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Project Update: 06.12.2021

  • Writer: vafibrearts
    vafibrearts
  • Dec 6, 2021
  • 8 min read

Hello Friends and Welcome Back!


Over the past few weeks the weather has been changing; winds blow in snow and rain and snow again. A battle wages between the end of autumn and the beginning of winter. If the last few days are anything to go off of, winter has won and is settling in to stay a while.


With new snow falling outside, who wouldn't want to curl up under a warm and lovingly stitched quilt? Of course, I will need to finish the quilt before I can truly enjoy it in that fashion, so this week, I’m excited to share another Project Update!


At this point, it’s been about a month since my last update. In that time, I’ve shared lots of information on my Generations Quilt progress, including fabric selection and Six Pointed Star assembly, but very little about any of my other projects.


Today, I'm excited to remedy that. So let’s get started!



MQG Mystery Block of the Month


Since it is now December, a new set of instructions is available for this Mystery quilt!


Last month we made a set of four blocks, in the photo below, mine are the brown and green blocks in the bottom row and Mom's are the yellow and green ones along the top.

For the month of December, we will not be making four blocks, we will only be making one.


As my Mother and I are working on this project together, I haven't made the block yet. We usually plan to work on this BoM the first weekend the instructions are available, but this month, we've decided to wait until a little later.


For now, enjoy a preview of the December block drawn up in my colours:

I’m very excited to get started on this block! It looks like it will be a lot of fun to make and I can’t wait to see how different it will look in Mom’s colours!


If you’re interested in making this Mystery BoM for yourself, check out the instructions on the MQG website!



National Quilt Museum Block of the Month


Moving from one BoM project to another, I’m thrilled to announce that I’ve made quite significant progress on my NQM quilt! In fact, I’ve finally finished another block!


And that block is Angular No.2, designed by Audrey Essary!

I pieced this block over several weeks in April when it was originally assigned, you can check out my thoughts on the process in my earlier updates: 08 April, 15 April, 22 April.


For the quilting, I drew inspiration from Audrey’s instructions in the original pattern; an edge to edge design of vertical straight line quilting with ¼” spacing. I also wanted to add some diagonal quilting lines as some extra detail across the white corner of the block.


As I’ve done with all previous blocks in this project, I planned to use three thread colours; white and grey to match the white and blue of the piecing, and light beige to add a touch of warmth to the block.


I began by quilting the vertical lines using a mix of hand and machine quilting and alternating between grey and white thread at various intervals.


I started by quilting lines at ½” intervals on my machine, then moved to hand quilting for the ¼” lines.

As I was quilting, I was reminded how much I love the textures created by mixed hand and machine quilting. Watching it form before my eyes, I began realizing that variations in line spacing enhanced these textures, and I decided to space some at ¼” as Audrey suggested, but leave others at ½”.


With this revelation in mind, I moved on to the diagonal lines:

Using the seam that runs through the block as a guide, I machine quilted lines at ½” intervals to match the spacing of the vertical lines.


I briefly debated adding more hand quilting to this corner as well, but I was already really happy with the different textures and grid detail created by the overlapping lines. I was also a little worried that more quilting would make that corner feel really busy while the current effect feels visually interesting without being overwhelming.

After trimming the block, I could finally call April finished! Not only am I thrilled to have finally made more progress on the NQM BoM project, but I thoroughly enjoyed both the piecing and quilting of this block! Perhaps especially the quilting!


This is a very good thing since the next block to make is the May block, Honoring Today’s Quilters, designed by Becky Glasby.

Glasby, Becky. "Honoring Today's Quilters." 2021.

As you can see above, this block is a wholecloth block featuring a quilted motif with no piecing. The quilted motif depicts the front of the National Quilt Museum, the host of this BoM project, and includes a variety of quilting techniques.


Initially, I thought the block was a great way to pay homage to the museum hosting the project, but I acknowledged that it has no significance to me personally. Check out my initial response to this block in my 13 May Project Update.


I plan to redesign the motif so it fits my own experiences and interests a little more closely, but while taking inspiration from Becky’s original design.


The guidelines I decided to follow are:

  • The block must be wholecloth or include very minimal piecing

  • The motif must be inspired by architecture

  • The quilting should incorporate multiple quilting techniques, including walking foot, free motion, and hand quilting

I’ve drawn some sketches with these guidelines in mind and decided to use the design below, inspired by a photo taken inside one leg of the Eiffel Tower.

This design is somewhat more complicated than Becky’s original quilting design, but I’ve wanted to take on a really complex quilting motif just to see if I can do it, and this block seemed like a perfect opportunity to do so!


I’ll be using dark brown, grey, and white thread to create areas of light, medium, and dark values throughout the motif. Hopefully, this will help add depth to the quilting, making it feel more like a drawing!


For the background fabric, I’d like to use one of my subtle green prints. A subtle print won’t distract from the quilting, so it’s a good choice for wholecloth.

I’m also hoping to incorporate some of my floral focus fabric into this block. The floral design is way too busy for the quilting to show up clearly, so I’ll be appliqueing a small amount of the floral fabric as an accent and quilting over it.


I’m very excited to get started on this block, so look forward to some updates on it soon!


As a final update to the NQM BoM project, the December block has now been released!

Loewen, Laura. "Puzzled Mountain." 2021.

December’s block is called Puzzled Mountain and was designed by Laura Loewen. It is a delightfully chaotic combination of colours and values that I’m looking forward to exploring! I chose not to think too hard about the design since I have many other blocks to piece before I get around to this one, but I already know I’m excited to give this a try!



I hadn’t realized just how much progress I’d made on this project until now! I’m so excited that I seem to be taking it up again and I’m looking forward to more progress soon!


If you’d like to make any of these blocks for yourself, check out the NQM website! Please send some love and support to the designers behind these blocks as well; Audrey Essary, Becky Glassby, Laura Loewen, and many others, without them, this amazing project would never have been possible!



Simply Woven


After the amazing amount of quilting progress on my NQM BoM project, I’m really impressed that I found time to continue quilting Simply Woven as well!

I’m still working my way through the bars of the broken border part of the motif, but I’m really close to finishing it! Since the last update, I’ve quilted four new bars, leaving only two unquilted before I’m ready to move on to the organic, wavy lines in the background!


Here’ you can see my progress added to the quilting diagram:

As usual, the white lines indicate completed lines of quilting, the orange lines are the remaining bars of the broken frame, and the blue lines are the unquilted background motif.


I’m so happy I’ve been able to make progress on this! The size of the quilt makes it very difficult to manoeuvre through the sewing machine and this dramatically reduces my motivation to work on it. But I’m proud of myself for persevering and for making progress, however slow that progress may be!


Simply Woven was designed by Jessica Kelly; if you’re interested in making your own version of this quilt, it can be found as a free pattern on the Moda blog!



Generations Quilt


I started this update by mentioning the Generations Quilt, so it feels fitting that it should be the way I end the update as well!


Since I've dedicated several posts to this project over the past few weeks, today I'll keep it brief:


I’ve begun appliqueing the Dresden Plates from my last update onto black backgrounds as originally planned.

So far, I’ve completed two Dresden Plate blocks and I’m really happy with them, but I would like to try a burgundy or burnt orange colour for the backgrounds of the other two.


The black feels really intense and may be just a little too stark against the white backgrounds of my Great Grandmother’s blocks. Using another colour might create a softer effect with less visual conflict. However, depending on the colours my Mom and Grandma use for their blocks, this may not be of any concern.


We will have to wait and see!

I’m also working on several Six Pointed Star blocks. The black and red strawberry printed star has been completely sewn to the background and the purple and white floral star is still in progress. Both of these were featured in their own posts as part of my stitching experiments (strawberry block, floral block) and were included in my colour scheming post.


I’ve got almost two completed blocks of each pattern now and am very much looking forward to piecing more!



That’s all my progress for today Friends, and it’s been quite a lot! I’m so happy to have found the time to work on so much quilting after so many months of simply disregarding it. I’m hoping this is a sign of more quilting to come!


To keep up with my projects between updates, you can visit me on Instagram @vafibrearts where I share photos throughout the week. I really appreciate your comments and feedback, all of which contributes to the future of my projects!


I also love hearing about the projects of other creators! You can tag me in posts of your own on Instagram or share stories here in the comments below!


As one final mention of the Generations Quilt; visit me again next week for another stitching experiment, and along with it, the assembly of another Six Pointed Star!


Thank you so much for visiting me today for this week’s update! It’s been amazing to see how much progress I’ve actually made on all of these projects this month and to reflect on what I’ve learned. I’m excited to continue working on each of these and can’t wait to see where my projects will take me next!


Until Next Time Friends, Happy Quilting!

VA


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