Posts from — February 2010

I was lucky to receive this quilt done by Lyn Christian of A Design by Lyn. The colors are amazing, and the flowers are gorgeous! She is truly and artist! If you have a chance to go to Lexington, Kentucky to take a class taught by Lyn, you will never forget it! I’m going to let her tell her story here about her thoughts and experiences making this quilt.

“This is Wildflowers by Smith Street ……

I will be teaching this class at my local shop “Q is for Quilting”, here in Lexington, Kentucky. When I was asked to teach this class, I thought WOW…this should be fun!  I looked at the pattern and I immediately remembered being a child growing up in Wisconsin. The forest floor had wonderful spots of sunlight and there were bursts of colors from the amazing
flowers and ferns.

Excitedly, I researched the flower names and what the colors would be.  The trillium was the first one I researched.  I know wild trilliums to be WHITE with just a tiny touch of pink as they start to fade.  You can look into the Wisconsin woods on a spring day and think there is fresh snow on the ground because the trilliums truly carpet the forest floor.

The colors on the quilt pattern were deep orangey reds and such.  I decided to use a bit of creative license — I wanted my version of this quilt to have what I remembered for colors of these flowers as I walked with my mom and dad.  After all, there are no quilt police that will take my pattern away if I don’t follow it word by word and color by color and fabric by fabric!  So off I went on a new adventure — choosing fabrics!

This pattern is a great one to let you bring lots of YOU into it.  I can visualize this quilt done in colors of the sky (with blues and pastels), to colors of the earth and forest (like I have done), to calico patchworks of the fields.  Let your imagination be your guide as you choose your fabrics.  In this quilt, many of the borders and sashes are different…as are the trees, and plants and foundations of the forest floor — but I think it would be as beautiful done simply, with just a few choice fabrics that are well loved. It would feel like a planned garden, peaceful and serene.

There is a method for doing applique included with the pattern. I use an alternate method for all of my applique designs, and I was certain that my method would work for these designs too. I wrote to the designer, and asked for permission to rework the designs so I could teach my method of applique to my students.The designer was great and gave me permission to do just that.  I changed the steps for marking and tack down, and this has really simplified the process for the applique.

Making small changes can really have a big impact in your quilts! This alternate applique method has brought those blooms right off the fabric!  I also took away some of the secondary fabrics on the centers and chose embroidery threads that would add dimension.  My next step is to add some very tiny crystals in matching colors –  I want it to seem as if drops of dew have formed in a few places to catch a fracture of light and draw the eye to the quilt.  I added dimension to some of the flowers using specialty fabrics like ultra suede  and dimensional fabrics for stamens and such to bring it off the flat background.

This was a fun project to do, and it really gave me the opportunity to think outside the box. This pattern is available directly from Smith Street Designs, and includes directions for multiple sizes. And if you are near the Lexington, Kentucky area stop into the shop and take a class — I guarantee you will have fun!”

Border panic? Quilting condition? Surprise hiccup?  Just what can you say when you approach a section of a wonderfully pieced quilt that has a tricky situation that you didn’t notice before mounting the quilt top on the machine? This quilt has lots of gorgeous fabrics in it, and the blocks and borders were nice and flat when I looked at the quilt laying flat on a table. After I had done a row or two, something on the left side caught my eye. What’s that?!?!?!  Oh my gosh, where did that come from? It was a pucker that appeared overnight when I wasn’t looking!

After rolling back and forth a couple of times, I noticed that there were a few of the sneaky little devils in this border. Funny thing, though…. every other border was perfect.

I decided to stabilize the entire area, because it was too late to take the quilt off of the machine and remove the borders. This is how it looked with a little stitch in the ditch to hold all of the layers in place:

Time to heat up the steam iron. It never ceases to amaze me how much excess I can remove with just a gentle shot of steam. (Hint ….. this works particularly well when the fabrics have not been steamed during the assembly process. I have been asking all of my customers if they used steam during piecing whenever I see an issue with their quilts.)After just two shots of steam, the fabric was already starting to behave better.

Since this border was on the side of the quilt, I decided to wait until the entire quilt was finished before I turned it to deal with this problem. Traveling through the rest of the quilt was easy, and I made sure that everything remained nice and square. After finishing, I turned the quilt and remounted it to work on this border. One more shot of steam now. I kept both hands near the needle as the design stitched, enabling any excess to be evenly distributed. The finished border was perfectly flat in the trouble area:

You can see that the problem did not migrate further down the border:

I would recommend this method for borders — or blocks — that are giving you trouble with puffiness!

This quilt was made with blocks chosen from Quilter’s Cache. You can see the Austin block here, and the layout for the quilt here.