Charity Quilt for Quilt Con

This was a challenge set by the Modern Quilt Guild. There was a particular color palette set & a style of quilt set - to play with grid work. (I found the post on Grid work pretty interesting on its own.)

I always enjoy reading the information that comes through from the Modern Quilt Guild. So when this challenge was announced I pretty much expressed interest in quilting a quilt for the charity challenge immediately (I do wonder that I perhaps mentioned too many times that it was only the quilting I was interested in!)

Lovely group of very enthusiastic ladies all in the NE of America - from New York up to Maine. The quilt top is titled 'A Happy Little Mountain Range' - so I took the angles of the triangles and quilted each 'mountain' in a separate pattern. Here are some pictures of our finished quilt.



The Greek key stitch is actually really hard to do - in terms of traveling around and working out how big your square is going to be - going in and coming out again. Practice is still needed but I'm getting there.



It has been a whole year now since Freddie arrived. I have wholeheartedly fallen in love with the texture that quilting can create on top of a quilt. 

The little double pebble motif above was really easy and looked really cute. And I marked for the first time ever for the baptist fan (just dots) but it kept the motif much more regulated in terms of direction, position & size so I'll be marking again for that pattern in the future.

I've quilted a bias top before - but a bias back? I was quietly (but utterly) terrified. Much effort was taken in terms of keeping the tension on the backing constant & even with constant checking and adjusting with the frames bungee cords. 

If I ever tire of inspecting the back of something I've quilted I think it will mean that I've lost interest. For me I LOVE the backs (sometimes more than the front - but ssshhhh!)

And above the mountain tops? Of course - the serene and ever flowing McTavishing esq type thing I do.

If you are in QuiltCon this February and get to see this hanging in person please send me a photo - I have the most exciting engagement ever at that time (the sky over the mountains might give you a clue.) So I won't be in Texas - but I will be traveling!!!

Camouflage Broken Bar Quilt

I've had some military material sitting around in my workroom for a while now - I got it so that I could start to experiment with how much material I can squeeze from various uniform/clothing items. When I saw this quilt - Broken Bars by Rebecca Roach - sent to me through the Modern Quilting Guild - it screamed army stripes to me.



I set about taking apart one army short sleeved army dress shirt. I used EVERY possible piece of this shirt - apart from button holes & buttons. I used a bright yellow cotton for the yellow arrows/stripes.  I didn't have enough material for the last two rows of the original design - perhaps this is one reason I'm not in love with this piece. You can see here how I pieced all the scraps together to make more material.  You can also see the serial number of the shirt printed on the fabric at the bottom left.

The quilt measures approx 56" x 56". While I am not blown away by the look of the quilt - and I am not sure that I chose the right quilting designs for the materials & look of the quilt top. I am happy with the technical aspect of the quilting I did. Here is the back of the quilt. I used spiral feathers, leaves & pebbles. I like the way the back looks!!!

Back to the front and yes - we are now in the 2nd week of March and we still have a substantial amount of snow (well really ice now) in the garden.

For me this was great practice and I did learn a lot from both the piecing part & the quilting part of things. If you have any opinions on how I could have improved the result of this quilt I would love to hear your input.

I have been wondering how the quilt would look rotated .....