A Quilt without Borders

-->

Margaret is a lovely member of the NYC Metro Modern Quilt Guild and her niece - a quilter who lives in France and who volunteers for the International Festival of Extraordinary Textiles - asked Margaret for her help. 

Margaret guided members of the guild to create a modern quilt that will be used during a picnic in the Jardin Lecoq park. The picnic will be done "flash mob" style with people showing up, a quilt under their arm.  Then when a text message arrives the quilts will be opened and spread on the grass. After the picnic the quilts will be auctioned off to benefit Doctors Without Borders.

Camouflage Broken Bar Quilt

I've had some military material sitting around in my workroom for a while now - I got it so that I could start to experiment with how much material I can squeeze from various uniform/clothing items. When I saw this quilt - Broken Bars by Rebecca Roach - sent to me through the Modern Quilting Guild - it screamed army stripes to me.

Diary of a Long Arm: Week 3 - Flowing Feathers

I have been finding feathers really hard on the longarm. I wanted to practice them. I still have my peacock that started my progression in feathers on my domestic machine. I decided to add some fabric to the peacock and just quilt feathers - all sorts of different feathers. Why not have both my first feather practice pieces together?

Kid Painted Quilt #2 - Throwing Paint

You might remember my girls throwing paint at fabric this summer. Here is what the fabric looked like after we had washed & dried it.

Many of you might not see my vision here - but I decided I wanted to try to piece together curves. I used the Drunkard's Path block - I found this great tutorial at Stitched by Crystal. These blocks were very quick easy to make.  

I liked the circles layout to begin with - the design made me think of moons & planets.

 But in the end I settled on this design.

I am very pleased with this quilt - for a couple of reasons. I really love the fabric the girls made and the way it looks in the quilt against the bright white.

I feel like I pieced the blocks together well & accurately.

And I have conquered my fear of free motion feathers. I have feathers on a curves & bends, feathers in corners - feathers in the middle of other feathers. This quilt is covered in feathers.

Some of my feathers are not perfect - but on the whole they have improved so much. You might remember my feather peacock - which was obviously a good exercise and helped me learn some skills.

Once you have the feather pattern down - you can cover the quilt really quickly. Although I have to constantly remind myself to slow down - speed seems to be my biggest enemy when it comes to free motion quilting. 

I am really liking these little projects with the girls. They provide fun activities for us. They give me something to work with that the girls created. And they give me valuable practice in piecing & quilting skills.

Our other kid painted fabric projects this summer have included:

Kid painted Teepee

Kid painted Garden Picnic Blanket

Kid painted Quilt #1 - Blotter Art

Kid painted Quilt #3 - Spraying Paint

Kid painted Quilt #4 - Shaving Foam Paint