Category: Quilting

CVA MQG crayon color challenge

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The Central Virginia Modern Quilt Guild crayon color challenge was so much fun.

We pulled three crayons (they were Crayola) from a bag. We were tasked with using those three colors in a quilt. We could add any other colors we wanted. The reveal is scheduled for March 1. Read the entire post for why I won’t have this quilt for the reveal. Sorry, CVA MQG. 😦

I got Plum, Blue Green and Green Yellow.

crayola crayons plum blue green green yellow

I wanted to use these colors in a big way. I purchased yardage of each color: Michael Miller Cirtus, Kona Lagoon and Kona Berry from Quilting Adventures. I sketched and colored what I wanted to do:

crayon challenge sketch

I  wrote on the sketch, “hotel art” because it looked like something you’d see in a hotel lobby. I ultimately called the quilt, Lakeside Avenue, the location of our guild meetings.

I had some Kona Tomato and added a little bit of it to the quilt as I went.

Then, quilting it.  My family and I traveled by train to New York City over Christmas, and I had plenty of time to hand quilt. I got most of the middle done. Once home I machine quilted the rest because I was afraid I wasn’t going to be able to hand quilt it all by the deadline.

I like the difference the hand quilting and machine quilting gives to the quilt.

Lakeside Avenue Full view_edited-1

Lakeside Avenue Close Up

I entered the quilt in the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival, February 25-28, 2016, and it was selected for the show.

I am inspired by art museums, and attending the festival was better than an art museum. Here’s me at the festival with my quilt. No ribbons, though, but look at that color. It won’t be back in time for me to take to the March 1 meeting. This photo will have to do.

MQQF closeup

Inspired by color,

Wanda

Let’s talk Emphasis

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The fifth chapter in Carolyn Friedlander’s book, Savor Each Stitch, is EMPHASIS.  She says, “Emphasis is all about making a thoughtful decision about how to bring your design to life. Through fabric placement, quilting intention, and all of the other tools explored in this book, you can create emphasis by highlighting different parts of a design.”

I’m a part of a Savor Each Stitch Book Bee, and we’ve studied line, contrast, scale and color.

Emphasis seemed like an easy concept. For example, Susan posted this wonderful diagram worksheet from a site by Claudia Jacques and emphasis stands out as merely focusing one’s attention on a particular item. That “red” person stands out, right? From this worksheet, line and color are the tools, and contrast, emphasis and scale are ways to take those tools and make art. Elements_Principles_Overview[1]

The project from Carolyn’s book involved a block with 10 pieces, and by changing the color or emphasis of each piece she changed which part of the block stood out:

emphasis chapter

I wanted something less paper-piecing intensive. I had observed a quilting friend’s traditional block sampler and mused about how the Drunkard’s Path stood out and I liked it a lot. Two pieces — I could do that.

With my new acrylic template in hand, I started making quarter circles and experimented with changing the emphasis in this traditional block to make something unique.

I love it. It’s very me.

emphasis top

The size is 57″ by 71″. Each block was 4″ unfinished and each Drunkard’s Path was 14.5″ unfinished. You will notice I turned some of the quarter circles to make a few half circles and one three-quarter circle. I also used a grey geometric print as the background and in some places I didn’t make any quarter circles. There are four rows by five rows of Drunkard’s Paths.

Now that the top is pieced, it doesn’t scream “emphasis”, but that is where it began. I’m thinking of naming it “Mod Drunk.”

I will have to decide how to quilt it and that will be another way to explore the concept of EMPHASIS.