100 Days of Modern Quilting – Wrap Up

And like that, 100 Days of Modern Quilting is all over!  That went quickly, didn’t it?  Since the beginning of the year we’ve shown you loads of modern quilts and lots of tutorials.  We hope that you’ve enjoyed following along for the past 14 weeks.

It’s been a thrill for us to be able to feature so many wonderful quilters and quilts and we hope that maybe you discovered something new or learned a little along the way.

One more quilt for the road:

Twinkle in White by Malka Dubrawsky

We thought a list of links of every post for the series would be something people would like to refer to.  We hope that we’ve created a resource that you can turn to regularly for inspiration and ideas.  The 100 Days button on the home page links to this post, so come back and visit all you’d like!

Week 1:Week of Shapes
Featured Quilt 1
Featured Quilt 2
Featured Quilt 3
Featured Quilt 4
Featured Quilt 5
Featured Quilt 6
Featured Quilt 7
Shapes Tutorial Round Up
Half Rectangle Triangle Tutorial

Week 2: Week of Color
Featured Quilt 1
Featured Quilt 2
Featured Quilt 3
Featured Quilt 4
Featured Quilt 5
Featured Quilt 6
Featured Quilt 7
Color Tutorial Round Up
Pineapple Improv Block Tutorial

Week 3: Week of Blocks
Featured Quilt 1
Featured Quilt 2
Featured Quilt 3
Featured Quilt 4
Featured Quilt 5
Featured Quilt 6
Featured Quilt 7
Blocks Tutorial Round Up
Octagonal Orb Block Tutorial

Week 4: Week of Improvisational Piecing
Featured Quilt 1
Featured Quilt 2
Featured Quilt 3
Featured Quilt 4
Featured Quilt 5
Featured Quilt 6
Featured Quilt 7
Improv Tutorial Round Up
Overlapping Squares Block Tutorial

Week 5: Week of Inspiration
Featured Quilt 1
Featured Quilt 2
Featured Quilt 3
Featured Quilt 4
Featured Quilt 5
Featured Quilt 6
Featured Quilt 7
Inspiration Tutorial Round Up
Missoni Inspired Quilt Tutorial

Week 6: Week of Composition
Featured Quilt 1
Featured Quilt 2
Featured Quilt 3
Featured Quilt 4
Featured Quilt 5
Featured Quilt 6
Featured Quilt 7
Composition Tutorial Round Up
The Positive Effects of Negative Space

Week 7: Week of Prints
Featured Quilt 1
Featured Quilt 2
Featured Quilt 3
Featured Quilt 4
Featured Quilt 5
Featured Quilt 6
Featured Quilt 7
Prints Tutorial Round Up
Altering Print Fabrics With Bleach Tutorial

Week 8: Week of Solids
Featured Quilt 1
Featured Quilt 2
Featured Quilt 3
Featured Quilt 4
Featured Quilt 5
Featured Quilt 6
Featured Quilt 7
Solids Tutorial Round Up
Picking Shades of the Same Color Tutorial

Week 9: Week of Using What You Have
Featured Quilt 1
Featured Quilt 2
Featured Quilt 3
Featured Quilt 4
Featured Quilt 5
Featured Quilt 6
Featured Quilt 7
Using What You Have Tutorial Round Up
Knee Socks Quilt Block Tutorial

Week 10: Week of Techniques
Featured Quilt 1
Featured Quilt 2
Featured Quilt 3
Featured Quilt 4
Featured Quilt 5
Featured Quilt 6
Featured Quilt 7
Target Practice Quilt Block Tutorial

Week 11: Week of Collaboration
Featured Quilt 1
Featured Quilt 2
Featured Quilt 3
Featured Quilt 4
Featured Quilt 5
Featured Quilt 6
Featured Quilt 7
Potential Bee Blocks Tutorial Round Up
Collaborate and Commemorate Mini Quilt/Signature Block Tutorial

Week 12: Week of Participation
Featured Quilt 1
Featured Quilt 2
Featured Quilt 3
Featured Quilt 4
Featured Quilt 5
Featured Quilt 6
Featured Quilt 7
Quilt Along Round Up
Tips to Running and Successful Quilt Along

Week 13: Week of Tools
Featured Quilt 1
Featured Quilt 2
Featured Quilt 3
Featured Quilt 4
Featured Quilt 5
Featured Quilt 6
Featured Quilt 7
Tools Tutorial Round Up
Cutting Simple Shapes Tutorial

Week 14: Week of Quilting
Featured Quilt 1
Featured Quilt 2
Featured Quilt 3
Featured Quilt 4
Featured Quilt 5
Featured Quilt 6
Featured Quilt 7
Straight Line Quilting Tips & Tricks
Free Motion Quilting Tips & Tricks

100 Days – Week of Quilting – Tips for Free-Motion Quilting a Larger Quilt

Xylophone Quilt 88″ x 92″ by Elizabeth Hartman

The photo above shows a queen bed quilt that I free-motion quilted on my home machine. Finishing a large quilt on your home machine is certainly more challenging than finishing a pillow or baby quilt, but it’s totally do-able!

Continue reading this post for some tips on finishing a large quilt at home.

Make a stable quilt sandwich.

With bigger quilts, this step can be almost as challenging as the quilting itself! It’s important though, so do take the time to carefully layer your quilt top, batting, and backing. Make sure that you smooth out any wrinkles and remove any pesky lint or hair.

If you’re pin basting, arrange your pins in a regular, gridded formation. (You’re going to have to stop and take them all out as you work and you don’t want to be surprised by their location!) For free-motion quilting, I like my basting pins to be about 5” – 6” apart.

Xylophone Quilt Back Detail

Gather the right supplies.

Moving a larger quilt around on your machine is likely to put some stress on the needle. Counter this by using a 90/14 Machine Quilting needle, rather than a smaller needle that you might use for piecing.

Make sure you have enough thread to complete your quilt. (How much you need will vary depending on your quilting pattern.) I also like to wind as many bobbins as I think I’ll need before I start quilting.

If you’ve pin basted your quilt, make sure you have a container nearby to collect the pins. I usually put a wooden stool or smaller folding table to my right and slightly behind me and keep all of my supplies and any beverages there, so they won’t get knocked over by the quilt I’m working on.

Xylophone Quilting Detail

Create a plan of attack.

It’s almost always going to be easier to quilt when the bulk of your project is on the left of or behind the machine, rather than on the right of the needle (under the machine arm) or in front of the machine. Because of this, I usually quilt large quilts in quadrants.

Dividing the quilt into quadrants

Here you can see an imaginary quilt divided into 4 quadrants. If I were quilting this quilt, I would start with the lower-right quadrant and work my way around the quilt counter-clockwise.

Quilting Quadrant 1

For Quadrant 1, I start in the lower-right corner and work my way back and forth across the quadrant, ending in the upper-right corner, and filling the entire space with quilting. During this process, the bulk of the quilt (Quadrants 2, 3, and 4) will remain to the left of my needle or behind the machine. Only parts of Quadrant 1 will be under the machine arm.

Quilting Quadrant 2

Before starting to quilt Quadrant 2, I rotate the quilt 90° to the right (so Quadrant 1 is on the left of Quadrant 2).

For Quadrant 2, I start quilting in what is now the lower-left corner of the quadrant – right next to where I stopped quilting Quadrant 1. I then quilt back and forth across Quadrant 2, ending in the upper-right corner and filling the entire space.

Once again, the 3 quadrants that I’m not working on remain to the left of or behind the machine.

Quilting Quadrant 3

Now, I turn the quilt 90° to the right and repeat the same process to quilt Quadrant 3, starting in the lower-left corner and working to the upper-right corner of the quadrant.

Quilting Quadrant 4

I’ll repeat the same process for Quadrant 4 but because, this time, I’m going to be quilting up to the already-quilted edge of Quadrant 1, I’ll pay special attention to the layers of my quilt sandwich, smoothing them as necessary to ensure that there’s no puckering. If I’ve made a good quilt sandwich, this shouldn’t be an issue, but I think it’s always a good idea to keep an eye on this part of the quilting, maybe taking it a little slower than the other parts.

Pull, don’t push.

You may have noticed that my plan of attack has me starting at the bottom and then working my way up to the top of each quadrant. Because free-motion quilting doesn’t make use of the machine’s feed dogs, it’s not necessary to feed your quilt through the machine from front to back, as you would with normal sewing. In fact, I find that it’s much easier to start with the quilt behind my machine and pull it toward me as I work. This also makes it possible for me to see what I’ve just quilted, rather than continually pushing it away from me.

Manage the weight of the quilt.

Quilts, especially large quilts, can be heavy. If you allow your quilt to hang off the back of a table or rest in your lap, the process of moving it around the sewing machine will become considerably more difficult. Free-motion quilting can be much easier if you take these two simple steps:

1. Position your machine table against a wall or, ideally, in a corner with one wall to the left of the machine. This will help to keep your quilt from falling off the back or side of the table.
2. As you work, rest the quilt on your arms, chest, and shoulders, rather than letting it pile into your lap. This can be awkward at first, but having the quilt resting on your body will also make it easier to move the quilt.

Get a good grip.

Here’s a photo of how I hold my quilts while I’m quilting them. (If you look closely, you’ll probably notice that I’m holding a finished quilt, but this is exactly how I held this quilt when I was actually quilting it!)

Holding the quilt during quilting

I have my entire left arm under the quilt and I’m grabbing it from underneath with my left hand. This makes moving the quilt much, much easier because whenever I move my left arm, the quilt moves with it. My right hand is grabbing the quilt from the top, on the right of the needle. (Notice how I’m really grabbing the quilt, not gently pushing it around with my fingers.)

My hands are not right near the needle, but I’m holding the quilt so that the quilting area remains flat. Because I have a firm grip on the quilt and am managing its weight so that nothing is hanging off the table or into my lap, I don’t need to have my fingers right up near the needle and can attack somewhat larger areas than I could if I were trying to push the quilt around with my just my fingertips.

As with anything, you may find that other methods work better for you, but I hope this post gives you some ideas about how you can finish a larger quilt on your home machine!

(The Xylophone quilt pattern is included in my new book, Modern Patchwork.)

100 Days – Week of Quilting – Featured Quilt 6

Today’s featured quilt was pieced by Jacquie Gering and long arm quilted by Angela Walters.

You can read about Jacquie’s inspiration for her Low Volume quilt on her blog, Tallgrass Prairie Studio. Continue reading here for Angela’s answers to some questions about this quilt and her process.

Can you tell us a little more about the process of quilting Jacquie’s Low Volume quilt? For instance, how did you determine the quilting design?

“Jacquie was kind enough to let me use some of her quilt tops for my book, so my normal process of quilting was a little different on this quilt. With this quilt, I wanted to show that custom quilting doesn’t have to be hard or intense. I used this quilt to show that instead of using one allover design, using two different designs created a whole different look for the quilt. Once I had decided that was how I wanted to quilt it, I quilted a flowery design in just the white portions of the quilt. In the other portions of the quilt, I quilted a leaf design (both of which are shown in the book). By letting the quilt top act as the guide for my quilting, I didn’t have to mark the quilt or even think too much about it while I was quilting it. I chose the two designs to complement the softness of the colors in her quilt and am very happy with how it turned out!”

We see a lot of quilters puzzling over what thread color to use for quilting. How do you decide what color thread to use?

“For me, picking out the thread is almost as fun as picking out the quilting designs! I love to joke, “if quilting is my therapy, threads are my meds!”. I, personally, love to use thread that blends into the quilt top. I want people to see the quilt first, and then the quilting. I usually audition a thread on the quilt by laying several different colors on the quilt top. The ones that shows the least, wins! I wrote a blog post that also talks about how to pick out thread.”

As a long arm quilter, you must handle quilts made by a bunch of different people. Is it ever difficult to send them back once you’re done with the quilting?

“It never gets easier! I like to think about the quilts as foster kids. They belong to someone else, but they come into my life for little while, I love on them and then send them back. But the great thing about quilting for people in blogland, I get to see them again in pictures! Sometimes, I will forget a quilter, but I rarely forget a quilt that I have worked on!”

You can read more about Angela on her blog, Quilting is My Therapy. Her book, Free Motion Quilting With Angela Walters, will be out this June.

100 Days – Week of Quilting – Straight-line Quilting Tips and Tricks

Straight-line quilting is just what it sounds like.

Intersections, 2012, Alissa Haight Carlton, detail of quilting

Sewing through all three layers of your quilt sandwich in a straight line!  It can be quite simple to do, or more involved depending on the complexity of the pattern you decided to quilt.  Either way, there are tips and tricks that can help you out quite a bit.

Needs:

The primary thing you’ll need is a walking foot for your sewing machine.  You can straight line quilt without one, but there’s no doubt that the quality of your stitches and your quilting will improve a lot with a walking foot.

A walking foot has feed dogs on the bottom of it, so when combined with the feed dogs in your machine all three layers of your quilt sandwich are fed smoothly through your machine.

Some machines have different feeding systems, so check your manual if it seems a walking foot is not an option.  My Janome has an “accufeed system” that involves pulling a foot down into place, rather than attaching a  separate foot.

Another thing that you should check your manual for is if your machine has the ability to adjust your presser foot pressure.  My first machine didn’t have this ability, and when I got a machine that did, it also improved my straight line quilting quite a bit.

Trouble shooting:

Fabric shifting:
If your presser foot pressure is too strong, your fabric can shift slightly.  I used to alternate the direction in which I’d sew my lines so that this shift would be spread back and forth and back and forth again… You can see in the placemat below that the light blue fabric has a wiggle to it, caused by the fabric shifting slightly as I sewed each line. The fact that I used linen here also had an impact as it “sticks” to the batting less than cotton fabrics do.

Now that I can keep my presser foot pressure lighter this issue has gone away completely.

Puckering:
Another problem than can arise with straight-line quilting is when you want to sew across seams you’ve already sewn.  Sometimes, as you approach a seam, fabric can bubble up to it, push against it, and create a pucker as you sew across it.

Again, the pressure of your presser foot has a big impact on this but I also have found that if you anticipate it and literally hold the fabric in place, and nice and flat, as you sew up to a seam it can improve the problem.

The more you get to know your sewing machine, the more you’ll know if these problems will arise for you and how to handle them.

Tips:

How to work your way through your quilt:
I recommend that when it’s possible, always work from the center out of your quilt.

If you’re simply doing vertical straight lines along the entire face of the quilt, sew your first line right down the center of the quilt and then work your way out to the right.  Then flip the whole quilt 180 degrees and repeat this process.

If your quilting is more involved than this, think it though before you get started.  This tutorial on my blog gives you an idea of what I mean.

Also, if your quilt is very well basted and you’ve used a batting that the fabric “sticks” to really well (cotton batting for example) you don’t have to always start in the middle and work your way out.  Sometimes the design simply doesn’t allow for it.  Always take care that if you’re creating a situation where a portion of your quilt is getting surrounded by quilting, and you’re going to quilt that middle portion later, that the fabric in the middle is VERY well basted and is staying very, very flat.  You don’t want rippling and bubbling in your quilted quilt top.

For some quilts, you’ll want to fill in different portions or boxes.  To do this, you can stop and start in the middle of the quilt, just be sure to sew locking stitches both at the beginning and the end of the lines you sew.

One other thought: the bigger the throat of your machine, the easier it will be to turn your quilt through it.  If you have a small machine and you’re quilting a bit quilt, lots and lots of square spirals might not be the route for you.  Unless you have a lot of arm strength and patience!

Keeping your lines straight:
First of all, I’m just going to say it – I don’t care if my lines aren’t perfectly straight.  I like the organic handmade feeling of lines that are imperfect and the big picture always looks much better than each individual line you sew.  That said, you certainly don’t want them looking too messy!

There are a few ways to keep them straight.  If you quilt densely (as I often do) you can simply use the edge of your walking foot as the guide for each subsequent seam you sew.  I tend to eyeball my first seam, but if it makes you more comfortable, draw it on with a ruler and a washable fabric pen or chalk and then you’re off and running!

Another option is to draw on every line you sew, using chalk or a fabric pen.  This can be time consuming and make sure it will wash out before you start drawing!

Some people like to use tape as Jacquie has shown here.

Finally, there’s the good old quilting bar.  Check out this post by Kathy at Pink Chalk to see a great post about using it.

So dive in!

Straight line quilting on the back of Crossroads, 2012, Alissa Haight Carlton

Get some straight-line quilting done today! Depending on how densely you quilt it can be time quite consuming (take breaks! You don’t have to finish quilting all in one go!) but the end results are wonderful.

100 Days – Week of Quilting – Featured Quilt 5

Gabrien Chaney used the Plain Spoken pattern from Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr’s The Modern Quilt Workshop to make this beautiful quilt for her daughter’s bed.

Here’s what Gabrien had to say about making the quilt and sending it out for longarm quilting:

“I chose to sew Plain Spoken quilts for each of my children after they received new bedding sets for Christmas one year.  I wanted to make quilts that would coordinate with those sets but also still be usable with a totally different style of decor as well.  I basically wanted to make quilts that could be used for many years and not look like they were made for babies.  I saw a Plain Spoken quilt on Flickr and decided it would be the perfect pattern.

I made my son’s first.  When I finished the top my mom offered to long-arm quilt it because she had just taken a course at our local quilt shop, Sharon’s Attic in Hillsboro, Oregon.  To prep the quilt I thought I only needed to allow the 4 inches of batting and backing all around the quilt-to hold it in the frame.  As it turns out, there was more I should have done.  On quilting day Mom had to struggle to get it ready because I hadn’t nested my seams or clipped threads, or properly lint rolled it before bringing it in.  I also hadn’t thought about how much stretch the quilt will experience on the frame- it was a problem that I hadn’t back-tacked each seam.  I chain pieced the top and the would have been best to have set my machine to the automatic back-tack setting.  Despite these struggles, Mom did a great job and the quilt is loved.

About a year later I finally got my second Plain Spoken quilt top done.  I decided to have it quilted on the long- arm as well because my daughter wanted a spiral design similar to another quilt we had seen recently.  I didn’t think I could manage a spiral on my little machine.  We asked Wanda Schwab, a quilter- friend of my mom’s, who rents the machine at Sharon’s Attic.  We knew she could do the spiral with a template.  We thought a spiral would offset the rectangles nicely.  I also wanted a large design as opposed to tight, because the quilt is backed with flannel and I like the feel of loosely quilted flannel.

Knowing what Mom had gone through with the first quilt, I pieced the second quilt with a smaller stitch length and diligently back tacked each seam so they wouldn’t pull apart when stretched.  I also carefully nested the seams and clipped all threads.  Lastly, before turning it in, I laid out a big white sheet and lint rolled both the quilt top and back, before making the sandwich.  There’s no need to pin, in fact you can’t pin, because the quilt will be stretched and held with clamps and pins on the long-arm frame (bonus!).  Wanda did a great job and this quilt is also loved and used daily.”

100 Days – Week of Quilting – Featured Quilt #4

Today’s featured quilt is Leesa of Square One Studio’s String Quilt for Carol Lee.

Here’s what Leesa had to say about her quilt:

“This quilt was years in the making—eleven, to be exact. In 2001 I received some amazing vintage fabric from my painter-friend Carol Lee whose quilt-making mother had recently passed.

As a junior professor working towards tenure, I had limited free time, I barely managed to keep up with crib quilts for the babies other friends were welcoming in to the world. With tenure behind me in 2010, I wrote to Carol Lee (also recently tenured, huzzah!) about her color preferences for a quilt incorporating her mother’s scraps.

She preferred a palette that avoided primaries and incorporated “maybe something to complement a gray chair”? So I thought about the kind of design I wanted to tackle, about the vintage integrity of the scraps, about Carol Lee’s own abstract paintings, and about the unfortunate fact that the important milestones in a single woman’s life too often pass unrecognized even now, in the 21st century.

After a few spectacularly failed attempts, I hit upon this patch-y vertical string quilt design in pink, olive green, grey and golden yellow—a palette I imagined might have been a “groovy” Pantone color chart from the late 60s/early 70s. The top came together slowly and was finished a full decade after I received the scraps.

It was my second machine-quilted project ever and the first on my new Janome Memory Craft 6600 “space age” model. It was also my first attempt at quilting a measured, tightly spaced grid over an irregular, “wonky” design.

This is not to suggest that I marked and measured a grid before quilting, I don’t have the patience for that. I marked a giant “X” through the middle, positioned the adjustable quilting guide to 1” and sewed outward from the middle using the original X as a reference. Although it can be risky to work with unwashed fabrics and tedious to sew a closely-knit grid when you’re anxious to see the finished result, I feel the resulting crinkled, vintage texture is well worth the effort. It’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of a finished top but equally important to execute the quilting in a way that will complement and enhance the design rather than detract from it.

It’s not perfect— there are unintentional wobbles where I fought against the pull of the full quilt’s weight in the center and more than a few hand-stitched repairs to the vintage seams weakened by its inaugural trip through the wash. At the same time, it is a “perfect” reflection of the constancy of quilting across generations, of the wobbles and adjustments in long-distance friendships over time, and of the need to occasionally give yourself, your professional, personal and quilting aspirations room to lie dormant and breathe until they’re ready to emerge from nostalgic bits and bobs into a dynamic new form.”

 

100 Days – Week of Quilting – Featured Quilt 3

Alison used hand quilting to add diamond-shaped accents to this quilt made with scraps leftover from two previous projects.

Here’s what Alison had to say about her quilt, and quilting in general:

“The quilt came about because I was having a bit of a Tufted Tweets (Laurie Wisbrun) obsession. I’d already made two other quilts with the Tufted Tweets line and was left with a bunch of scraps which I wanted to make in to one final quilt. I also have this thing about objects having to be the right way up so was looking for a block that wouldn’t turn the Tufted Tweets chairs upside down. Quilters Cache is a great free online resource with literally hundreds of blocks to choose from. So I started trawling through the pages until I stumbled on this one and could immediately see the possibilities.

It’s paper-pieced and I did it the old-fashioned way of printing off one copy and then tracing new copies from a light box that was going for a song on Ebay. Because the Tufted Tweets fabrics are so vibrant, I knew I wanted to tone them down with a couple of neutrals and that really is how the top came about.

It is hand-quilted for a couple of reasons. I always have to have something on the go downstairs. My sewing room is on the ‘flop toor’ which is the unintentional spoonersim our youngest daughter used when asked where Mummy was and ‘flop toor’ it has stayed! To hide away there in the evenings would be anti-social so when I am downstairs in the evening, I can’t just sit and talk or watch TV…I still have to be doing something else and hand-quilting is that something else.

The other reason I hand-quilt is I find it a de-stresser. I find the whole hand-quilting experience very calming and soothing. I’m sure if hand-quilting was included in prison rehabilitation schemes there would be a whole lot less reoffending!

I quilt because there are no boundaries. I used to knit but you basically start out with a pattern and you pretty much have to follow it if the end product is going to turn out anywhere near successful. Quilting, especially modern quilting, is liberating. There can be a pattern if you want there to be but equally there can just be that seed of an idea in your head that grows and develops as you progress. There is no one right way. It might not turn out how you first thought it would but it will turn out as a quilt none-the-less that is an individual expression of you.

I am not out to reinvent the wheel when it comes to quilting, just tweak it a little with my own personal interpretation.”

You can read more about Alison’s work on her blog, Little Island Quilting.

100 Days – Week of Quilting – Featured Quilt 2

Chantelle Brightbill used a lovely free-motion quilting pattern to enhance her 37” x 52” Broken Chain quilt.

Here’s what Chantelle had to say about her quilt:

“I hesitate to make designs with a lot of triangles or ones with many blocks repeated, but I love using traditional designs, so I decided to use the Yankee Puzzle block in a way that was less stressful, by just piecing it into a chain.  I decided that having the chain ‘broken’ made for a more interesting composition.  For the solid color I originally intended to use white, but it felt too bland when I laid it out, so I hand dyed it grey.  I specifically didn’t want to use the exact same tone as the grey prints, so I added a bit of yellow to the dye and gave it a greenish undertone.  I think that small contrast adds a lot to the limited color palette.

I began free motion quilting because I am not very good at stitch in the ditch  (I always wobble out of it), and I don’t have the patience to lay out a formal design.  I was basically just doing stipple for a long time, but I started noticing more creative types of free motion in magazines and blogs, so I started experimenting.  Now quilting is my favorite part of the entire process, in fact for a long time I only made whole cloth quilts. I don’t enjoy lots of complicated and exacting piecing, I just want to create a foundation to quilt on.  I do all my quilting on my own machine, which has a few extra inches under the arm.  That makes a big difference in what it can handle.  I can quilt King size quilts on it.

I usually do not decide what kind of quilting pattern I am going to do until the quilt top is finished.  Basting gives me a chance to spend some time with the design, and by the time I have finished pinning the top has told me how it wants to be quilted.

I think the best way to approach free motion quilting is without expectations.  You need to just relax and concentrate on even stitch length.  If you have that pretty much any design will look good. I like to play with smaller pieces, and if I like the way the pattern turns out I will use it on something larger.”

Chantelle taught herself to sew when she was 16. Growing up in a cotton farming area of rural Australia has given her a strong commitment to using organic cotton fabrics. She is a member of the Orange County, California, Modern Quilt Guild.

100 Days – Week of Quilting – Featured Quilt 1

Lynn Harris’ Zinnias quilt was inspired by a photo (shown below) of zinnias growing in her garden. She used a walking foot to quilt a beautiful texture of wavy lines across her quilt.

Here’s what Lynn had to say about her quilt:

“The quilt was inspired by a row of Zinnias in my garden, and so I wanted to give an organic feel to the quilting. The bright row of half square triangles is very precisely pieced in a straight row. The quilting, therefore, needed to be more free and flowing. I chalk marked some straight lines vertically down the quilt and then with my walking foot sewed meandering lines that followed the general line of the marked lines. That kept the curved lines “in line” so to speak. I sewed these fairly close to fill in and give texture to the otherwise “empty” parts of the quilt.”

Lynn finished her first quilt in 1976, when she was in middle school. Today she’s a member of both the Ann Arbor and Brighton, Michigan, Modern Quilt Guilds. You can see more of Lynn’s work on her blog, The Little Red Hen.

100 Days – Week of Quilting – Introduction

Quilting is what separates quilts from blankets. It holds all the layers together and provides a great opportunity to add texture to our finished quilts.

During this last week of 100 Days of Modern Quilting, we’ll be looking at quilts with particularly interesting quilting including: straight line walking foot quilting, free motion quilting, hand quilting, and longarm quilting.

Welcome to the week of quilting!