Quilt: June 2019

I recently finished a new favorite of mine, which remains unnamed. Thanks for your positive feedback on IG, friends! Here is some background information on the my creative process here, before I forget it all when I start my next project!

Design

I created this original design in Photoshop with a simple two color (plus white) color palette. The original design was well received on Instagram, and positive encouragement always gets my motivation juices flowing! I don't remember what the design inspiration was, other than it being a derivative of my own previous pieces which combine linear piecing to create large negative space forms.

After I had a Photoshop design, I reverse engineered how I might piece it. I use Google Spreadsheets to document and calculate piecing detail to create those courthouse steps. All of the strips were cut at a width of 1" and finish at 1/2".

This time, I also had an idea to expand on the color palette via a gradient of colors, not knowing how it might turn out. As luck would have it, I came across a fat quarter stack of Tula Pink All Star solids at a local quilt shop, and I was sold on the stack.

Piecing

I may have re-sorted the solid stack slightly (not sure?), and then I figured out where to "split the stack" between the inner and outer blocks of the quilt. I excluded two of the low value solids from the stack because I wanted to maintain a high contrast. These Tula Pink solids were combined with a mix of white fabric I had on hand, which is mostly Kona white, but a couple of other more sheen whites are mixed in as well to give a little bit of depth in the white.

Other than having some wonkiness due to a not-scant quarter inch (which might now be resolved!), the piecing went relatively smoothly. IE, I didn't have to rip out much. All of the solids were cut in various lengths from 2.5" - 3.5" and pieced together in a semi-improv manner to produce the gradient.

Quilting

I made my quilt sandwich with Warm & Natural batting, free spirit voile on the back, plus a small piece of the low volume solid from the original stack. I baste with safety pins on my kitchen table, as that's my preferred basting method.

I machine quilted on my Juki with a walking foot using Aurifil 50wt white thread, with a combination of stitch the ditch and straight line stitching. I considered more elaborate quilting in the white area, but I couldn't quite find an alternative / complementary quilting design that I liked more. Once quilting was complete, I had a first time experience of blocking prior to binding, which was successful.

Binding

I finished with pieced hand binding. I didn't want the binding to distract from the design, and I wanted to extend the existing gradient. I'm happy with how this pieced binding came out since that's not how I typically finish quilts.

Anyways... Happy Making!

Thanks if you are still reading! I hope you enjoy hearing about my creative process and enjoy more photos below. Happy making!