The Modern Quilt Guild

Next up during Week of Solids, we have Shea Henderson’s lovely lively log cabin block quilt.

The handful of charms that didn’t make the warm/cool color blocks on the front of the quilt were used in a tiny row of 1″ squares on the back of the quilt– it is one of my favorite parts of the quilt! Piecing improvisationally does not come naturally to me, so this quilt was a fun break from my usual piecing methods. This quilt was also my first attempt at quilting on a long arm machine. I LOVED that!

What do you love most about using all solids?
There are so many things I love about using solids! My shelves are primarily full of shot cottons, cross weaves and solids. I often have specific colors and shades in mind for a quilt and with the amazing options out there now, finding just the shade I’m imagining is easy. In addition to being easy on the fabric budget, solids (to me) are timeless. Last summer, my grandmother gave me the very first quilt she ever made. She made it when she was thirteen and it is entirely hand stitched. She used only white and a light pink and if someone were to look at it today, other than the slight wear of time, they could easily assume it was made last year.

Shea is the president of the Kansas City Modern Quilt Guild and blogs at Empty Bobbin Sewing Studio.  You can also see more of her work in her flickr stream.

This wonderful vibrant quilt, called “Zitronenfalter” (the English translation is “Brimstone Butterfly”) was made by Ulrike Kittel who blogs at liebingsdecke Quilts.

Ulrike was kind enough to answer a couple of questions for us.

What inspired the quilt?

Yellow and grey is my favorite color combination and I also love simple designs. Actually, when I stumbled upon this design (I am using the Electric Quilt software and find the Symmetry function the most useful tool), I wanted to go for a flying geese pattern. But then I found the flying geese too straight, even for my liking of tidy patterns. So I played around with the same block and literally stumbled upon this design. It is the same block all over but every alternate block is turned 90 degrees. It actually gives the quilt a nice twist.

I think using solids gives a quilt such a clear design – the eye is not distracted by the pattern of the fabric, but follows the lines of the block pattern. Also, I like to quilt by hand and like to see those lines, too.

Along with her blog, you can see more of Ulrike’s work in her flickr stream.

Solids.  They often play second fiddle but this week we’ll take a look at some quilts in which they play the lead role!

Baby Harvatine Quilt by Alissa Haight Carlton, 2010

All quilts are designed with composition in mind, but when you work with all solids, there’s no busy or bold prints to distract your your eye or provide movement in the quilt.  The design, piecing,  and color choices become the tools that do that work.

Solid Squares by Alissa Haight Carlton, 2009

Subtle variations in shape are featured and highlighted, and contrast in color value shines through.

Embracing Gray by Alissa Haight Carlton, 2010

And when a quilt is mostly solids, one patterned fabric is suddenly framed and featured.

A word of warning though: the more you use solids, the more you find you can’t do without them!  We hope you enjoy this Week of Solids!

Dyeing and overdyeing fabrics is fun, but the time and materials involved can be overwhelming. Fortunately, there’s a fun and simple way to alter your favorite print fabrics using a product that’s probably already in your laundry closet (or at least readily-available at your local grocery store).

Bleach discharge is very simple. Fabric is soaked in a water and bleach bath for a period of time, during which the bleach in the water may discharge (remove or alter) some of the dye in the fabric.

All fabrics don’t discharge in the same way. In fact, some won’t discharge at all, which is why I thought of this project as an experiment – I went in to it not really knowing what was going to happen to my fabric!

A couple of notes before we get started:

This is a very basic run-through of how I altered fabric using only bleach and water. Although I didn’t worry about this during my experiment, fabric that has been exposed to high concentrations of bleach for long periods may become damaged. Serious dyers and fabric artists have a variety of methods for arresting the action of bleach on fabric. If you’re interested in reading more on this subject, I recommend Malka Dubrawsky’s excellent book, Color Your Cloth.

Bleach is toxic and it can ruin your clothing, carpet, etc. If you attempt this project at home, wear old clothes, keep a large towel in your work area, and don’t use any containers or measuring tools that you normally use for food.

Here’s what I did:

I wanted to see a “before and after” swatch of each of my fabrics, so I started by cutting 2 squares about 9” x 9” from of each of my fabrics. I chose quilting fabrics in a rainbow of colors, including some neutrals.

I then filled an empty storage tub and prepared a bath of 3 gallons lukewarm water and 3 cups bleach. One by one, I added the fabric squares, using a plastic spoon to make sure that each piece was completely wet and submerged.

I let the fabric soak in the bleach bath for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. At that point, some of the fabric had already discharged quite a bit, but some of it looked exactly the same. I removed the fabric that was already obviously different and rinsed it out in the sink.

This process was repeated over the next 10 minutes or so. I continued to stir occasionally and to remove fabric that appeared to be ready. After 15 minutes, several of the neutral fabrics still didn’t look different to me, but I didn’t want to leave them in the bath any longer.

I washed all of the fabric in a gentle machine cycle with hot water and machine dried them on low.

Two of the fabrics didn’t seem to have discharged at all. The “before” and “after” looked pretty much the same.

Several of the fabrics discharged a little bit, but the change was so subtle that I really had to look to see it.

Happily, most of the fabrics that had been in the dye bath looked significantly different. (Click on image to see a larger version.)

Here are some before and after shots. (Fabric that has not been discharged is on the left. Fabric that spent time in the bleach bath is on the right.)

Combining the “before” and “after” fabrics into patchwork blocks can also be a lot of fun. Here are some simple hourglass blocks that I made with some of my fabric.

All in all, I think the experiment was a success. It was fun to see the prints transform and to consider different ways that the discharged fabric could be used.

Thanks so much for joining us for the Week of Prints! Stay tuned for more of 100 Days of Modern Quilting.

-Elizabeth Hartman

Ashley Newcomb’s January Flowers quilt uses a fabulous large-scale print and some beautiful quilting to great effect.

Here’s what Ashley had to say about her quilt:

“This quilt is completely inspired by Denyse Schmidt, and is my recreation of this particular quilt of hers. It has been a favorite for a long time, but it took a while for me to find just the right focal print to use in my version of this quilt. As soon as I saw this floral print from Melody Miller’s latest line, Ruby Star Shining, I knew it was just what I had been looking for. I love the colors of this print and decided to play up the bits of pink and purple by adding in as many shades of those colors as I could find in my stash. I used one or two other printed fabrics for interest, but Melody’s floral print is definitely the star of this quilt!”

Read more about Ashley’s work on her blog, Film in the Fridge.

The Positive Effects of Negative Space

Todays tutorial isn’t a how to, it’s more of a what’s it all about.  Our “What is Modern Quilting” statement says that modern quilters use more negative space in their quilts.  So, what is negative space and how can we use it effectively as we compose our quilts?

Urban Garden by Jacquie Gering

Negative space is the unoccupied area that surrounds the objects, shapes, or forms in a composition.  Negative space can be within a block itself as well as the space surrounding the block.  It flows in, around and between our quilt blocks.  Negative space is a powerful design tool as it gives definition to our composition.  Sometimes the negative space in a composition also forms a design element that becomes part of the composition.

In addition to defining shapes in a quilt, negative space can be used to create movement, emphasis and interest in a quilt design.  Negative space can simplify or unclutter a design and at the same time draw attention to the focal point of a quilt.  It can also give the eye a place to rest in an intricate design.

Negative space can create an additional design element in block-based designs.   In many block based designs the negative space forms a secondary design element or repeats the design in the positive spaces as in this Cartwheel quilt where the negative space repeats the cartwheel design.

In this spiderweb quilt the negative space creates a new shape between the blocks.  Look at your favorite quilt pattern or design and notice how the negative space enhances the design.

Tin Ceiling by Jacquie Gering

Norma’s quilt is a wonderful example of the design power of negative space.  Notice how the space between and surrounding the fish blocks create the appearance of an organized “school” of fish and the negative space is also used to create the separation for the one that got away.

Leading the Pack by Norma Cecil

Melissa also uses negative space to support her design.  The horizontal piecing is set into the background (negative space) and the space on each side of the piecing is a different size, creating an unbalanced composition that adds interest.  The negative space also flows vertically up the quilt moving your eye up through the pieced section.

Limitless by Melissa Herboth

Dan’s quilt is also a study in the effective use of negative space to create movement in a design.  Notice how he used negative space both within and around his blocks to move your eye over his quilt.

Ripples by Dan Rouse

In many modern quilts large areas of negative space are used to create a minimal, spare feeling which is typically viewed as modern.  Alissa’s Kona Solids Challenge quilt is a wonderful example of a large area of negative space creating a minimalist feel.  The large area of negative space in this quilt also draws attention to the piecing.

Kona Solids Challenge Quilt by Alissa Haight Carlton

All of the quilters featured this week used negative space to enhance their designs.  The large areas of space in Alex’s Busytown quilt draw you in to look closer at her vehicles.  Kristy’s Pixie Stix dance in the negative space of her quilt, Jessica used negative space to create flow and separation in Plum Kebab and Rumi gives your eye a place to rest in her 50/50quilt and she even used negative space to express one of the ideas in her quilt.

Negative space is definitely a positive element in quilts, so we hope you will embrace negative space and thoughtfully consider how to use it as your compose your quilts.

Today we welcome Rumi from Bulgaria to the Modern Quilt Guild blog.  Though Rumi doesn’t have a MQG chapter in her country, the internet has allowed her to connect with other modern quilters across the world.  We are happy to feature her quilt “50/50″ which is a wonderful example how a big idea can lead to the composition of a quilt.

50/50 by Rumyana Lafchieva

Tell us about the composition of your quilt.

The occasion for creating this quilt was the 50th anniversary of a friend.  I was inspired by the life with its variety.  The composition had to consist of different shapes and colors.

Each quarter has a different message. The Black and White quarter show the serious side of life so the lines are straight.  The colored wavy stripes express the joy of life. The colored blocks meet and mix in a real life with different emotions, happy or bad moments like a puzzle.  The last quarter is white.  It could be the past with no memories or the future with many expectations.  I used the white as balance to a whole quilt.

What do you consider when composing a quilt?

When composing a quilt I think about the arrangement of lines, shape and colors to create a harmonious whole.  I have in mind the basic idea I want to express and search the best way to show it.  Sometimes it happens at once, but sometimes it is a challenge to find the exact shapes and colors.  I prefer working with solid fabrics.  The last but not least are the quilting stitches.  They have to complete the whole idea of the quilt.

Tell us about yourself and your quilty history.

I was interested in quilting many years ago.  First my attempts were traditional patchwork and quilts.  For three years I have discovered modern quilting.  I love design and create one of a kind quilts.  In my country patchwork is not so popular.  Maybe the next years we will have a branch of the MQG.

Rumi is an award winning quilter in Bulgaria and hopes together we can all make quilting more popular!  You can find her on her blog 3patchcrafts.

Today’s featured quilt is this happy and lively quilt, “Pixie Stixs.”

Pixie Stix by Kristy Daum

Tell us about  your quilt.

Pixie Stixs was the result of our STLMQG challenge. We played a game where we ripped fabric in half and passed it to our neighbor; resulting in 5 different fabrics in the end. The challenge was to create something with the majority of the fabrics. After playing around with the prints for a while, I got the idea to create these “blade-like” strips. While this quilt is simple in its design, it was difficult to insert the “blades” into the white background and with each strip, I learned how to make the task easier. Composing Pixie Stixs was a study in trying something new.

What do you consider when composing a quilt?

I wish I could say that I had some secret to composition, but I use the typical design conventions such as scale, negative space, etc.  What I do try and do is “listen” to the design along the way.  A design might start one way on paper and when I start working with fabric, things usually change.  Throughout the process I’m continually assessing and editing both the design and my fabric choices.  My best advice is that you can’t be afraid to try something new and even start over if you aren’t feeling it.

Tell us about yourself and your quilty history.

As a child I was surrounded by arts and crafts and thanks to my mom I was no match for the power of fabric.  As a youngster thought I would be an architecht or engineer, but fabric entered my life and I studied fashion design.  At a very young age, I was a wannabe quilter, turned sewist. Now I consider myself a sewist turned modern quilter and for once feel like it’s not just a hobby anymore, it’s truly a part of who I am.

Kristy is the founder, president and enthusiastic member of the St. Louis Modern Quilt Guild and like many of us feels that the MQG has changed her life.  Kristy blogs at St Louis Folk Victorian you can see more of her work on Flickr.