Brrr! converging corners quilt (and a giveaway!)

I’m excited to have this quilt finished and ready to show to you! I had a chance to work with some of Laurie Wisbrun‘s upcoming line for Robert Kaufman, Brrr!  The line features Laurie’s super cute polar bears in two colorways along with great coordinating prints. You could make really wonderful wintery items with this line (and I’ll have a little something wintery to show you soon!), but I wanted to show how they could be incorporated with your other fabrics for a great year-round quilt!

I paired these great prints with some of the circles from Laurie’s Modern Whimsy line (a great basic!) and a few other basics from my stash. You can find the tutorial for my Converging Corners block here, in case you should want to make one of your own.

I made one large converging corners block for the backing, and often happens, I’m quite taken with the backing, maybe even more than the front?

I think it’s a fun backing, and gave me an opportunity to show off a few more polar bears! (Unfortunately I don’t know of any polar bears in Vermont, so this photo shoot is not quite as cool as that one with llamas!)

For the quilting I tried to channel a bit of Angela Walters. I had the opportunity to get a sneak peek at her new book, Free-Motion Quilting with Angela Walters, which will be available in the next couple of months. It’s a wonderful book – I read it cover to cover and immediately wanted to quilt something. I have been feeling a bit tired of the usual meandering, so it was great to read Angela’s idea for other free motion quilting patterns and ideas.

In quilting this quilt, I opted for a bit of a cross between a floral pattern Angela described in her book and a favorite Marimekko sketchy floral pattern. I quilted a large scribbly flower right in the center of each of the converging corners. I wanted to go all Angela Walters on this and add in a second design in the open squares, but after attempting it and having to rip it all out, I ended up going with the same floral design but on a smaller scale. I hope you can see a bit of it in the close-up photo above. Unfortunately, after a wash, the floral pattern is less obvious, but gives this quilt great texture. I’ll definitely be attempting this design again!

It’s all bound in my favorite Kona Cerise and measures about 45″ x 55″.

And now, how about a giveaway? Would you like a chance to win these fabrics before you can even buy them? Laurie Wisbrun and the kind folks over at Robert Kaufman have sent along a fat quarter stack of the entire line for one lucky winner.

Please just leave a comment on this blog post (as always, one per person, please!) to be entered to win. I’ll select a winner on Friday!

Update: Comments are now closed. I’ll select and announce a winner shortly!

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in progress…

I’ve been working on this little puzzle for a while now. I’ve only  made one quilt completely of solids and it’s been a goal of mine to make another. And then I saw Lucie Summer’s gorgeous quilt out of all solids, and it was all I could think about. Plus, my stash of scrap solids was really getting out of control, so it was time!

Originally, I started out with this fun Echino print, and thought that I’d make a mostly solids quilt, with a bit of this great print. I chose my solid colors based on this print, but then ultimately decided they weren’t really playing well together.

So instead I just started combining all these fun solids into sections and taping them to the wall. Every time Morgan walked into the room this weekend he found me staring at the wall contemplating positioning of these blocks. They’ve been rearranged quite a bit, but I think I finally have a layout I like.

And I even played around with a few gentle curves, inspired by the fabulous work by Dan at Piece and Press, and by Rachel’s lovely Oodalolly quilt.

I’ve been having so much fun playing with these solids, and working on a quilt which is a bit out of my comfort zone. Can’t wait to get back to putting this puzzle together tonight! (oh, and bonus? I’ve really made a big dent in using up a lot of those solid scraps!)

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a lovely llama quilt (with llamas!)

I was so excited when Laurie Wisbrun sent me some of her new Llook! Llamas! fabrics she self-produces and prints through Spoonflower – I think the llamas are absolutely adorable and the coordinating prints are a perfect complement. My immediate thought was to fussy cut those llamas and set the blocks on point. I went with some solids and prints in some punchy and vibrant colors and made up some simple blocks.


(I think these llamas approve of my lovely llama quilt!)

Many years ago, I lived in a town a bit further South from here and on my way to work I passed a farm with a camel. For some reason we thought it was funny to give the camel my brother’s middle name, so he’ll always be known as Evan the Camel. (Ryan never found it as funny as we did!) Anyway, the llamas in this quilt remind me of Evan, and consequently bring a smile to my face each time I see them.

I used up extra prints for four large blocks for the backing.

Complete with a few extra llamas hanging out on the back! I quilted it simply with straight lines on either side of each seam and bound it with a print from the Hope Valley line. It’s washed and dried and I’m totally in love!

[Oh, and a note on those Spoonflower prints – did you know Spoonflower is now using Kona as their basecloth for the quilting weight option? It’s so soft and nice to sew with!]

I absolutely love making quilts, but I also really love taking photos of them once they’re finished! I keep a mental list of great photo spots, and am constantly on the lookout for new spots. A llama farm wasn’t on that list, but of course, when needing to take a photo of a quilt featuring lovely llamas, I knew I had to find me some llamas! Luckily we were able to find these friendly and curious llamas not too far from our house.

(was having myself a little chat with these guys to see if they’d be interested in posing with my quilt!)

Posted in [search] Square-in-Square Quilts, Quilts | Tagged , , , , , | 65 Comments