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

strawberry patch quilt top

Posted on April 22, 2013

This new line, Briar Rose, by Heather Ross for Windham Fabrics is one I’m super excited about, so it was wonderful to receive a surprise charm pack of these prints. I think it only sat overnight before I had dropped everything else to tear into the charm pack.

Heather’s fabrics are absolutely gorgeous! Just look at these prints – those strawberries… I’m in love! Briar Rose is inspired by summer, and indeed it feels so cheerful and bright and transports me right back to my childhood – sunny days in the berry patch, fields of wildflowers, and picking clover (though all the clover was picked and admired while I was supposed to be playing soccer…)

Did I mention those strawberries? I’m quite certain that I’ll be needing to make a crib sheet out of one of the strawberry prints for the new baby!

I pulled out a bunch of coordinating Michael Miller Cotton Couture solids and started pairing the charms with corresponding solids. My usual goal when I have just one charm pack to work with is to see how large a quilt top I can make, while still featuring the charm squares. Initially I thought I’d add in a bunch of white and use the bright solids as accents, but after seeing the charms along with the solids I decided I liked the idea of the quilt being made up of all these juicy solids.

Then I had to decide how to use the charms – I started thinking about a couple older quilts I had made, coincidentally also out of Heather Ross’s fabrics, and decided to surround each charm with a brightly colored solid. I cut all the blocks down to 8″ square, and was going to sew them all together as is, but ultimately felt it needed a little something more.

So who says that the blocks all have to line up nicely? I added in strips of the solids randomly in between the horizontal rows of blocks and then sewed the rows together. I suppose if you like everything square and straight and all lined up (like my brother! oh wow, I’m linking back to all the old quilts in this post!), this wouldn’t be the quilt for you, but I think it’s pretty fun and I’m excited to use it as a colorful play mat for the new baby.

Posted in baby, Fabric, Posts about Quilts, Quilt Blocks | Tagged baby quilt, briar rose, charm pack, charm quilt, handmade, Heather Ross, play mat, quilt top, windham fabrics | 21 Comments

farfalle… again!

Posted on April 18, 2013

Thank you so much for all your sweet comments about my recent quilt! It’s so much fun to find the perfect location to photograph a finished quilt. I enjoyed reading your comments and while I wish I could respond individually to each of you, I’m afraid that if I did so, there might not be any time left for making quilts! But I really hope you know that I read and appreciate each and every one, and as a small token of my appreciation, I thought I’d select one person from among those who commented to receive a selection of the leftover gray prints I used in that quilt. Carly, commenter #22, that’s you!

If you’ve been reading for a while, you might remember my Flying Farfalle quilt, which I made using small scraps of Anna Maria Horner’s Little Folks. It’s a fun and quick quilt to make, and uses up (and showcases!) tiny little scraps. Nova recently made a gorgeous one using Liberty of London scraps and after seeing it, I couldn’t get the idea of remaking that quilt out of my mind. My low volume prints were still out, and I had a bunch of brightly colored scraps left over from my Marcelle plus quilt, so it seemed a perfect match.

You can find an image of this block, called the Exquisite block, in Gwen Marston’s Liberated Quiltmaking II book. I don’t think (I can’t remember, and to be honest, I can’t bear the thought of getting off the couch to run upstairs to check!) there are specific instructions for making the block, but Jacquie and Katie also devote a portion of their book, Quilting Modern, to the stitch and flip technique, which you could use to make these blocks. I couldn’t remember what size blocks I made originally, so I went with 5″ x 7″ rectangles for this one (which look to be a bit larger than those in the Flying Farfalle quilt).

I like how different both versions are. I think I’ll always be drawn to the stark white which really makes those triangle pieces pop, but now I also quite like the fact that this one uses so many additional fabrics – more to admire when you’re laying under it!

(book links are Amazon affiliate links)

Posted in Fabric, Finished Quilts, Posts about Quilts | Tagged baby quilt, flying farfalle, handmade, liberated quilt, low volume fabrics, quilt top | 15 Comments

love triangle – a quilt in shades of gray

Posted on April 15, 2013

As named because why yes, I do love these triangles!

This quilt is completely inspired by this quilt I pinned many months ago. I collected gray fabrics for a while, unsure of what pattern to use, and in the end I decided simple was better. But rather than patchwork squares, I decided to switch it up a bit by going with triangles – a bit harder to piece, but always a fun design.

After my last post, I thought I’d try to redeem myself with some better quilt photos. We had come across these fun wooden pyramids a while back and this spot immediately went on my list as a ‘someday quilt photo location’. How fun to realize that I had the perfect quilt to photograph there!

I kept the quilting simple, with straight lines on either side of each seam. I always like the way it looks, and I love those little stars that are created where the points meet (I’d show you a photo, but oops, I forgot to get one!)

I auditioned many solids for the binding, and loved this plum color the best. There are two Michael Miller Cotton Couture solids in jewel and orchid as well as a little bit of a similarly colored Lizzy House jewel print. I kind of liked the idea of making up the binding in shades of plum, just as the quilt was made up of shades of gray (maybe that’s over-thinking it?) Anyway…

I originally thought I might make the backing out of some fun solid or print, but after finding a nice gray and white polka dot print in my stash (you can see a little peek of it in the photo above), and discovering that I had just the right amount, I decided it was meant to be. And I’m so glad it worked out that way, because I love that the majority of the quilt is made up of just gray and white with only that little bit of color in the binding.