FITF: Film in the Fridge | modern quilts, clothing, fabric, and photos

a quilt for the wall

Posted on April 30, 2010

Do you have quilts hanging on the wall? We don’t. Morgan’s not feeling it, though he is ok with the design wall, which I guess is almost like having a quilt hanging on the wall.

However, I did snap a photo the other day during our photo shoot for the wonky string quilt that I’m totally loving…

morgan-&-quilt

So I immediately had it printed as an 8 x 10 to see the quality (I’m considering going even bigger, but wanted to see how it printed before ordering anything larger!)Â –

framed-photo

and I think soon we’ll have this hanging on the wall. A good compromise, I think!

(I had this printed through Mpix, but would love to hear if you have another favorite photo developing site)

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Hope you all have fun weekends planned! I have a market bag and a couple small quilts to finish. Oh, and speaking of market bags, a couple of you asked me for the pattern for the market bags I’ve made recently. I used my market bag tutorial, but enlarged it a bit. I think bigger is better. If you want to make one, the instructions are the same, but the new measurements are as follows — for the main part of the bag, you’ll need two pieces each from your outer fabric and your lining fabric cut 14″ x 20″. The fabric for the bottom of the bag is 6″ x 14″ (you’ll need 1 from each of the main fabric and lining fabric).

Also, don’t forget to sign up for Laurie’s Tufted Tweets giveaway if you haven’t already. And then be sure to come back here next week, as I’ll be giving away some of her new Tufted Tweets fabric as well (another chance to win – yay!)

Edited to add: Laurie just alerted me to another giveaway for Tufted Tweets in case you want to up your chances. There’s a great interview with Laurie over on the Robert Kaufman blog and they’re giving away a 1 yard set of fabrics to some lucky commenter!

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a wonderfully wonky string quilt

Posted on April 28, 2010

Oh Anna Maria, how I love you and your gorgeous Little Folks fabrics!

I finally finished up my wonky string quilt and I’m so in love. I can’t even tell you how much I love it. So very much.

I made 11″ string blocks using a lime green solid for the center strings. To change it up a bit, I made these strings slightly wonky, sort of along the lines of Denyse Schmidt’s Any Way You Slice It quilt (I just added ‘wonk’ to my strings when sewing them to the paper, though Denyse has a pattern available in her book).Â All the fabrics aside from the center strings are voile fabrics from Anna Maria Horner’s Little Folks line. I think almost all of the patterns from the line are represented (I can think of one I’m missing…but maybe there are others? I’m not sure…).

I know I’ve said it before, but I’m so over the moon with the voile fabrics in a quilt. The resulting quilt is buttery soft and I want to just live my whole life surrounded by this quilt. Ok, a little crazy, but kind of true. (Perhaps I should just bite the bullet and make myself some clothes out of these fabrics instead…)

I had some minor snafus with this one – nothing serious, just a few things that made this take a bit longer than I expected.Â I had a little trouble with the backing — I ended up with a solid in a gold color, which is weird, since gold wouldn’t be my first pick. I made a pieced backing, got the quilt all pinned and then realized that I really disliked the gold more than I first thought. In fact, I disliked it so much that I ended up taking the whole thing apart so I could remake the backing.

Then I couldn’t decide how to quilt it, so it sat for a bit while I stared at it and considered various options. I knew I wanted to do a minimal amount of straight line quilting to keep it as soft as possible. I finally decided to go with straight lines on the diagonal, but made them wonky to keep with the wonky aspect of the front.

I bound it in the same green as the center strings (though not before I mistakenly made, and attached, a green binding that actually didn’t match!). But ah, it’s done, and I’ve already forgotten about those issues. In fact, I’m ready to make another! (and another and another!)

Somebody stop me. Seriously.

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Notes:

Tutorial for string blocks

Previous posts about this quilt can be found here and here.

Finished size: approximately 62″ x 72″

Other Little Folks quilts I’ve made – Playground patchwork & Moonlight in the Trees

Little Folks fabrics can still be found at Pink Chalk Fabrics, Hawthorne Threads, and Fabricworm. (It seems that some prints are on backorder, but apparently should be due back in in early May.)

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pull up a chair… for the stacked seating quilt

Posted on April 26, 2010

I know you all already know how much I love Laurie Wisbrun’s wonderful fabric designs. I’ve had the opportunity to make a couple of quilts for Laurie in the past, and I was absolutely thrilled when she asked me to make a quilt out of her newest fabric line, Tufted Tweets. You’ve seen previews of the new line, right? (check that link if you haven’t — it’s gorgeous!) It’s being produced by Robert Kaufman and will be arriving in stores in the next couple of weeks. I’m particularly taken with this line, since it includes the birdies on chairs print, which is one of Laurie’s original prints that I absolutely fell in love with. Chairs on fabric? Love it! Sofas on fabric? Love that too! And especially in these bold and fun colors!

So anyway, after just admiring the fabrics for a while, I set to work trying to come up with a design to feature them. Laurie really liked the Postcards quilt, so I did a little spin on that one, this time going for longer vertical strips of wonky rectangles.

I made two versions – a crib sized quilt using the sorbet colorway, paired with some great solids in yellows, oranges and browns –

and the back…

and a larger throw, with the two remaining colorways, orchid and grass, paired with solids in shades of greens, blues, purples and grays –

and the back…

I’m absolutely thrilled to tell you that the larger quilt is headed for Quilt Market! (If any of you will be attending and might be able to snag me a photo, that would be much appreciated!). A huge thank you once again to Laurie for letting me create another fun quilt, and another huge thank you to the folks at Robert Kaufman for providing the fabrics, coordinating everything, and posting these quilts on their site. I couldn’t be happier to see them there!

The second fun piece of news is that a pattern is currently being written for this quilt and will soon be available as a free download through the Robert Kaufman site. (On their site it goes by the name ‘Unfurnished’, though I’ve thought of it as ‘Stacked Seating’ for so long that I can’t seem to make the switch!). I will be sure to let you know when it’s available! Available for download here!

And the last piece of fun news is fun for you. Do you love this fabric? Would you like to win some? Robert Kaufman has generously donated some of Laurie’s new Tufted Tweets fabric and Laurie is giving it away over on her blog. Head over here to enter for a chance to win some fantastic fabric!