quilts, textiles, inspiration
I finally got around to taking some half decent photos of the blue green bargello quilt.
The quilt is approximately 82 x 92 inches, and is made from a pattern I wrote earlier.
It was beautifully quilted by Anne Rønningen at Quiltekammeret.
Here is a closer look at the quilting.
Eldrid
Bargello quilts are fun. As with all kinds of quilts there are a multitude of possible variations, and they also come together quickly, – at least the tops do.
This one has just been finished.
It was started last summer, so you may well ask what happened to the “quickly” part. The answer is that the last step, the binding, was put off and put off again, until quite recently. The delay was partly on purpose, so that I might also finish the pattern I have been writing for this quilt, so that they could be presented together.
Many years ago, in 1997, I made the quilt above, and have been meaning to make another one which could fit on a bed.
Now I have, although not all by myself.
Anne Rønningen at Quiltekammeret has done a wonderful job with the quilting.
I think the flame like all over quilting pattern fit very well with the bargello pattern of this quilt.
The pattern is available on my website as a downloadable pdf-file.
Have fun!
Eldrid
Another project sent off to the longarm quilter.
This is the large version of my Bargello Flame pattern.
Seems like I get a lot done when I do not have to spend time thinking and deciding about the next step. 
Fabrics for the next project.
Eldrid
Not the most catchy title for a blog post, perhaps, but that is what I have been doing the last few weeks while my blog has been very quiet.
I am into one of those periods when I am not very creative, but just enjoy making simple projects with lots of mindless sewing.
Bargello quilts fit my mood perfectly, as they come together almost by themselves while I am thinking about something else, or listening to music.
This time around, I decided to also try out one of the thousands of tips that you can pick up from forums or blogs on the internet these days: joining squares for another project as leaders and enders.
Using leaders and enders when sewing is nothing new, – far from it, – and I have also been doing that before, but only using fabric scraps that were thrown away afterwards.
Many years ago, when making the quilt above, I cut lots and lots of 2 inch squares, and I had a box of leftover squares from this quilt tucked away below my ironing table. My plan was to join two and two of these squares as leaders and enders while also sewing the bargello quilt.
I first sorted the squares into groups of obvious darks, obvious lights, and mediums. The medium group became quite big, so I sorted those into medium lights and medium darks. Then I put the piles onto two trays. On the tray to the left are the lights and the medium darks, and to the right are the medium lights and the darks.
I started with the tray to the right, selecting a square from each pile to sew together in between the bargello strips.
Here are two squares going in as enders.
Cut off the bargello strips….
… and the squares lead on to the next set of bargello strips.
There are lots of seams in a bargello quilt…..
…… and the heap of joined squares is growing fast. At the moment I am thinking four-patches, and then we’ll see what it will turn into.
The first bargello top is finished and has been sent off to be longarm quilted.
The next project is on its way…..
… and the heap of joined squares is ever growing. I have already started on the second tray.
This is fun!
Eldrid
Marina and Daryl Lynn at Quilt Inspiration have written an article on Bargello quilts, where some of my quilts are featured.
Go here to read the article:
http://quiltinspiration.blogspot.com/2012/04/fabulous-bargello-quilts-introduction.html
Eldrid
Last week I got a phone call from the local school asking if I would like to visit the 10 and 11 year olds, showing some of my quilts. They had been working on geometrics, and each pupil had been given a paper with a square divided into 9 equal parts to decorate as they liked. We quilters would know this as a nine patch block, – and although such terms were unknown to the children, the term “patchwork” did come to mind when they had glued all their blocks together onto a piece of cardboard. So when searching on the internet for “patchwork”, my website came up, – and after looking around there, they decided they wanted to learn a bit more about patchwork and quilting, and they especially wanted to see the Kameleon Quilts. Lucky I live so close
So off I went with a suitcase packed full of some of the quilts that still reside in our home. In the hall just outside the classroom, the result of their geometry project hung on the wall.
A very colourful nine patch sampler.
I told them about nine patch blocks and how they were used in quilts, – very often as the first pattern a small girl would learn to make in former times.
Previously, they had also been doing some rangoli patterns:
We agreed that most of these are four patch blocks.
We also had a look at another traditional block; the log cabin block, and then I went on to show how I had used many of these blocks in my quilts, even the Kameleon Quilts.
On the school website there are some photos from this “show and tell”, which also included other quilts than block quilts. The children were very interested and asked lots of questions, and we were having a great time.
After I got home, I studied the photos I took of their projects, especially the nine patch one. There were some unusual and interesting designs in there, so I have taken the liberty of redrawing a few of the blocks in QuiltPro and playing around a bit to see how they would look if worked into a quilt.
This block is not an unusual pattern in itself, but I have not seen it done in a nine patch grid before, – nor have I found a similar nine patch block in the books and block libraries I have looked through. It may exist somewhere, though.
In a quilt with 3 x 3 blocks it would look like this:
Or like this, if every other block is turned 90 degrees:
Now here is another interesting block:
I have tried to use colours that are similar to the original drawing.
Here it is in a 4 x 4 block quilt:
A very pleasing design, I think.
When every other block is mirrored sideways, it looks like this:
Both of the blocks above have some kind of symmetry to them.
The one below, however, has a refreshing lack of symmetry, both in the design and especially in the colouring; – almost every patch has a new colour:
When set into a repeating pattern, like the 4 x 4 block setting below, it makes a beautiful and interesting quilt:
With every other block turned 90 degrees, it will look like this:
If we “zoom out” a bit, we might also get a better overall view of the design:
I would not mind owning a quilt like that
In conclusion, this turned out to be a most interesting and inspiring visit, – not least for me.
Eldrid
I have written about the progress of this quilt in some of my earlier posts. Two days ago I got it back from the longarm quilter, Anne Rønningen at Quiltekammeret, who did a wonderful job of quilting it. Then I rushed to sew on the binding so it would be finished in time for the Bloggers Quilt Festival, which Amy at Amy’s Creative Side is hosting once again.
I put in the last stitches an hour after the sun set yesterday, but since our nights are getting lighter at this time of year, it was still possible to get some fairly decent photos outside at ten pm.
After my father passed away nearly two years ago, my mother wondered what to do with his shirts. She did not want to just throw them out, so I offered to try to make something out of the material.
I came home with a stack of shirts of very different fabric qualities and colours. I went for a simple block design, and one of the goals I set for myself for this quilt, was to use some fabric from every shirt, and that every block should have different colour and fabric combinations. With so many fabrics available, that was not too difficult.
The fabric qualities varied from quite heavy cotton, to polyester blends and silk, and there were also different levels of wear to the fabrics. I still wanted to include the ones that were most worn as those were the ones we all remember the best.
Despite the varieties in fabric thickness and stretch, Anne did a wonderful job with the quilting. She sent me the photo above, which was taken by her while the quilt was still in the quilting frame, and which got me positively dribbling with anticipation. I was not disappointed when the quilt arrived here shortly after.
This is the fifth time I take part in the Bloggers Quilt Festival.
My previous entries can be seen here:
A very big thank you to Amy for hosting this event yet again
Do not forget to go to Amy’s site and have a look at all the wonderful festival quilts.
The look of the 2014 winter Olympic games in Sochi Russia was revealed a couple of weeks back, and it seems the main theme will be Patchwork, here represented by five colourful panels.
I borrowed the photo above from here.
I am not particularly interested in sports, but obviously, this caught my eye, so I started to search for more photos and information.
Apparently, the patches in the panels are representing a multitude of traditional Russian crafts from all around the country. This site has a list of the crafts that are represented in the panels, each with a short description, but sadly not many photos. On Flikr here, are some more photos from the presentation. I wouldn’t mind having one of these designs on my car, I think
When thinking of Russian crafts, what most often comes to mind, are the matrusjka dolls
… and also other painted and laquered items:
Brooch
Christmas ornaments
The items above are cheap tourist things, but in the Flikr album here, you can see more of the “real” things.
When looking at the patchwork panels in the photo at the top, I noticed the colours and patches in one panel fitted with the next one, – like they were all cut from one long panel.
So I could not resist playing a bit with the photo, putting them all back together again.
Eldrid
Amy over at Amy’s Creative Side is working her wonders again. She is now hosting the 4th Blogger’s Quilt Festival, and as of today you can go to her site and enjoy links to all the wonderful works presented at the different blogs.
This time I thought I would show you my latest creation, along with some of the history that led up to this quilt.
I have been writing up a few posts from Murmansk, Russia, lately. When we visited there the first time in 2007, I was intrigued by a mosaic covered sculpture standing outside one of the cafes we visited.
I loved the look of it, and took quite a few photos. Sadly, I do not know the name of the artist.
After we got home my youngest sister wanted a memory quilt from our tour for her birthday. I then grabbed a detail photo of this sculpture and filled lots of the “tiles” with photos from our trip, before I printed everything on fabric and quilted it.
There are more photos of this quilt on my website.
While I was working on this quilt, I decided that one day I would like to make my own “tiled” quilt, – with “real” fabrics.
My chance came this summer after I had finished the last of my commissions, and I set about playing with ideas and designs. I deliberately avoided to look up my old photos, as I did not want to make a “copy” of the mosaic.
What I had in mind, was to explore interlocking, or overlapping circles, and, – with another piece of art in mind, that I saw last year, – how to achieve a sort of transparency at the same time.
I wrote about the installation above last year, in this post.
My own experimental piece ended up looking like this:
It is quite small, only 19 x 19 inches including the borders.
My starting point was to have one circle of each primary colour overlap each other, but then I threw in a pink circle in one of the corners, and liked the effect.
Most of the surface consists of two or more circles overlapping, so I had to find lots of in-between colours.
Since I love rummaging through my stash looking for just the “right” shade of fabric, I really got to enjoy myself while working on this one.
I got side tracked a few times, so worked on the quilt on and off until recently. There were som trials and errors as I worked things out along the way, but everything came together in the end. I dreaded most sewing all those small fabric pieces, but in the end, it went quite smoothly.
I took notes as I worked since I anticipated that I will be doing this again, with another design. I have since collected my write-ups and drawings in two pdf-files, which are available as a download pattern from my website.
Have fun browsing through all the eye-candy at the Blogger’s Quilt Festival.
Eldrid
My new online class on Folded Fabric Blocks is now open for registration.
Go to Quilt Campus to read more about the class (fourth class from the top), and to register.
Eldrid
Kameleonquilt