much better, right? NOPE - still hated it, not right. I thought long and hard about what kind of quilts appeal to me, and I thought of the great scrappy quilts over at Nifty Quilts - and then it hit me!
I had just enough of the perfect print for the background - these adorable doggies! (sorry, don't remember the fabric designer) It was a modern print, but with a vintage feel - perfect! and it was perfect for Scott, because of his love of dogs.
This was looking so much better!
The quilting turned out great - lots of straight line quilting, inspired by quilting friends Victoria (15 Minutes), and many others. It took a few tries to find the right binding fabric, and am so glad I cut it on the bias (thanks for the nudge, Sujata), not my usual crossgrain.
So you see, I had lots of fun quilting with my friends - even though they weren't here! Thanks for all of the inspiration, friends!

5 comments:

Sujata Shah said...

Chris!
You get the award for "The most fun post I read today"!
Loved reading about your journey and people who inspire you. Blogging is great. When I am out of creative juices, it helps to see what others are doing an learn from them.
I think your valentine for your husband turned out gorgeous! It does reflect what we all are feeling these days!
Thanks for sharing!

Victoria Findlay Wolfe said...

I Love it! You played and played until it felt perfect! Great job! I bet he will love it! Now come to NYC and we can play for real!

Helen said...

Love your word of the year! Lucky hubby to have so much beauty and love in his life!

Helen said...

Lucky guy to get this beautiful valentine!!!

Nifty Quilts said...

I'm sure your husband will love it! Can't think of a better word. Fun to read about your process.

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