Experimenting

I have been collecting black and white fabrics for close to two years now.
Here is some beautiful Riley Blake black and white fabric nestled in between solids and of course polka dots!

Below is some shot cotton I picked up while at a conference last year. I want to use it, but do acknowledge there is quite a fray factor to it, so am still deliberating how to best use it. 

I thought I would have some fun and experiment with a block. Using Cheryl Arkinson's simple tutorial, I whipped up this little gem. 

I am contemplating doing a whole quilt with black and white and a splash of polka dot, but would like to use my own design. I will keep experimenting, but the colour sure does show up in black and white doesn't it? 

I will leave you with a 2 minute video on creativity. 

Two Finished!

I finished my black and white quilt  a month early for our guild's president's challenge.  I used embroidery thread to quilt it, two strands, and quilted it horizontally and vertically.   The black thread does not show unless you look really close.  Only my coloured threads show which is kind of cool.

  The fabric is cotton left overs, the batting is bamboo from Pellon and the screening is when I broke our screen as I ran through it to answer the phone as I didn't see it=)

Do you know what is coming next? The 'Undie Quilt'!  I probably should think of a better name for it, but that could prove a bit difficult, I mean it is underwear=)

I did a stipple stitch to quilt it in white thread and chose not to quilt the underwear so that they would pop out a bit more.

 The embellishments are Riley Blake Fabrics, the batting is bamboo from Pellon and the fabric is from Trend-Tex Fabrics. What do you think?  

Black and White

Remember I told you my dilemma with my black and white quilt for our guild's president challenge?

How I could not sew the screening under my machine because it just grabbed it.

I came up with a solution.  I decided to use embroidery floss and hand quilt it in lines throughout the quilt.  I used a dark grey as the main colour, and then splashes of the other colours throughout the quilting.

I think I will do a few vertical lines as well.

The grey literally disappears into the quilt.  You can only see it when it comes through a coloured square.

What do you think?

Three On The Go

Do you work on one quilt at a time, or are you like me and have no less than three happening all at once?
And I won't even tell you how many are in my sketch pad or how many have the fabrics pulled out waiting to be made=)

This is my black and white quilt for the challenge at our guild.   We were allowed to use 10% of other colours.  Thank goodness!   I did a patch background and then lay screening on top, and cut holes through it.  

As I had never worked with screening before, when I went to quilt it, the problems started.  The screening would not feed through the machine and kept getting stuck.   I used my good ol' seam ripper and went at it.  I have now figured out a different method to quilt it and will post pics of that shortly.

This is my second quilt for my 'Circle Me Silly' workshop.   I love it.. although you may notice what happens when you don't buy enough fabric!  Have to figure out how to fix that problem=)

This one is just me totally experimenting and having fun.  I don't know what I am going to do with them yet, so they may be on my design wall for a bit.

Got a favourite?  Got any suggestions?  I love hearing from you!

Finishing and Starting

Woohoo!  I finished up my wearable for the Canadian Quilters' Association Trend-Tex Challenge.  
It is our annual fundraiser, our only fundraiser and it helps us with operational costs.   This was under my duties this year as VP.   The theme was 'Modern Ways' and we added in a wearable category along with the quilt category.

Above is the front, and there are 3 pockets inside and it is lined.  Below is the back.   I even went all out and padded the strap so it is ultra comfortable.   

In case you didn't know (and the pics above gave no hints), I have an obsession with circles and dots.   My dear friend MT showed up at our guild meeting last month and plunked a bag of fabric down and told me it was to help my addiction.

Guess what was inside?  Hundreds of these precut colourful circles.

Does anyone have any super ideas about what I can do with them, and please do not say hand applique anything=)

During all the circle excitement, I started another project.

Our President's Challenge at my guild is a black and white quilt.   I designed a quilt on my sketch pad, made a few notes and got underway.  You can see all my black and white, with a sneak of grey in there, of fabric.   

I then pieced them together in groups of twos.   Did you notice that I added a few bits of colour to wake you up.   

I have to sew them into rows and then join them all.  But it is still not done, then comes the crazy part.

Stay tuned!