Tag: Maria Shell

”Triangle Geometry” Quilt Finished

Turkey Tracks: September 29, 2021

I finished this little wall hanging the other day. It is going to a friend where it is going to hang over an electrical utility box that for some reason is in his living room. So, I have set up the hanging system lengthwise, rather than widthwise. It will hang from a curtain rod that uses brackets to extend the quilt from the wall, and I put a dowel in the bottom to give the bottom some weight to keep it hanging straight.

This wall hanging is inspired by Maria Shell and her book IMPROV PATCHWORK—and from work done by Debbie Jeske of A Quilter’s Table blog. Debbie took a class with Maria Shell at the last Quilt Con which resulted in her own version of this improv method using these triangles separated by stripes. And I have done earlier posts about this process. Maria Shell’s original design was her quilt ”Rattlesnake.”

The back is WILD, but no one sees the back with a wall hanging, and it was a piece from my stash that was big enough.

I hand quilted with Sulky 12-weight cotton thread and a Tulip Sashiko needle. I have LOTS of colors now from Red Rock Thread’s ”petite” spools that sell for $1.65 each.

This project was fun—and I’m not done yet. I will play with making the zig-zag ”Rattlesnake” Maria Shell designed where she offsets these triangles.

One of our local quilt groups—Mt. Battie Modern Quilt Guild—is planning a Zoom workshop with Maria Shell this winter, and I am looking forward to participating in that event.

Design Wall, July 2021

Turkey Tracks: July 18, 2021

Design Wall, July 2021

My quilt room looks like a bomb went off in it as there are color-coordinated piles of fabric everywhere as apparently I am working on four projects at the same time.

(1) Here are the strips for the log cabin, all cut—with two blocks organized on the right. I am using the Creative Grids 12-inch log cabin ruler for this project—which makes log cabin blocks super easy and fast to make.

I fell in love with Tara Faughnan’s Wedding Ring quilt the moment I laid eyes on it a few years ago. [Let’s face it: I’ve fallen in love with so many of Tara’s patterns now, having been introduced to her in The Color Collective (Sewtopia, Amy Newbold) three years ago.] This past spring I got as far as buying her pattern, and last week I photo copied the 10-inch versions on to freezer paper and thought I’d “just make a trial block.” Yeah. All of you quilters know how THAT goes. Here’s where I was by last night:

I’m finding it takes a lot of cutting to get started on this project—but that it is gobbling up solid scraps like mad.

The “funky” wedding ring quilt top—now a leader/ender project—is coming along. I will make it 4 blocks wide by 5 blocks (14-inch blocks) so it comes out 56 by 70. That will be a nice lap size. Previous posts cover the origin of this project for me. The block is by Freddy Moran and Gwen Marston and is in their book FREDDY AND GWEN COLLABORATE AGAIN: FRIENDS. And I am indebted to Debbie Jeske (A Quilters Table blog) for making the block without sashing which makes it much more modern.

And here’s how Maria Shell’s “Rattlesnake” zig-zag pattern gets formed with light and dark isosceles triangles. I used Tri Rec rulers to make mine, but Maria Shell shows how to free-hand cut these triangles in her book IMPROV PATCHWORK. I love the scrappy nature of this project.

I’ve cut a lot of strips while going through solid scraps, but have put this one on hold until I get the “funky” wedding ring top off the design wall.

It’s a totally rainy day today, so it will be a lovely sewing day for me—with breaks to console AC doggie.

A Fun Quilty Journey

Turkey Tracks: July 12, 2021

A Fun Quilty Journey

It started with seeing Debbie Jeske’s triangle quilt from a class she took with Alaskan quilter Maria Shell at this past year’s QuiltCon virtual (during covid) 2021 meeting—where Maria Shell also won a major award.

I am a big fan of both of these quilters.

Here’s Debbie’s quilt—which is based on Maria Shell’s “Rattlesnake” quilt—and which is on Debbie’s blog, A Quilter’s Table. Among her many workshop class offerings, Maria Shell teaches workshops on dynamic triangle quilts.

My heart started beating the minute I saw Debbie’s quilt. I pulled out Maria Shell’s book IMPROV PATCHWORK, which I have really wanted to start exploring during quilty “play” time, and reminded myself of her “Rattlesnake” quilt, which is featured in her book and in her workshop class list.

I am noticing now how Maria Shell’s triangle lines form a zig zag with her manipulation of the dark colors. Hmmm…. Flashlight! That’s the snake. I can be so dense sometimes when I get overwhelmed with pattern and color. No wonder this quilt is longer rather than wider. I’ll probably have to try this idea down the road. And I am also seeing how the side pieces to each triangle can be different dark colors, but also have some light “pop” colors thrown into the mix.

Anyway, I had an unused palette from this year’s The Color Collective, Tara Faughnan designer, for a project I couldn’t get my head around. (After 3 years and 20 projects, having only 2 projects that didn’t draw me in is an awesome record for Tara Faughnan.) I put the palette and Shell’s book and a picture of Jeske’s quilt in the “to-do play” pile until I had time to get to it.

And that happened this past week as a quilt top on the design wall got finished (“Monkey Business”) and there were several rainy days. Here’s my mostly finished top. There is one block on the far right that is too dark, so I’ll take few minutes to replace that one dark green patch today with the light green and call it a day.

The big challenge was balancing the colors. I did add the pale orange to the original palette. You would think that having 12 colors would be enough, but I really needed one more light color, and I think the orange addition was a good choice.

It will finish at 34 long by 45.5 wide—and I have absolutely no idea how I’ll quilt it. I’ll bind with the dark green, use whatever fabric in my stash that fits the back, and set it up as a wall hanging.

Amy Newbold and Tara Faughnan are going to do a season 4 of The Color Collective. I really feel like I have grown so much as an improv quilter due to The Color Collective, so likely I’ll continue this part of my quilty journey.

Virtual Tour of Nancy Crow’s “Riff” Quilts

Interesting Information and Quilts: April 2, 2021

Virtual Tour of Nancy Crow’s “Riff” Quilts

I forget now how this information about this exhibit and history of Nancy Crow’s “Riff” quilts came into my social media, but I was immediately drawn to these quilts for several reasons. One is that while I knew Nancy Crow was an early creator of the turn quilting took toward art quilts and innovative “riffs” on traditional quilting back in the day, I had not connected her work to either what we now see often in “modern” quilting or to more recent quilters like Maria Shell, the Alaskan quilter who won a major prize at this year’s Modern Quilt Guild show, Quilt Con. Or, to Tara Faughnan, who is the featured designer in Sewtopia’s online class The Color Collective. Or, to Timna Tarr. And I’m sure there are many more current quilters Nancy Crow has influenced—including all the students working with these clever teachers.

Crow’s “Riff” quilts were on display at the International Quilt Museum in Lincoln, Nebraska, until the end of March 2021.

Crow’s originating idea was started with remembering some railroad tracks from her childhood. Then she went deep with her explorations of those images, and her progression is seen in the way these “Riff” quilts were hung.

Maria Shell has been a student with Nancy Crow. Here is the quilt that made her a top winner at the 2021 Modern Quilt Guild’s Quilt-Con show this year: “Mosh Pit @the Golden” quilt. So you can see where Nancy Crow’s work has influenced and inspired other quilters.

And here’s a link to Maria Shell’s blog where she talks about creating “Mosh Pit”:

https://talesofastitcher.com/2018/02/17/mosh-pit-quilt-riot-stitched-anarchy/

Enjoy!

Turkey Tracks: Coastal Quilters’ 2018 Mothers’ Day Retreat: My Retreat

Turkey Tracks:  May 21, 2018

My Retreat

I prepped these 2 by 8-inch strips before the retreat:  all low volume Cotton+Steel in the warmer colors.

Here are two rows of Victoria Findlay Wolfe’s herringbone braids, from her book MODERN QUILT MAGIC.

I am really liking what is happening here.

I figured out how long I wanted the quilt and decided I’d done enough work on this project.

Next I put together about ten blocks with my Wild and Goosey quilt block (Bonnie Hunter)

I took papers out of the quadrants I had completed one night while listening to a book on tape in my room.  I have rather a lot of these done now and brought home more to do.

I made two pineapple blocks to learn how–with Heidi August as a teacher.

I learned how to use the Creative Grids 60 degree ruler–a block I use a lot and one we will do for Jen Kingwell’s “Long Time Gone” quilt.  I’ve always used the Tri Rec ruler and like it.  The Creative Grids Ruler leaves more space between the end of the star points and the edge of the block.  It is fun, but you can see that it does not make a perfect star.  One could probably figure out how to make that happen, but for the Kingwell project, I’m going to use the Trip Rec ruler.  However, I do like the funky nature of the stars in the blocks below.  They’ll go into my “parts department” bin for an improv quilt maybe in the fall.

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What I really wanted to do this retreat was to play with my scraps.  I brought them ALL with me, so I got them all out.  Along the way I culled out scraps that were too small or that no longer attracted me.

Here I started playing around with Maria Shell methods from her book IMPROV PATCHWORK–where she makes her own plaids and stripes.

 

Next I sewed a lot of 4 1/2 inch squares–for a quilt in progress.

Here’s that quilt-which is at home on my design wall:

I had some black and white strip sets, so I cut them up and made a checkerboard.  Maybe it will go into “Long Time Gone.”  Or, maybe into the “parts department” bin.

I had a lot of dark charcoal pieces left over from my “Big Star” quilt.  Which block do you like best, big or little?  I am drawn to little every time.

So…

I saw on Bonnie Hunter’s blog that she was making some light/dark squares with strips.  Boy are they versatile.  These are 4 1/2 inches.  (I use newsprint as a backing, cut to size.)

 

These are 3 inches–made because I had some leftover 3-inch paper strips while cutting.

At night I worked on 6-inch hexes, all Cotton+Steel and a solid or two, from Katja Marek’s THE NEW HEXAGON book.  I’ve almost worn this book out.  I’m going to make these blocks like the cover, where they are linked together with triangles, which can make stars on the outside of the blocs too.

I came home with so much energy.  Inspired by Betsy Maislen, I got my “On Ringo Lake” on the long arm.

Turkey Tracks: The Maine Modern Quilt Guild Show

Turkey Tracks:  April 8, 2018

The Maine Modern Quilt Guild Show

Two carloads of our local quilters drove over to New Gloucester, Maine, Saturday, to view The Maine Modern Quilt Guild show.  To the best of my knowledge, this guild and our Mt Battie Modern Quilt Guild are the only modern quilt guilds in the state.

We all had such a good time.  The show was wonderful, and we went home with all kinds of new inspiration bubbling in our heads.  My apologies up front to all quilters whose quilts do not show up here.  I could have taken a picture of every quilt there for sure.  Each quilt was draped over a church pew and had one corner turned so viewers could see the backing fabrics.  And I should have taken a picture of all the church pews with their quilty occupants.

Our local quilt groups (Coastal Quilters and Mt. Battie Modern) challenged ourselves to make Tula Pink’s 100 modern quilt blocks last year.  We have all set our blocks differently, but none of us thought to surround blocks with internal sashing.   I particularly like the use of different sizes of the white sashing in this quilt.  Notice the lower left block.  I had a lot of trouble squaring up these blocks, and this solution would really have helped.  I missed the number on this quilt, but by process of elimination I think it is Sandy Johnson.

Sue Duval’s quilt–more internal sashing:

Jane Hann Morey’s quilt:

Solids, made stripes, funky in places–this form is showing up a lot these days, and I love it.  The go-to designer is Maria Shell, from Alaska, and she has a new book out:  IMPROV QUILTING, which teaches how to make your own stripes and shapes and then how to use them.

Ann-Marie Schechtman:

Ellie Fellers:

Ellie Fellers, I think:

Betsy Cannan:  from a pattern by Amy Garro.  Amy Friend’s work is also similar to this quilt.

Carmen Dickinson:  inspired by Jacquie Gering and Katie Pedersen

Clam shells:  Sharon Provost and Rose Oleksaiak (no. 12).  All three inspired by Latifah Saafir:

Carmen Dickinson, inspired by Elizabeth Hartman.  Look at the machine quilting by Betsy Cannan in this quilt.  Lovely.

Evelyn Landry:  inspired by Mary Thomas.  Love the modern colors in this quilt.  Each block uses solids and ONE patterned fabric.

Innovative courthouse block form here.  And I can’t read the name…  Sorry…

Ann-Marie Schechtman:  inspired by Stephanie Dicola:

This quilt was hanging in an adjoining room and had no attribution.

Demonstrations included foundation paper piecing and working with pearl cotton.  Isn’t this piece lovely?

And this one too.

Karen Martin bought this little zippered bag/pouch.  We loved the way the wedges were cut for the front.  Clever use of scraps.

Yes, we had a nice time.