penny-studionotes-2

OK, at Lori's request, I'll tell you next about this one of my " four tops ."  I was browsing magazines at JoAnn's a couple of weeks ago, and saw this new magazine on modern quilting, a special issue from Interweave Press: There was one pattern in particular that leaped out at me, "Reflected Wedges" by Jacquie Gehring. I find the wedge shape very appealing.  I haven't used it much, but I did this one baby quilt a while back that is a favorite: The wedge table runner pattern seemed a natural for the Marcia Derse fabrics that I've had in my drawer for about a year; most of these are from her "Third in Line" collection.  I bought about 10 half-yard pieces, mostly choosing because of the printed designs, rather than thinking about colors.  Some day, I'd like to do more printing of fabric (have done a little thermofax screen printing, but that's it), and her designs are inspiring.  But with a half-yard of each, there's plenty to...

My sister Cookie asked for more about this quilt first, so here goes!  This is a small top (about 20x25) that will be my contribution to my quilting guild's biennial challenge for our quilt show.  The idea is that the show organizers set a challenge for guild members, some limitation that will determine this one entry.  (Of course we're all encouraged to submit other quilts as well.)  This year the challenge was to work in a triadic color scheme--that is, three colors that are equally spaced around the color wheel, like red-yellow-blue or green-violet-orange.  I had a stack of solids put aside that I built off a palette taken from flowers in my spring garden: peonies, poppies, and sage. To reduce this to triadic, I took out the deep pink, leaving me with coral, lavender, and sage green for my triad.  So, what to do with these fabrics?  Maybe you'll be interested to see how even a very simple design can involve many steps. I started with an image I love...

I do love Motown music, but the four tops I'm speaking of are these: I had some extra time this weekend, and worked on four different projects.  The four blocks in the second column are part of a larger project; the other three are completed tops.  My plan is to do an individual post on each of them.  We'll see how far I get!  If you have a favorite, tell me which, and I'll start with that one.

I am pleased with how this quilt turned out--a version of Elizabeth Hartman's Mod Mosaic pattern.  You can see 50+ other versions in the Mod Mosaic Flickr group .  I've written about this quilt previously here and here .  The second post describes my efforts to dye gray fabric for the binding, but in the end I decided to go with white, as it best unifies the quilt.  I was concerned about how dirty a white binding might get, but in this case, I went with design over practicality.   It was fun to piece these fabrics together. The quilting was done by Mary Walck on her longarm.  For the back, I pieced together what I had left of the fabrics.  It's fun to see some of them full-scale, including bits of fabric design that I did not include on the front--like these spiders (left out entirely) and this rooster (cut so that it's not recognizable: Peter and Maya, I'll be sending this off to you before long!