Tag Archives: libs elliott

english paper piecing, Hand Stitching, Quilting

Stitching on the Go: EPP & Visible Mending

March 20, 2018 kittywilkin 6 Comments

I don’t travel often, and when I do, I usually have three kids in tow who demand quite a bit of my attention, so traveling solo to and from QuiltCon early last month was quite a treat. Even with layovers, long flights, and all-day travel days, it seemed like I was on vacation traveling solo. Well, okay, I WAS on vacation… but you know what I mean! All the free time meant that I made a lot of progress with my hand stitching, which I want to finally share with you today.

I headed off to QuiltCon with an English Paper Piecing (EPP) project–the Mandolin Quilt Block by Jodi at Tales of Cloth. I had gotten a bit further than my last blog update on this project, but I still had the entire outer ring to baste and stitch on, as well as some of the inner colored segments to attach. EPP is my favorite travel stitching project at the moment, since it’s compact, fun, and easy to pick up and put down. I also don’t seem to be tiring of rainbows and high contrast, so hopefully you’re not getting bored, either!

As you can see, I was able to completely finish stitching my Mandolin Quilt block during my travels, which means this is next in line to become an awesome pillow right behind its Moonstone brother. I used Alison Glass fabric in that saturated stunning rainbow for which she’s so well known, and threw in some fun meticulously cut Libs Elliott fabrics from her True Love line for Andover Fabrics for contrast. I stitched it together using Aurifil monofilament thread in smoke, which meant I didn’t need a headlamp for precision on the poorly lit plane, yet you still can’t see any of the stitches. Bonus!

While I was traveling, the mending on my most-worn jeans began to wear through, but fortunately I was able to pick up a mending kit from the Brooklyn Haberdashery booth at QuiltCon, and I stitched on a new patch during my travels home. I love the texture on this patch, and also am kind of loving the mending of mending layered play between the stitches on the original mending and the stitches on the new.

I used the 12wt Aurifil thread I had with me to stitch on the new patch, whip stitching the full edge in place and then used simple vertical running stitches to secure the patch further. These jeans contain a bit of stretch, which is part of why they are wearing through so quickly, but also means that there’s a good clear Kitty-knee worked into them. That knee mountain makes me laugh, but gosh are these jeans comfortable!

My long flight back to NJ after QuiltCon allowed me to finish both of these hand stitching projects, which felt pretty amazing since I typically make progress at a snail’s pace.

I’m still working on my QuiltCon Reflections post, but hope to be sharing that soon. Spoiler: Finishing these projects was the icing on the cake of a wonderful trip.

english paper piecing, Hand Stitching

Mandolin Quilt Block Progress, My Newest Rainbow EPP

February 9, 2018 kittywilkin 10 Comments

I haven’t been able to escape the sew-in-rainbows bug, but I admit I haven’t been trying too hard to escape it! Now that my Moonstone Quilt pillow is in basting, quilting, and finishing mode, I’ve begun a new English Paper Piecing project to have on the ready for any travel stitching that might arise. The Mandolin Quilt pattern by Jodi at Tales of Cloth will be the next addition to my rainbow and black and white quilted pillow collection, and I thought I’d share my progress.

I’m using *gasp* Alison Glass fabrics for the rainbow, with the center cameo from an Art Theory panel from her Ex Libris line and a couple of rounds of Sun Print 2018 before diving into her older lines. I’m also adding Libs Eliott fabrics as a black and white zap to the vibrant rainbow. Both Alison and Libs design for Andover Fabrics, so I feel like they can be buddy buddy quite happily in the same project. Plus, my husband’s favorite fabric designer is Libs Elliot, so this pillow will have both of our favorites included, and will coordinate wonderfully with my Alison Glass Moonstone pillow (once it’s finished) and Gare’s Libs pillow.

I have a highly technical approach to selecting fabrics when it comes to a project like this. I place my center on the floor, surround it with all of the Alison Glass fabrics I can find, and then play.

I audition fabrics not only in person, but also through the screen of my phone’s camera, since oddly, some fabric arrangements look different from afar. Alison makes it pretty easy since her fabrics are such a vibrant spectrum of tone on tone color that already transition so well through the rainbow. It’s still fun to decide where to put each bright little bit, and mixing fabrics from new and old fabric lines.

I love English Paper Pieced patterns that have acrylic templates, since I’m a big fan of meticulous cutting (aka fussy cutting). These Mandolin templates help me see exactly what section of each fabric will be showcased in the quilt and which will be included in the seam allowance. It makes the basting step a lot easier, since the work is done in the cutting!

Even with a project focused on the color flow and not so much the individual pieces, I still fit meticulous cutting in where I can. You *might* notice that the squares around the center are all meticulously cut from Compass from Sun Print 2018, alternating designs since I only had fat eighths of the fabric, which didn’t include a full repeat of the design. The triangles are also meticulously cut, alternating between Latitude from Diving Board and Link from Sun Print 2017.

Once I extended beyond those triangles, the meticulous cutting is less consistent, since I focused more strongly on color flow around the circle.

I’ve been using Aurifil monofilament thread in smoke to stitch these together, which makes the process a little bit quicker since the thread is essentially invisible and I don’t take *quite* as long with my meticulously tiny stitches, since I’m less worried about it showing on the front. I can definitely see why so many folks stitch EPP together with monofilament. It’s a bit more fiddly in hand, and a bit tougher to sew with because of its invisibility, but I think the result is well worth the effort.

I made pretty consistent progress on this Mandolin block in January, stitching here and there, and taking advantage of rare quiet moments to stitch a bit. Early last week, though, QuiltCon prep began to overtake every free moment, and I’m admittedly still in the thick of it. I’m very excited to be co-teaching four classes with my friend Michelle Bartholomew (two each of Quilt Photography Basics, and two of Advanced Quilt Photography), as well as giving a lecture on Quilts to Mark Milestones Sunday morning at the event. I’ve been working hard to get everything perfect, and am very excited that in just over a week, I will be beginning my trek to get to Pasadena.

The one positive to my not being able to make much additional progress on my Mandolin block these past weeks is that now I will have a perfect hand-stitching project to take with me for the flights and any airport waiting time. Hopefully I will be returning from Pasadena not only with a feeling of class and lecture success, shared and gained inspiration, and a refreshed tank of quilty friend time, but also a nearly or fully finished Mandolin block!

Who will I see in Pasadena? If you’re headed to QuiltCon and see this bright thang in the airport or along your way, please do stop and say hi!

quilt photography, Quilting, Sewing

Arrow Point Path True Love Pillow Finish

June 9, 2017 kittywilkin 10 Comments

Today I’m sharing a finish that has been completed since early May as a gift for my husband’s birthday, but could not yet be shared since the pattern hadn’t been released. Now that the pattern has been released, the pillow has been gifted, and it has lived in our rough and tumble home for a month, I thought it would be fun to share all the details, as well as a sneak peek behind the scenes of my quilt photography process!

My husband has been requesting a pillow made with Libs Elliott fabric for a while, and so when the latest round of Quilt Theory pattern testing came around, I thought it was the perfect opportunity to get his pillow made. I tested Cheryl Brickey’s pattern Arrow Point Path, and the pattern struck me as the perfect choice for the bundle of True Love fabrics I had patiently waiting for a project.

I made 16 quick blocks using the white heavy fabrics and black-heavy fabrics from True Love, Libs Elliott‘s first fabric line for Andover Fabrics as the color/background pieces, and added a few pops of the awesome neon print. I love the way this pattern looks as a pillow, and it’s also really fun to see the pattern in a completely different aesthetic style.

I quilted it with straight lines on my Bernina 560 using my walking foot and 50wt Aurifil 2600-Dove thread.

I threw in a few sharp angles to help keep the edge, and staggered the distances between lines for some fun.

I used the large scale Wound Up in Bright for the pillow backing, and closed it with my first ever side-seam zipper.

I love how this magenta zipper I had on hand coordinates with the pink from the Wound Up print. Perrrrfect. I do need quite a bit of practice with sewing zippers, but we won’t focus on the wobbles and such. The pillow was well received and lives happily on our couch. Now I just need to make about 5 more to cover the rest of our *cough-cough-ugly-cough* couch pillows, and then redo our living room decor to match our more modern design aesthetic. All in good time, right? (haha laugh with me here).

I did enjoy making this pillow, though, and I’m happy I can finally say I’ve sewn something for my husband. Today is our 10th wedding anniversary, too, so it seems fitting that I share this true love pillow gift!

Behind the Scenes at a Quilty Photoshoot

Just for fun, I thought I’d share a little peek at what goes into getting the perfect quilty photo, since while I absolutely LOVE these photos, I very easily could have gone home without them.

Rather than photograph this pillow on our couch, which is brown and doesn’t coordinate *at all*, I wanted to photograph it out in the wild, as is my preference. I again borrowed this awesome chair from my friend Emily, and requested that she bring it on our Mommy hiking club hike yesterday. While trying to get it into her trunk, one of the legs snapped pure off. Yikes! Fortunately, the leg was able to be propped on, AND it seems like something that should be able to be fixed. Talk about a wrench thrown into the day, though!

After that rough start, we all met at a hiking spot with our babies and toddlers and went on a 3 hour hike up a mountain. There was plenty of fun, plenty of whining and crying, and a good dose of bug bites and skinned knees. Overall, though, it was a fabulous day and my boys got good and tired out. My plan was to find the perfect photo shoot spot along the way home, and because I wanted to photograph this pillow in more of an urban scene, I stopped at the one town between the hike and our home, in search of a good alley or building face in the shade. Not so easy to find in Maine at 1pm on a bright sunny day!

The first spot that seemed like it could potentially work was the shaded side of a cafe. The dark blue-grey surface first attracted my attention, and the fact that it was in full shade was a big plus. However, it seemed flat. Above you can see try #1. I did a full photo shoot here, just in case I didn’t find anything better. Fortunately my nearly 5 year old son was asleep in the car, and my 2 year old was content to watch from his carseat. After the shoot, I drove around a bit more seeing if I could find a better spot.

The second spot I tried was a rusted metal shed in a back parking lot, which I spied while turning around to get back to the main road after my first attempt. This was a bit more of the urban feel I was looking for, but still a bit flat. A bit of graffiti or added interest would have made this potentially a winner, but still, I felt there had to be a better spot. While running back and forth from the shed to the trunk of my car, I spotted the back of a red brick building. The big concrete slabs and tall seeded dandelions are what attracted my attention most. Rather than move my car again, I simply carried everything the extra 50 feet to this next, winning location and had at it!

Definitely my favorite of all of the attempts, and the photo shoot location winner of the day! The moral of this story? When seeking that perfect photo location, don’t be afraid to experiment and try a few different spots! That perfect shot will come.

If you’re interested in learning ALL about how to take epic quilt photos, you’re in luck! I’ll be teaming up with Michelle Bartholomew to teach both Basic (MSC 101 or 102) and Advanced (MSC 300 or 301) Quilt Photography at QuiltCon 2018 in Pasadena in February! You can see the full Quilt Con 2018 Catalog here, and I do hope to see you there!

I’m linking up with TGIFF and Crazy Mom Quilts Finish it up Friday.

Quilting, Stash Building

Stash Building: Libs Elliott True Love and Kona Ocean Gradient

November 28, 2016 kittywilkin 10 Comments

I recently made my first fabric purchase in a loooong time, in the hopes that it will jump start progress on sewing some gifts for family and friends. There are two big projects I’m hoping to finish soon (I’ll be real–most definitely not by Christmas)–a table runner for our home, with my favorite designer’s fabric on one side (Alison Glass) and my husband’s favorite designer’s fabric on the other side (Libs Elliott). The Alison Glass side of the table runner is about half finished and uses her new Seventy Six and Insignia fabric lines, and I’ll share more about that soon.

I ordered quarter yards of much of Libs’ True Love fabric line, with half yards of my favorites, since my husband has also requested Libs Elliott pillows. It’s honestly pretty fun that my computer programmer husband has a favorite fabric designer, and it seems fitting that Libs is his favorite since Libs’ tag line is “Making digital code into physical quilts”. Perfect match.

I had my usual helper, who was quite eager to jump on the fabric. That’s true love for ya! Such a helper!

I also ordered an ocean gradient of Kona cotton solids by Robert Kaufman Fabrics for a baby quilt I plan to make for my dear friend’s new(ish) baby boy (here’s the quilt I made for their daughter, years ago). They requested an underwater ocean themed quilt, so the Kona solids will be the perfect base. I ordered these fabrics from Fabric Depot since their extensive stock of Kona colors and ability to order 1/4 yards made it an easy choice. Neither of my local quilt shops stocked what I needed, but of course I checked them first.

I plan to use the Range Quilt by Nicole at Modern Handcraft as the base, and then applique some free-drawn sea creatures on top in bright orange. Nicole includes the specific Kona colors for a number of different color gradient options for Range, which is so super helpful! I used her palette as a base, and switched up a few of the lighter colors to keep the blue throughout, ending up with (from dark to light): Kona Storm, Prussian, Royal, Malibu, Water, Niagara, Bahama Blue, and Baby Blue, with the orange pop of Persimmon. I very well may add a darker orange for more detail once I get to the applique part, but first up is piecing the top!

Here’s a peek at my helper, since he’s just so adorable. I promise I am going to work on piecing his quilt top soon, too!

I’m linking up with Molli’s Sunday Stash (shhh I know it’s Monday), and hope to jump on his train a bit more in the coming weeks. I don’t have a whole lot of stash additions, but I do have a few fun tools and fabric bits that have been partying in my stash and have yet to be shared here.

Life

Digging Out & May is for Makers Update

May 16, 2016 kittywilkin 17 Comments

Remember that full plate I have for the month of May? Well it has all been pushed way back to the back-burner since my last post, as a nasty stomach bug made its way through our family like a tidal wave. My daughter and I got it first, 48 hours later my youngest two children got it, and as a nasty sneak attack after we all thought we were in the clear, 72 hours later, my husband got it. All creating, sewing, blogging time has been fully replaced by sickness, recovery, tending sick beloveds, and cleaning/laundry catch up. My husband is still recovering today, and the deep cleaning continues. Needless to say, I don’t have much to show!

Since May is flying by, though, and I wanted to check in, I thought now would be a perfect time to share the patterns I’ve been purchasing for the May is for Makers initiative started by Lindsey at LR Stitched.

I kicked off the month by buying the Rebel Quilt pattern by Libs Elliott. Ever since my husband first started “following” my quilting and getting more into the quilting world, Libs Elliott has been his favorite designer. I can’t even tell you how many times he has tagged me on Instagram on a post (that I had already liked, by the way) just to make sure I saw the awesomeness. Since I have yet to make a quilt for him, we decided that the Rebel Quilt would be perfect. He selected a color palette of red, black, grey, white, and a bit of turquoise (yay!), and I’m itching to get started. This is going to be SO much fun to see come together! All in good time, of course.

The second week I bought the Terrazzo Quilt pattern by Lee Heinrich of Freshly Pieced. This is one of those quilts I loved the moment I saw it, but have not yet had the right opportunity to make one. Recently Fat Quarter Shop asked if I would want to make a quilt using both of their Alison Glass Sun Prints bundles and blog about it if they sent me the fabric, and this quilt pattern popped to mind. Yes and yes!! I plan to create this quilt in the coming months; an all time favorite pattern with my all time favorite fabrics–I’m in love already and I haven’t even cut the first piece!

For the third week, I’m sharing a pattern I bought *just* before May began, but I’m counting it anyway. Stitchy Pie is a sweet needle organizer pattern recently released by Lucy at Charm About You. I had just been thinking about how I needed some system for keeping all of my hand stitching needles organized and in one place (it’s never fun when I can’t find my self-threading needles and it’s thread burying time), and this pattern popped up in my Instagram feed. I plan to make mine…. wait, can you guess?…. out of an Alison Glass Art Theory panel! I will never tire of Alison Glass fabric projects! I don’t know when the time will present itself, but when it does, I’m excited to make this handy little project.

I have not yet decided what patterns I’ll be purchasing for the last two weeks of May. Do you have any suggestions? Any innovative projects that you find yourself returning to again and again? I’m soooo close to crossing into the black hole (so it feels) of garment sewing, and I want to begin with a simple cotton tank. Do any of you garment sewists have suggestions? Thank you in advance, and I hope you’ve been having fun with May is for Makers, too!

Back to cleaning up and possibly sewing for just a tiny bit, since Finn is napping. Here’s to good health, sunny skies, and speedy and efficient catch-up!