Gwennie Inspired Medallion QAL - 5th and Final Round: Something Fishy

This is the final round of the Gwennie Inspired Medallion Quilt Along.  

First let me say just how much fun this has been!!  I am so glad I decided to jump in.. despite my resistance to joining any monthly groups this year, and that I was able to stick with it!!  

Wendy at the Constant Quilter (see her blog here) chose the final border: "Something Fishy".  

Really?? <blink...blink>

Don't get me wrong.. I love fish themes.  In fact a lot of my original designed quilts and patterns are underwater themed. 

Here is a sampling of some of my fish quilts.  My header of my blog is a underwater quilt I did for someone years ago.  So this theme is not foreign to me.  You'd think this would be perfect....

But I looked at my GIM quilt.. with its modern/vintage feel...and I just couldn't see "Something Fishy".  As with the other themes, we can interpret this as loosely as we wanted. :-)

Soon I had a plan....

Can you guess?

A spiky sawtooth border I am calling a Shark Tooth Border!  Of course!

These are fun to make, as with most things Liberated!  Just put one rectangle askew on top of another background rectangle (I decided to go with the gray and pink dot again) and stitch.

Press the print to one side, flip and trim around your background fabric.

 You can then go back and trim that extra background fabric to your seam allowance to reduce the bulk.

I made about 120 'teeth', all different heights and widths, which went pretty quickly.  Soon I had borders ready to pin to my quilt.

And the first border was being stitched in place.  Unlike a traditional pieced border, when you reached the end, you can just lop off the rest!  So liberating!

Here is my finished quilt.  It is almost too large for my design wall.  It measures 55" x 55".  I started out with no idea of what I wanted my final quilt to look like and I love how this turned out.  AND it has been so much FUN!!!  Thanks Lori for getting us started and sponsoring, and Katy, Cathy, Cynthia, and Wendy - for your themes each month!  I would have never had made a quilt like this on my own without the inspiration from Gwen Marston and this wonderful team of quilters.

Happy Stitching!
Deb

Check out all the other Gwen Inspired Medallion quilts at the linky party at Humble Quilts.  Thanks, again Lori!

Gwennie Inspired Medallion QAL - Round 4: Stars

I am really enjoying this Gwennie Inspired Medallion Quilt along! 

Katy at KatyQuilts selected a star theme for the August round of this quilt along.  I happen to love making liberated stars so I was very happy to design, cut and sew 28 6" star blocks for my next border. You can see this process in my blog post here.  And there is also a short tutorial in there about clipping your intersections.

Here is my GIM quilt so far.  I love the sparkle that the stars add to this border.  Some are very defined and others are more low contrast. I think it makes it more interesting.

I tried to use similar fabrics as I used in the log cabin border to keep it cohesive.  Still loving the polka dot setting triangles. Gives your eye a place to rest in the wonky quilt! :-)

I did something slightly different in the four corner blocks.

I added a wonky four-patch in the center.

And made the star points out of two different fabrics.

This one is really low contrast, the star almost disappears.

Now my quilt is waiting for the next round in this quilt along.

I am linking up at the quilt along over at Humble Quilts.  Check out all the wonderful Gwennie Inspired Medallion quilts. I am sure you will be inspired!

Happy Stitching!

Deb

Do You Clip?

What I mean is... do you clip your seam allowances on some blocks? 

I have been working on my liberated star blocks for my Gwennie Inspired Medallion QAL quilt.  I am loving the modern/vintage feel of these blocks.

These are always a lot of fun and ADDICTIVE!!  Can you tell??  It's half way through the month and I have 24 done already.... and I usually do not get to my sewing machine at night during the week. :-)

I picked up this technique from a Jo Morton book awhile ago.  She calls it the Clipping Trick.  You clip through both layers of the seam allowance up to the seam line on each side of the seam intersection.  This will allow you to press the seam in the direction it would like to go and reduces the layers.   The intersections get pressed open to reduce bulk.

You don't end up with that lump at the intersections and your block lays nice and flat.

 

I use this all the time, but particularly on star blocks.  Try it the next time if you don't do this already!

So in order to finish this next round, I need to decide what to put the corners.  I have tried a couple options, but no winner yet. (You know how this goes.. lots of trial and error)  However, I am determined this month for this design to not take on a life of its own! LOL

As always, I am open to your wonderful, creative suggestions!  For now I will take a look through my Liberated Quiltmaking book and see if there are any ideas in there.  I am sure there are!

Happy Stitching!

Deb

Gwennie Inspired Medallion QAL - Round 3

I am so happy that I was able to catch up with the third round of the Gwennie Inspired Medallion QuiltAlong.  Yay!  

Round 3 was Log Cabins.  I thought.. heck, this should be fairly easy...  After all I had made a liberated log cabin quilt.  Uh-Huh.. then the design gremlins decided to mess with me.  

 Here is a photo of my design wall at one point in this process.  It seems the more I tried, the harder it got to reach a decision.  There are about 6 or 7 different options being contemplated here.  At this point I was thinking of naming this quilt "A Hot Mess" because that is what it was looking like.  

This is my sewing table when I was trying to decide on what kind of log cabin block to make.  I have a lot of orphan blocks... LOL.

I finally decided on a block with a traditional black and cream toile in the center, surrounded with some brighter modern and traditional fabrics. The toile seems to calm it down and adds a element of sophistication to the design.  At least that is what my gut was telling me. So I went with it!

 Here is my Gwennie Inspired Medallion quilt thus far.  I decided to set the blocks on point with a gray and pink polka dot fabric.  Measures 36" square. 

The blocks were made with the liberated log cabin design.

Love these color combinations. Such fun!

Last weekend my girlfriend Dawn and I want to the Quilt Odyssey quilt show in Hershey, PA.  We decided to make it a 'girls weekend' since her husband was away.  Here are some of the fabrics I couldn't resist. A mix of modern and traditional, of course. 

I also picked up these beauties.  Aren't they luscious??  Larger prints.  Can't wait to use them.

So now I am waiting to see what Round 4 will be in the Gwennie Inspired Medallion QAL.  I will be linking up with everyone to show off Round 3!  Check out the other quilts here.

Happy Stitching!

Deb

Quilt Along Update - CHILDHOOD

So I have been working on the June (month #2) theme for the Gwennie Marston Inspired Medallion QAL.  The first border theme was chosen by Cynthia over at wabi-sabi quilts.  She chose the theme of CHILDHOOD.  I needed to give this some thought.

I grew up in New Jersey (still live here!) in a working class suburb where my great-grandparents immigrated to in the late 1800's.  We were about 45 minutes from New York City. My childhood was pretty simple living in a small cape cod home with my parents and older brother in a small town.

Our family was small and most of my extended family lived within 3 miles of us.  Holidays and Sunday dinners were always fun and I learned a lot from my Mom, grandmothers, and great-aunt.  That is me on the left.  I think that must be a home-made Easter bonnet on my head. LOL

However, when I think about what from my childhood has had the most impact on me, I would have to say learning to sew.  Learning to sew and tapping into my creative side started a lifelong love of fabric, sewing and eventually quilting.  This is a picture of me with the first dress I made.  Looks a little short.. hahahahahaha.

As I have mentioned on this blog before, my paternal grandmother thought that all young girls should learn to sew.  I also think she saw a future opportunity to tap into those skills and have me help her with some sewing projects! LOL  So at age nine, she enrolled me in sewing classes at the Singer Sewing Center downtown.  I spent some of my summer vacation at her house (across town) would take the bus from her house to downtown for my sewing lessons.  I still have my turquoise sewing box that I took with me.


So for my Childhood theme borders, I chose a wonky border made using sewing themed fabrics and also some fabrics that reminded me of fabrics I may have used at that time.

The red print here kind of reminds of those red patch pockets on my dress.

I added a second border with pins on it to finish off the SEWING theme.

Now onto this month's theme - Log Cabins.  Oh boy, this was my sewing table over the weekend.  Still looks pretty much the same and I won't show you the rest of the room!

Happy Sewing!

Deb

Late to the Party - Gwennie Medallion QAL!

I recently saw some wonderful posts about the Gwennie Medallion Quilt Along going on right now - which actually started in May.    This quilt along is a collaboration of 5 quilters who are setting the monthly themes for a medallion quilt inspired by Gwen Marston.  Cool, right? 

So while I have resisted some pretty tempting challenges and quilt alongs... this one I just had to jump into.  Maybe it was the idea of working in a Gwen Martson inspired environment...  think liberated quilting!  However, this meant that I had some catching up to do and I spent part of my holiday weekend playing in my sewing room.  Always fun!  Here is my initial fabric pull.  I tried not to overthink it.

The first month of the quilt along was chosen by Lori over at Humble Quilts blog - Baskets.  This block will be the center medallion.  Love basket blocks!  I was even inspired by Lori's block with a cheddar yellow background.

I based my basket block layout on a design by Lori Smith of From My Heart to Your Hands and the style of the flowers from Piece O Cake Designs.  Also pictured here is Liberated Quiltmaking II by Gwen Marston - the inspiration for the QAL!

I may have even taken some inspiration from the flower pots on my deck....

I had fun over the holiday weekend working on this block.  No time to waste when I have catching up to do!  But the long weekend gave me the time to be creative with this and have fun.  This is one of my favorite spots to stitch.

This is the progress I have made as of today.  Great fun and I can't wait to show you the finished block and move onto the June theme.  I'll catch up with the rest of you!

Happy Stitching!

Deb