Tag: Katja Marek

Turkey Tracks: Lending Some Quilts

Turkey Tracks:  August 4, 2019

Lending Some Quilts

Karen Martin and I loaned Fiddlehead Artisan Supply (Belfast, Maine) some quilts for their booth at the recent state quilt show (Pine Tree Quilt Guild).  That’s my Katja Marek Millifiori to the left of the Fiddlehead sign.  Below it is a Katja Marek 54-hexigon quilt—all based on Marek’s book THE NEW HEXAGON.  The blocks are all Cotton+Steel.

Karen’s wonderful Tula Pink (greys, blacks, whites, and yellow) is to the right of the Fiddlehead sign.  This quilt is from Tula Pink’s 100 MODERN QUILT BLOCKS.

The quilt behind the service desk is my Victoria Findlay Wolfe’s herringbone method from her MODERN QUILT MAGIC book.  This quilt is all Cotton+Steel low volume fabrics.  I’m assuming that most of you know that C+S has moved to Moda, taking their designs with them, and are now known as Ruby Star Society.  Their first fabrics from Moda are shipping this month.

Here are close-ups of these quilts.

 

 

 

Turkey Tracks: “Star Bright” Quilt

Turkey Tracks:  February 10, 2019

Star Bright Quilt

I love this lap-size quilt!

The blocks are all Katja Marek’s from THE NEW HEXAGON and all made with Cotton+Steel fabrics.

The border and text print “stars” around the blocks are not C+S, but everything else is.

For some reason I bought TWO of the 52-block packages from Paper Pieces, so I did feel compelled to make this set.  I am so happy I did.

I added my own templates to “square off” the quilt top, rather than floating the blocks on a border.  I also wanted the print-text fabric “stars” to be present at the top and bottom of the quilt.

I used the same “mouse” print for the back, only in a dusty salmon, as I used in the squaring off around the quilt top.

I quilted the “diamonds” that are present on the front of the quilt on my domestic sewing machine, using a walking foot.  And added some stabilizing cross lines.  But I put the quilt on the long arm to make the quilt package.  That works really well I’m finding.  It is much easier to pin with no issues on the long arm.  I like the quilting in the border as well. It’s all very geometric, like the hexies and star points.

Well!!  How cute is this?

 

I have SEVEN GRANDCHILDREN, and I want each of them to have a hand-piecedquilt from me.  I have six done now, and am working on the 7th—a wedding ring riff called “36-Ring Circus.”  I just completed the fourth “ring” last night.    It will have 6 by 6 rows/rings.

This one is hard I think.  One needs to use a flat-back stitch with the curves…  But I’m getting faster now.  And I’ve glued a lot of the templates.

 

Turkey Tracks: Looks Looky: My Next EPP Project

Turkey Tracks:  June 23, 2018

Looky Looky!:  My Next EPP Project

I’m planning ahead.  I have the body of my version of Willyene Hammerstein’s “Valse Brilliante” EPP quilt finished—with border and backing fabric picked out.  And I’m moving right along with my Katja Marek’s 52 THE NEW HEXAGON blocks.  I selected a fabric for the connecting triangles the other day.

So…

What’s next?

This quilt is…

I’ve always wanted to make a wedding ring quilt.  I have the templates for non EPP piecing–just the old traditional way to make this block.  Every now and then I get them out and think about how to start and wind up putting them away again.  Maybe this EPP project will get me going.  I hope so, anyway.  I did not buy the EPP templates for the inner circles, just for the rings.  There are 90+ template pieces for the inner circles, so I will make them myself as I go–if I need to do that.

 

Turkey Tracks: My Milli is FINISHED: “Butterscotch Fall”

Turkey Tracks:  November 15, 2017

My Milli is FINISHED:  “Butterscotch Fall”

I love this quilt.

I love everything about it.

I have loved every minute spent making it.

This quilt stretched me.  It let me go off into all sorts of new quilty directions.

Here is “Butterscotch Fall.”

One year ago, in early fall, I got inspired for the milli fabric by a range of fall fabrics I saw in local quilting stores–and that inspiration set me off.  I had been trying to come up with focus fabrics for this quilt project over the summer.  As I worked on the quilt, the butterscotch color kept coming on stronger and stronger–some times lighter, sometimes as dark as honey.  When the top was finished and I was hunting for backing, I knew when I saw this 108-inch wide Carolyn Friedlander cross-hatch fabric , called Butterscotch, that I had both my quilt’s backing and its name.  (This fabric is from Friedlander’s Architextural line.)

I wanted this quilt to have an organic feel of fall:  colorful leaves, trees going bare, bees, hives, the idea of harvesting fall honey, blue water under a vibrant autumn blue sky, vivid green moss, the ghosts of Halloween, the grey and blacks of the darkening days and longer nights, and so on.

I was paralyzed about how to quilt the top when I remembered that Jo Diggs once told Coastal Quilters members that you can’t go wrong with using a Bishop’s Fan pattern to quilt.  I liked the idea of this old-fashioned pattern on this modern quilt, which in turn used ancient millefiori rosettes as its design.  And I have the Bishop’s Fan groovy boards for the long arm.  (If you don’t know Jo Diggs, take a minute and look at her web site gallery.)

You will see a Japanese text fabric used in all its color ways in this quilt.  For instance, it’s in the grey star above and in the star below in gold.  These fabrics were designed by Suzuko Koseki.

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s the first rosette, which began to set the tone for the quilt:

 

I am so proud of this quilt.

It is PERFECT!!!

Thanks you so much Katja Marek!

Turkey Tracks: The Millifiore Quilt

Turkey Tracks:

The Millifiore Quilt

Here’s where I am with the Katja Marek millifiore quilt:

I had worried about the left bottom corner being too blue, but the teal in the upper right is balancing the blue just fine.  I’m working on the center star at the moment.  It’s “funky” too.

This quilt feels really big, but it isn’t really.

The left side and upper border is done now.

I am going to use the EPP pieces to even the borders, but I’m not sure yet how–as in with what fabric I’ll use.

And I will not add a border to this quilt.

What a fun project!

Turkey Tracks: Quilt-let Quilt Done!

Turkey Tracks:  November 14, 2016

Quilt-let Quilt Done!

It’s “The Cat’s Meow!”

And, I LOVE it.

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I’ve been trying to decide what to do with it.  Would it be a wonderful wall hanging for my office?

Nope.  Not with this gorgeous low-volume neutral backing.

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How fun is this?

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Friend Becca Babb-Brott (Etsy store Sew Me A Song) is going to make one now, and she came up with the idea of doing the pearl cotton as one goes along, but doing the hand quilting in individual blocks when the quilt is finished.  Yes!  That would solve the problem of trying to make nice quilting stitches on a small quilt that does not really fit into a hoop that isn’t too small to work with hand quilting.  The stab quilting is very difficult as the layers shift so much as you sew.

I love every single block, but I wound up with TWO of the Cotton+Steel cats, so the quilt became “The Cat’s Meow!”

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I decided to use half blocks to fill in the top and bottom edges–I just cut the batting in half and folded the quilt-let in half and sewed the edges together before decorating with pearl cotton.

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This quilt is going to be a lap quilt in my living room.  It is so soft and cuddly!

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Yummo!!

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Quilts will tell you where they want to be if you listen to them while you work.  It just comes to you along the way.

THANK YOU Katja Marek for a very fun project that let me enjoy many hours of fabric love, color love, pattern love, quilting love!!

Turkey Tracks: Quilt-let Update

Turkey Tracks:  August 19, 2016

Quilt-let Update

I have only 12 blocks left in the “quilt-let” quilt–with blocks designed by Katja Marek in THE NEW HEXAGON.

The remaining twelve are cut, glued, and organized, and ready for me to sew.

I think the half-square blocks are going to work fine at the upper and lower borders.  I’ll leave the sides “wavy.”  I still don’t know if this project will be an actual quilt or if it wants to be a wall hanging.  Remember that each quilt-let is a finished piece that is ready to be sewn to other quilt-lets.

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It’s been such a fun project.  Who knew that a hexagon could be splintered into so many other geometric shapes?

I have another packet of materials for this project, so will make the blocks themselves and link them with triangles–for a quilt top that does get quilted.  For that one I’ll likely coordinate fabrics a bit more???

Here are some of the recent individual blocks:

Love this black and white fabric.

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I should have oriented the deer to one of the hexagon points–didn’t see it, not going to fix it.  There are lots of blocks here with swinging orientations.

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Had fun with the one, but the swirling pinwheel bars don’t show up.  Maybe I should have moved the small triangle color around to different colors.  Still a nice block though.  Color placement is very important in these blocks for how the block looks.

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Love this one.  But who knew when I started it that it would be so cute?  I didn’t.  It’s something about that brown and white fabric…

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The green fabric is one of the Japanese fabrics.  See Rebecca Babb-Brott’s Etsy store “Sew Me A Song” to see more of these prints.  They are not easy to find.

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Turkey Tracks: More Katja Marek Quiltlets

Turkey Tracks:  June 19, 2016

More Katja Marek Quiltlets

By the end of June, I should have completed 26 blocks to be “caught up.”

Here are blocks 19, 20, and 21.

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Blocks 22 and 23 are organized.

I’m getting there!

Here’s what the quilt looks like now:

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Block positions are apt to change as more blocks get completed.  There are 52 blocks in all.

This project is from Katja Marek’s 2016 “quilt-along” project.  The blocks are from her book THE NEW HEXAGON.  Paper pieces can be found at paperpieces.com.  Each “quilt-let” is a finished quilt.  The quiltlets will be sewn together to make the quilt.  I will use mine as a wall-hanging.

Turkey Tracks: More “Quilt-lets”

Turkey Tracks:  May 25, 2016

More “Quilt-lets”

Those of you following know that I am making Katja Marek’s 2016 English Paper Piecing Project, which uses fractured hexagons from her book THE NEW HEXAGON.

Here are a few more completed “quilt-lets,” which will eventually be sewn together into a quilt.

I’ve heard two “fox got the hens” stories in the past few days.  Yep.  Fox is raising babies now.

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Hedgehogs are on a lot of current quilting fabric.

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The pink flower is from a Tula Pink fabric.

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Turkey Tracks: Coastal Quilters Monthly All-Day Sit and Sew

Turkey Tracks:  April 18, 2016

Coastal Quilters’ Monthly All-Day Sit and Sew

My favorite day of the month may be the Coastal Quilters’ monthly all-day Sit and Sew.

We start at 9 a.m., and many of us bring our sewing machines.  We sit and sew, but also we share, we talk, we laugh, we eat lunch, we make coffee and drink it.  The day flies by every month.

Here’s Becca Babb Brott’s ongoing project–the big central English Paper Piecing medallion designed by Katja Marek for her millefiore project–which is her 2015 challenge.  As I’ve been discussing in other blog posts, this information is under “projects” at the paperpiecing.com web site AND on Marek’s web site.  Marek’s blocks are bigger than other millefiore project–so lend themselves to seeing bigger pieces of great fabric. Becca’s fabric choices are modern and…FUN!  (Becca has an Etsy store online:  SEW ME A SONG.)

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Becca trades blocks and ideas online with other modern quilters, and during this Sit and Sew session, she brought them all along to try to figure out innovative and creative things to do with them.

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I have been in love with house blocks for about 20 years now.  Aren’t these funky, modern versions fun?

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I especially like the one with squares along the right side.  I like that star just below the house block as well.

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Megan Bruns worked on her millefiori quilt, which has very tiny pieces for the most part.  Here fussy cutting is the name of the game, and Megan does it so so well.  Megan is working on “La Passacaglia Quilt” from Dutch quilt designer Willyne Hammerstein’s book MILLEFIORI QUILTS.  (That’s my machine to the right of Megan, and I worked on Bonnie Hunter’s “Wild and Goosey” block with my scrap bag.  You can see more of Megan’s project on Instagram.

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Maggie Schwamb worked on quilting a GORGEOUS string quilt–which I need to see better as I’m now seeing a pieced border.

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Linda Satkowski layered a lap-size quilt–using the new foam roller system a recent speaker taught us.  Very ingenious.  Then Linda worked on a low-volume hexie project that is going to be a table top for, I think, a bedroom chest of drawers.

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Mary Bishop and Margaret Elaine worked on Foundation Paper Piecing blocks from Laurie Aaron Hird’s THE FARMER’S WIFE 1930 SAMPLER QUILT book.  Mary was trying out the Foundation Piecing and thought it very slow.  Margaret Elaine has at least 34 blocks completed (we are doing 8 a month) and every single one of them is so, so pretty.  April’s blocks were intricate, slower to make as such, and often tedious. That’s how intricate Foundation Paper piecing goes though.  You like it, tolerate it, or…don’t.

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Jan Kelsey was working on prepping a backing fabric when I took this picture, but she had other projects with her as well.

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Other people came and went during the day as well.

That Becca has gotten me hooked on the French and Brawn Italian sub sandwich–half for lunch/half for the next day–with potato chips!!!   I start thinking about eating it again as soon as the Sit and Sew Day is over.