Jelly Roll Quilt Book

Transcription

1 Jelly Roll Quilt Book Love precuts? Love Jelly Rolls? Love cutting your stash into 2 1/2 strips to save for the perfect patterns? FaveQuilts.com just released a new FREE FEE FREE ebook. It has 9 different Jelly Roll quilt patterns in there. Since this is a compilation-type book, there are all sorts of styles and designers represented. See one of the most popular ReannaLily Designs Patterns, the Batik Braid Quilt, on page 14.

2 I think my favorite quilt in the book is the Striped Chevrons Baby Quilt Tutorial, page 30. It is a design by Erica Jackman from Kitchen Table Quilting. Click here to be magically transported to the download page. Enjoy. Inspired By Quilt Entry Ok, I ve been hard at work making my entry for the Inspired By Quilt Alliance Challenge. These are my inspiration quilts. My entry doesn t quite have a name yet.

3 Click to Enlarge? The project is 16 square and has a total of 8 hexagons featured. Don t try to count them. You can really only see 4, machine appliqued using techniques from Hexagons Made Easy. The other 4 are quilted into the design. I ll get you a close up. You might be able to see the quilted hexagon over on the left. The whole project has machine quilting lines about 1/4 apart. There s loads of variegated Sulky thread on this tiny quilt.

4 You can see the pebbles quilted inside this ghost hexagons a bit better. The back of the piece is quilted with grey/smoke color thread, hand so the stitched. quilting I figured looks very subtle on the back. Of course, both of my inspiration quilts are technique wasn t a deal breaker.

5 And like my inspiration quilt, this quilt is made entirely of fabric scraps. It is so nice to dive into the scrap bin and get those pieces used up. This project should be up for auction later this year. I ll be sure to post a link for you when I find out more. Inspired By Quilts As I mentioned, I m jumping in and giving the Inpsired By contest a try. The first step is to cruise on over to the Quilt Index and find your inspiration. Quilt Index It was really really hard to narrow down. When I was in college, at LSU, our Historic Textile Museum put on a show of local (Baton Rouge/ Louisiana area) quilter Anna Williams work. Her story and work are amazing. {{I guess it made a pretty big impact as it was my first quilt showcase to see, ever, at age 19 or 20.}} At that time, she hand-pieced loads of hand-cut fabric strings to make a very improvisational, free string style quilt. I had to see if her quilts were documented in the Quilt Index. Good news! She has at least one quilt documented in the database.

6 Anna Williams Quilter A Lil Bit Crazy Two Image borrowed from QuiltIndex.org Love the strings. Love the angles!!! Then I thought I wonder if there s hexagons and strings? Well, well, well, what do ya know?

7 Crazy Quilt (c1880) Hexagons! Stripes! Random! Scrappy! All in all AWESOME. These are my inspiration for Inspired By challenge. Stay tuned. And in case anyone was wondering- I will not be hand piecing or hand sewing any part of my entry. OH- maybe the binding. Yeah, I ll do the binding by hand. But the rest will be rocking along on my sewing machine.

8 Inspired By Contest Quilt Alliance is holding a contest! From The Quilt Alliance Website: Our annual contest is all about?inspiration?this year. Our mission is to document, preserve and share the stories of?(all)?quilts and (all)quiltmakers. We encourage everyone who makes quilts to enter our annual contest regardless of their style (traditional, modern, art) or technique (longarm, hand quilting, applique, pieced ) all are welcomed and valued! Not only will the 16 x 16 works be auctioned off for a great cause, but you can also win prizes! For all the info- CLICK HERE to learn more. This is the next project I m working on. Check it out. And oh my goodness, the Quilt Index is so extensive; you ll be inspired in a hot second!

9 Triangle Quilted Convergence Quilt So last week I showed you how I made my Triangle Convergence Quilt. I want to show you how I quickly quilted the project. I used all batting scraps for this project, which meant I needed to spend a tiny bit of time building a rectangle from my pieces. Frankenbatting as it is affectionately known. I did end up having enough of one type of batting, so although you see that white batting in the sea of ivory/bone colors, I ended up not using it. First, to prep my quilt top, I drew 4 LARGE 60 degree diamonds randomly on the quilt with my Frixtion non-permanent pen. I then loaded my quilt onto my midarm quilt machine to give ruler work a try. That was much harder than I had anticipated, but I did start to get the hang of it right towards the very last diamond. If I was quilting this quilt, 51 x 62 again, I would probably have had better luck on my home/domestic sewing machine + walking foot.

10 Anywho ruler work. I traced out the diamonds and then did an echo line around each diamond. My plan was to make those wavy lines to fill in the majority of the negative space and then practice some neat-o filler within the diamond. I tried out these roses for the first time. I definitely have these planned for the next quilt I make. They were WAY easier than I estimated. Jump in, give them a try!

11 I gave McTavishing a little try in one of the diamonds. It was coming along nicely. And having to only fill in 4 big shapes made it really really fast.

12 I added a little mixed filler ala Angela Walters, of course. And that was that. The quilt is pretty much ready to come off the frame. I did end up working from top to bottom, the way you do on a quilt frame. For that reason, if you are familiar with longarm/mid-arm, there was LOTS of rolling the quilt up on the bars and down on the bars in order to make those large diamond shapes. I would block in my curvy background lines, then part of the diamond, then the background lines. Then when I got to the end of the diamond outline, I d roll the quilt back up and work on the filler at that time. LOTS of rolling. Of course my machine has about 9 of quilting space, so that does affect the amount of rolling, too.

13 The quilt is bound in the same navy blue cotton fabric as the border. Gees. I guess I didn t get a picture of it bound. Trust me, it s bound and finished. Triangle Convergence Quilt I really like the math behind visual illusion quilts. I like that quilts look 3D or hard to figure out. For that reason, I really enjoy the Ricky Tims Convergence quilts. I bought the book made a couple squares/blocks in 2009, which, evidently I made into a bag. Well, since then, I ve seen a few convergence quilts made with triangles. Check out some of the cool ones by Caryl Bryer Fallert. I set forth to finally give it a try. I wanted to mix the basic ideas of convergence from the book with the triangle shapes.

14 I think it worked. It s converged. It is modern. It is using up some fabric scraps. Let me show you how I made it. First up, I took 4 pieces of fabric and cut them identically. My pieces happened to be about 16 x 19. Why? Why not a full fat quarter size? Well, these were scraps. Big scraps, but still. The smallest one was the light blue (plaid) made from the back panel of one of my son s too-small dress shirts. Everything else was cut to that size. You could certainly do this with any size, though.

15 I had a light and dark green and a light and dark blue. Switch up the triangle corners and main piece to make a positive and negative shape. These, pictured above, are already stitched. That will leave you with 4 rectangles, each with a large triangle in the center. Stack TWO rectangles on top of each other, with the triangle points aiming in the same direction. For my project, I mixed up design so that each set would have one blue and one green based rectangle. With the rectangles stacked, make cuts across the triangle at ANY point. My measurements are arbitrary. A couple 1 cuts. A couple 2 ; one or two 2 1/2 and a 3 leftover end piece.

16 This step is where the magic happens. With those cut strips, lay out the new convergence design by alternating one blue, one green, one blue, one green until you are out of strips. Make sure to keep the strips in order, so that the triangle looks like it is stretched out or growing. Once the pieces are all inter-mixed. Stitch the strips together. Easy easy easy straight sewing.

17 My two large blocks are not identical, though are cut to be identical finished sizes. The design variation happened because on one set of stacked triangles I made all my narrow cut strips (1 wide) closer to the top pointy-point of the triangle. That is shown in the right-hand block. The other stacked rectangles sliced the 1 strips across the widest part, the triangle base area. That is on the left-hand side block. I think the left-hand block is more successful because you sorta cannot see the triangle top points on the right-hand side. Live and learn, right? What next? Borders! I saw a Modern Quilt Lecture that pointed out, generally, modern quilts don t have borders. Well, I thought I d wing it and see how it turns out. I did add a 2 wide navy blue border and then a larger white frame. The quilt is 51 x 62. That s a nice usual size, right? Good for the couch, for sure.

18 Stay tuned and I ll show you how I quilted it. Radiant Orchid Guild Challenge The San Antonio Modern Quilt Guild issues a President s Challenge. Last year, the President s Challenge was an Emerald Pantone Color of the Year themed project. This year, the challenge is also Pantone themed, but we have to make a mini quilt. The only restriction for the mini is that is be less than 36 on each side. This is my first Radiant Orchid block or mini. If you re going to call it a block- it is a BIG block. If you are calling it a mini It is 19 square with zero mini pieces. A Fat Eigthth of that purple polka dot was provided by the President as part of the challenge.

19 Wanna see how I made it? I busted out my Bias Bars for this one. First up, cut true bias strips. I cut my strips 1 1/4 wide strips on an exact 45 degree angle. Then I folded the fabric in half WRONG SIDES TOGETHER and stitched 1/8 seam allowance down the whole length of the strip.

20 Ok, now pick the 3/8 Bias Bar. These bars are pretty great. The are flat pieces of metal that you stick into the bias tube. The metal heats and helps press the strip. Unfortunately the metal heats so wowsa, that thing can get hot, so be careful. Make sure the the seam is centered on the back of the bar. ((Sorry, that one is blurry.)) You can see in the bar inside the tube right there. The seam is on the back. Here s a picture of the wrong side. These Bias Bars are great because you don t have to turn your tube right side out with a fancy turning tool. Just make sure your seam allowances is on the back and you re all set.

21 I made a couple colors and hit them with starch to keep the nice Bias Tape look while I worked with the placement. Next I needed to decided on the shapes I wanted to frame on the mini quilt. I went with Bizarrooo Football and Circle.

22 The football shape was first. I pinned it to the background. My plan was to use Stitch Witchery fusible webbing to hold the bias tape in place temporarily, until I could get it to the sewing machine. Turned out, that fusible wasn t strong enough for this application. I had to go with the pins.

23 I have been wanting to try this stuff ever since last October. My Hexagons Made Easy class folks recommended it to me. It is monofilament thread. Last time I used any monofilament, it did not go well. The class peeps were telling me that Superior Threads Monofilament had a smoke and a clear that was amazing. The class was right! I used smoke. Turned out wonderful!!! I just had to edge stitch around the bias tape. Mostly, I had to make sure the cut edge of my bizarroooo football was caught under the bias tape.

24 I had originally just planned the football shape. I went back and added the half circle later. I was trying to get some balance in the design. The project is due in May, so I have a bit of time to decide on the quilting or decide to make something else and equally orchid-y.

25 US News and World Report Thank you so much, Joanne, for interviewing me for your article on 5 Ways to Fund Your Passion. It was a great look at craft-to-business planning.

26 Hexagons Made Easy Trunk Show The quilts and projects featured in?hexagons Made Easy are on display! Thanks to The French Seam in Stuggart Arkansas for hosting the show earlier in January. The traveling trunk show of quilts is hanging out at Stitched With Love in McKinney Texas from NOW until April. Swing on by and check it out.

27 If you are a shop, and would like to host the trunk show, please follow this link. Dallas Modern Workshop Quilt Guild I cannot thank the Dallas Modern Quilt Guild enough for having me out. That meeting was an absolute blast. The guild members were so friendly and ambitious.

28 The Get Published lecture was first up, then the Hexagons Made Easy Wall Hanging Workshop. The guild meeting was actually moved to a Saturday and to a larger venue to accommodate the workshop. If you follow me on Instagram, reannalilydesigns_jen, you may have already seen a few of these pics.

29 Each of the workshop students received a fabric kit. There s plenty of fabric in the kit to learn the technique, make the project OR learn the technique and branch off to create something totally unique. The workshoppers embraced that and made some of the most innovative little 30 square quilts. With their permissioncheck out some of these cool works-in-progress:

30 We have purple. We have blue. We have floral. We have stripes.. AND most importantly we have HEXAGONS! Look at em go! I cannot wait to see some of the finished mini quilts. Thanks again for having me out! If your guild or shop is interested in the lecture or workshop, please see this link for more information. Have quilts. Will travel. *Fabric used in the kits showcased is by Art Gallery Fabrics.

31 Craftsy Patterns ReannaLily Designs Patterns are on Craftsy! Go check them out and tell a friend. Dallas Modern Quilt Guild This WEEKEND I ll see you SATURDAY!

32 I cannot wait for the Get Published Lecture and Hexagons Made Easy Workshop!