Rainbow Gardens and Quilt Mascot?

February 21, 2018February 15, 2018 Elizabeth E.17 Comments

RainbowGardens2017_front

My Rainbow Gardens has made its way out into the world. I was contacted by the Victoria Quilter’s Guild in Victoria, B.C. (Canada) to ask if it was all right if they used my quilt for their poster. The theme of the quilt show and sale is the City of Gardens, which is one of Victoria’s names, according to the website for the city: “Victoria – otherwise known as the “City of Gardens” – is home to a number of spectacular gardens that range from formal to heritage, exotic to west coast, and multi-themed to mostly rhododendron.”

So, a quiet and reserved “YESSSSS!” was my response. I soon will have the poster in my possession, which I plan to tape up on the door to my ~~sewing room~~ studio.

Rainbow Gardens Poster

While the real life poster should arrive here soon, I was sent this image of the poster by a an observant reader of mine, who saw the poster and sent me a photo of it. If you are up in that area, put it on your calendar — I would love to go to a quilt show that has live music.

Since we’ve all just finished watching the Olympics in Korea, I thought I would get you prepped up for the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics, by showing you their patchwork-like logos. Can we make quilts like this? They are auditioning their mascots now, because no matter where you are in or what you are doing in Japan, there is a mascot for it.

I think we need a quilt mascot.

Lady Liberty in Quilts

I made this image in my very first Digital Art Class; the other students thought I was pretty much a nut-case, but I still like Lady Liberty draped in a quilt. But now as we are more international, we need a cute little quilty creature (I vote patchwork with some appliqué) to carry forward our message.

Go to it, you creatives!

Annularity II

February 18, 2018February 18, 2018 Elizabeth E.18 Comments

Annularity1PBStudios

This is the story of the design of my quilt Annularity. It is also the story of Annularity II, which will hang at QuiltCon in Paintbrush Studios Booth.

Annularity II
Quilt Number 194
Designed and Pieced by Elizabeth Eastmond
Quilted by Natalia Bonner
59″ square

The story of this begins when I was contacted by the fine people at Paintbrush Studios, who make the ever-lovely Painter’s Palette Solids. I submitted one design for review, time passed, things changed; I thought the process was dead in the water.

AnnularityDesign_1fabrics

But I had all these lovely fabrics, so we started the process again.

Annularity Fail

I played around in QuiltPro, my favorite quilt design program and came up with the above design messes.

annularityfailalmost

I showed them to Simone, seeking advice, and she said, “Don’t forget the white.” Negative space is critical, but sometimes you get in the weeds of a thing and you can’t see your way clear.

Given that the Great American Eclipse was on my mind, I started calling my quilt Annularity:

Screen Shot 2018-01-05 at 11.11.41 AM.png

I began building the quilt top, remembering the white. But when I got to the outer edges, something still wasn’t right. A designer can do all the designing they want to, but then the fabric takes over and slowly, the outer edges morphed from the planned design to what you see at the very top. Then there was the problem of the center.

AnnularityOPQuilt Centers

I tried lots of combinations: yellow, aqua, violet, maroon but finally finished with periwinkle, one of my favorite colors in the Painter’s Palette Solids line-up. I finished it and when Paintbrush Studios told me that Natalia Bonner was going to quilt it, I was over the moon, because I quite admire her work. I bundled up the quilt, sent it off, and then waited. And waited. And waited. And I began to wonder, even though I’d tracked it to her address, if it had gotten lost. I worried, then did the next best thing:

My Annularity

I made another.

In the rush, I didn’t have all the correct fabrics, so some are pieced. But then I heard from Natalia that she had the quilt. Whew! Since it’s going to be hanging in the booth at QuiltCon 2018 in Pasadena, I gave the first one a new name, since now there were two in the world: Annularity II.

Pineapple Fabrics has the complete line of colors needed to make this design, and you can soon buy the quilt pattern from them. Come and see Annularity II in the Paintbrush Studios booth, #905.

But I’ll be quilting mine, Annularity, bit by bit, sharing that experience as I proceed. In the meantime, enjoy the photos of Natalia’s fine work:

SaveSave

Quilts

We Need to Fix This

February 15, 2018 Elizabeth E.24 Comments

Screen Shot 2018-02-15 at 2.09.46 PM — Jaime Guttenberg

For those of you who live in the United States, you may have seen this picture of this Florida high schooler, standing in front of a wall that reminds me of a log cabin quilt, and who died in our recent shooting in Florida on Valentine’s Day. For those of you who live outside the United States, you may wonder what is wrong with our country. I have no answers for that.

But I do hope to honor this young woman’s memory — and the memory of others who have died in yet another American mass shooting — by writing letters and calling my Congressman and my Senators, telling them how I feel about this.

I recognize it is a puny gesture, and I may yet find other ways to add my voice to join that of David Hogg, one young man who was caught in the middle of this, when he implored us to take action when he said: “We’re children. You guys are the adults.”

We owe it to America’s children to clean up this mess.

Elizabeth
February 15, 2018

200 Quilts · quiltcon

Cinque Terra Tiles • Improv Applique (Part 2)

February 12, 2018February 27, 2018 Elizabeth E.16 Comments

Cinque Terra Tiles_3

This is the story of my Improv Appliqué Demo, coming up at QuiltCon 2018 in Pasadena. In the last post, you saw me making a whole gang of these little bits squares, some with slightly wobbly shapes. And lo and behold, one day they all turned into this:

Cinque Terra Tiles_ front

Cinque Terra Tiles, Quilt # 193

Yep. I arranged those little bits and bigger bits until they coalesced into this quilt, which I love.

At the request of Paintbrush Studios, I’ll be doing two demos of this Improv Appliqué technique during QuiltCon 2018:
• Friday, February 23 from 2:45 to 3:15 p.m.,
• Sunday, February 25, from 11:00 to 11:30 a.m.

If you come, you’ll get a little kit to get you started, complete with needle and thread, and a mini-charm pack of fabulous Painter’s Palette Solids. I’ll have a set of printed directions for your improv appliqué, plus tips on folding techniques as well as basic hand-appliqué directions.

UPDATE: Here are the directions I passed out at QuiltCon (right click on each to download):

I loved working with this fabric, as it has a nice tight weave, but not so tight that it won’t ease and fold into shape. The colors are saturated and rich and play well against each other. I’m totally sold on this fabric, especially after working with it in such close circumstances: handwork reveals everything, I think.

Cinque Terra Tiles_1a Cinque Terra Tiles_1b Cinque Terra Tiles_1c Cinque Terra Tiles_1d
I’m deluging you with photos, because if you want to make one, all of a sudden you’ll say, I need a new shape! a new color combo! Feel free to steal one of mine. Cinque Terra Tiles_5

I did cut out the back of the larger appliqué shapes, but you can see where I appliquéd smaller on larger. You can also see that I did NOT press seams open, but instead, to one side. I grouped them together, sewing four smalls, then seaming that onto one larger, and so on (sew on?)

Cinque Terra Tiles_5a

Sometimes it’s fun to see the undersides of our quilts, right?

Cinque Terra Tiles_6 back

I chose a fun Kaffe Fassett circles pattern to back it with. I decided not to gild the lilly, that is, to excessively quilt the little bits: I just stitched in the ditch. But on the borders, I picked up the circles theme again, and did arcs in varying sizes with black thread. It’s nearly invisible on the front, but you can see it very well on the back. Cinque Terra Tiles_6alabel Cinque Terra Tiles_7quilting