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.  

Cheryl's Modern Double Wedding Ring Quilt, Final Reveal

Good morning, quilters!  I need to stop giving "sneak peeks" of customer quilts on the blog because I keep forgetting to follow up and show you the whole thing once the quilt has been delivered to its owner.  Take this stunning modern Double Wedding Ring quilt made by my client Cheryl -- I couldn't resist including a teaser close up shot of the quilting back in July, but then I never got around to showing you the whole thing.  Well, here it is in all of its magnificence and glory!

Cheryl's 98 x 122 Modern Double Wedding Ring Quilt, Pattern by Tara Faughnan

I actually can't show you a photo of the entire quilt, because it was too large for me to get the whole thing in the camera frame.  This king size quilt measured a whopping 98" x 122" -- that was a LOT of curved piecing, y'all, and Cheryl did a fantastic job.  She used Tara Faughnan's Double Wedding Ring pattern and Cherrywood hand dyed solid fabrics.  (This post contains affiliate links). 

Detail of Roller Coaster Ties Quilting in YLI 40 Tex Cotton Variegated Pastels

Sometimes the perfect quilting design is really simple, like this Roller Coaster Ties design.  It's a similar effect to the "just-straight-lines" quilting that we see on so many modern quilts, but that subtle wavy movement is a wonderful complement to the curved piecing and I love the way the quilting moves the viewer's eye across the surface of the quilt without upstaging the piecing design.

Halo, Modern Double Wedding Ring, and Baby Moose Quilts

Hey there, Quilter Peeps!  Behold, my Halo quilt top is finally nearing completion:

Center Blocks Sewn Together, Border Blocks In Progress

I hesitate to set personal sewing goals with actual deadlines, but doesn't it look like I could get this quilt top finished by the end of this week?  Now that I've said that out loud, my house will probably be carried off to Oz by a tornado.  Or my sewing machine will blow up.  I'm not even sure which of those scenarios would be more catastrophic -- that would depend on how backed up my Bernina dealer is for repairs, and whether or not there are any good quilt shops in Oz.

For those who haven’t seen this one before, Halo is a pattern by Jen Kingwell that is sold in the pattern booklet Jenny From One Block, available on Amazon here.  (This post contains affiliate links).  If you’re local here in Charlotte, North Carolina, the QuiltPatch shop in Matthews has been offering classes for this quilt (taught by the fabulous Teresa Raleigh), but if you’re already comfortable with curved piecing you will do just fine on your own with the pattern as I did.  The Halo acrylic template set is optional but really helpful for accurate cutting of these shapes, along with a 28 mm rotary cutter (the standard 45 mm rotary cutting blades don’t work well along curved edges).

It never ceases to amaze me how much smaller a quilt gets when the blocks are actually sewn together compared to how big it looks when the individual blocks are stuck on the design wall side by side.  All of those quarter inch seam allowances really add up.  Or rather, they really “subtract up” from the size of the quilt top.  So much work for such a relatively small lap quilt!  I think this is supposed to finish at 66” square.  Well, thank goodness I wasn’t trying to enlarge it to King size this time!

I always enjoy making blocks more than sewing them together, for whatever reason.  Maybe I’m just impatient by the time I’ve finished making enough blocks.  Still, these went together without too much trouble, just careful pinning where the seams need to match up.

Making Blocks is More Fun Than Sewing Them Together

So now all 36 Halo blocks have been sewn together into the main body of the quilt top and I'm just working on those rectangular pieced border blocks.  Which, by the way, is an interesting design choice from pattern designer Jen Kingwell -- the border blocks complete the half circles that would otherwise land on the outer edges of the quilt, deemphasizing and obscuring the block construction in favor of rings and squares that seem to float on a scrappy pieced background.  The borders also enlarge the quilt to a more useful size and create outer edges that can be easily bound without fretting about losing any triangle points or turning rings into flat tires.

That’s about all I have to say about Halo for now.  So let’s have a glimpse of the most recent client’s quilt fresh off my long arm frame:

Tara Faughnan’s Double Wedding Ring for Cheryl

Now, you only get a sneak peek at this one, because this quilt is still on a UPS truck headed back to my client Cheryl in Minnesota.  This is Tara Faughnan’s Double Wedding Ring pattern, and Cheryl’s version is a massive king size made up in Cherrywood hand dyed solid fabrics.

Glimpse of Cheryl's Double Wedding Ring Quilt

I just love the color palette Cheryl created for this one!  This quilt is truly magnificent in person.  I used Hobbs Tuscany Cotton/Wool batting for Cheryl’s DWR and quilted it with YLI 40 Tex cotton thread in variegated Pastels.  Pattern designer Tara Faughnan was new to me before Cheryl sent me this quilt, but I checked out her Instagram and her online shop and I really like her work.