Thursday, September 26, 2024

Sharon's La Passacaglia Millefiori Quilt, Laundry Room Makeover + My Workshop Project Pivot

Good morning and Happy Thursday, coming to you from the Severe Weather Epicenter of Hurricane Helene!  Okay, so I’m not exactly in the epicenter of the storm…  But this is our first hurricane since moving to Florida and it’s very nerve-wracking for me!  I bought a bunch of bottled water, stocked up on nonperishables, and now I’m biting my nails, listening to howling winds outside and getting nervous every time the power blips the lights off for a couple of seconds.  We’re nowhere near where storm surges or flooding or houses getting swept into the ocean is expected, but I still worry about losing power (Air conditioning — it’s still really hot here!  And refrigeration for our food!  And being able to cook!  And omigosh, why didn’t I think of asking my husband to hook my espresso machine up to an old treadle machine or something?).  EEK!!!  But the power and the air conditioning is on right now, my son is baking brownies and they smell amazing, my dog is snoring peacefully, and my husband is watching some football show on the television.   All is well in this moment and we’ll deal with anything tomorrow brings when it gets here.  So instead of watching the weather channel, I’ve decided to share a beautiful La Passacaglia Millefiori quilt with you that I quilted for my client Sharon last December, one of the last quilts before disassembling my long arm for the move to Florida.  

Sharon used the pattern from Willyne Hammerstein's Millefiori Quilts book available on Amazon here (this post contains affiliate links).  La Passacaglia and the other Millefiori quilts in the book have been very popular, and I found both acrylic templates for traditional hand piecing and foundation papers for English paper piecing this quilt on both Amazon and on Etsy.  


Sharon's 70 x 81 La Passacaglia Millefiori Quilt


What really intrigued me about Sharon's version of La Passacaglia is her restrained palette of neutrals and how that gives the quilt a completely different look from the brightly multicolored quilts many others have made with this pattern.  Her fabrics remind me of sandy beaches strewn with pale peach and cream seashells and sand dollars and I thought it was spectacular.  I loved the quilt top immediately, but Sharon thought her finished quilt top was a little bland for her taste, not as exciting as she'd envisioned it.  That's why I always ask clients what they like best about their quilt and whether there's anything they wish they had done differently or could change.  Knowing how Sharon felt about her quilt, I suggested an elaborate clamshell quilting design to inject textural drama into her quilt.  I used Quilter's Dream Wool batting for several reasons: it's very lightweight so it prevents a heavily pieced and weighty quilt top like La Passacaglia from turning into a super heavy quilt, the additional loft helps ease in the fullness that can be common with hand pieced quilts, and the loft of wool creates maximal dimension and texture.  I quilted it with matte, thin So Fine thread in color Pearl to ensure the quilting stitches would blend into her fabrics without upstaging the intricate piecing.  


Detail of Faceted Clams E2E in So Fine Thread, Color Pearl


By the way, fairly heavy quilting like this is not just for looks -- there's a functional benefit.  Hand pieced seams aren't always as strong as machine pieced seams, but heavy quilting secures and reinforces the patchwork seams, protecting them from stress damage throughout the life of the quilt.  Whenever someone grabs or tugs at a quilt with heavy quilting, they are pulling on all three layers of the quilt together (pieced top, batting and backing).  When someone grabs or tugs at a minimally quilted or hand tied quilt, they often grab hold of just the quilt top layer, causing those fabrics to wear and tear and the patchwork seams to pop prematurely.  Heavy quilting doesn't need to result in a stiff quilt as long as the batting is soft and supple and you use a thin, pliable thread for the quilting.

Wednesday, September 18, 2024

Maria Shell Workshop In Progress + Carrie's Traverse Row Quilt

The second half of my two-part Making Prints improvisational piecing workshop with Maria Shell was this past Monday evening via Zoom.  Our assignment from Part One of the class had been to create a palette of solid color fabrics and then construct a bunch of different units using those fabrics and techniques that had been demonstrated in class.  Despite being down with Covid all week, I managed to get a bunch of these chunks made, slapped them on my design wall in the main hallway of my house, and then every time I walked by I either stopped to scowl at everything but left things along, or started rearranging the units.  Here's what I had going on the last time I touched it, on the morning before the last class:


My Design Wall, 11 AM on Monday


In Part Two of the workshop Maria introduced several techniques involving triangles and I might make some of those to mix in with what I've got here so far, or I might make some additional units like what I already have so I can balance things out with a little repetition.  I do want to finish the workshop piece and put enough thought and effort into the composition to get everything I can out of the class, but the danger for me with an open-ended assignment like this -- and no grades or deadlines to rein me in -- is that I could easily go on and on, arranging and rearranging ad infinitum and never actually finish the project!

I haven't moved anything or made any new units in the last two days.  Still feeling low-energy and needing daily naps from the Covid and just decided to let what's on the wall marinate for a bit while I am resting.

However, the portion of Monday's class where Maria discussed different composition structures (grid, row, medallion etc) reminded me of a client's quilt that I long armed about a year ago and never shared with you.

Carrie's Traverse Quilt, Pattern by Tara Faughnan

This gorgeous Traverse Quilt is a kit designed by another modern quilter I admire, Tara Faughnan.  I just checked on Etsy and found lots of options available if you'd like to make one of your own, from complete Traverse kits in these exact fabrics still available, to patterns only, to completed quilts for sale.  (This post contains affiliate links).  


Detail of Traverse Quilt, Designed by Tara Faughnan, Pieced by Carrie, Quilted by Me


Looking at these photos again after taking Maria Shell's workshop, I'm seeing some similarities between these two quilters: Both are working exclusively in solids, and both use a large palette of solid fabrics with a nice assortment of hues and values.  Both are creating print-like patterns in patchwork stripes of fabric.  Maria sometimes sets her pieced strip units in rows like Tara has done in Traverse.