What do you do when you get a fabric panel that is supposed to be made into a fabric book? Why make a quilt out of it, of course!
“TT Funky Monkey Book Quiltâ€
And you don’t even have to reinvent the wheel! This FREE pattern can be found on my BOMquilts.com website!
Quilt on!
When a gorgeous group of fabrics land on my doorstep, whatever shall I do? First, I shall utilize all five of my senses to let my creative mind flow with all of the possibilities of designing a quilt that is fitting for such fabric finery. That is what I always hope to achieve.
I have partnered with LoveQuilting.com to create this beautiful, bright and summery quilt out of the most amazing color pallate of fabrics.
I present to you…
“Sunshine Breeze”
An original design by TK Harrison for BOMquilts.com
Stunning. Absolutely stunning. Be sure to check out the free pattern and then purchase your “Sunshine Breeze” kit from LoveQuilting.com!
All the quilting rage these days is to use geometric and directional fabric designs – now known as part of the modern quilt movement. Mind you, there have been directional and geometric fabrics around for a long time, it’s just that a lot of the modern quilts are made with geometric and directional fabrics. Sometimes though, this is not the best course of action for a beginning quilter. A beginner can be as modern as they want…until they can’t.
When is that a problem? Take a look at this quilt block:
With the right fabrics (right being deemed by the modern quilt movement’s establishment) and colors, a simple log cabin quilt can become a thing of modern beauty. Now take a closer look at the plaid red and white fabric strips.
I had been quilting for about 25 years when I made this quilt block. And I made this “beginning quilter’s” mistake. The lines on the fabric are not straight.
I can call this whatever I want – the fabric wasn’t printed straight on the grain, the fabric shifted when I cut it out, it’s handmade and looks handmade, etc. etc. I can call it whatever I want to, but the truth is that I would never recommend this type geometric/directional fabric to a beginning quilter. If a person who has been quilting for as long as I’ve been quilting cannot cut a straight line in the fabric, how can I expect a beginning quilter to do so?
Please remain calm. This is not a post on bashing modern quilts. It’s not a post on bashing fabric manufacturers. This is a post outlining why I choose not to design quilts with geometric and/or directional fabrics – I design quilts for beginners and above!
If you are a beginning quilter and wish to make modern quilts, stick with a pleasing color palate without the geometric and dimensional fabrics. You can grow into them as your quilting advances. Or if you use those fabrics mentioned and your lines do not come out straight – go ahead and call your quilt a handmade modern quilt.
This quilt was a blast to make, especially with the fabric I chose for the quilt. The fabric was sponsored by AbbiMays.com and I just had pure FUN making this baby quilt!
I also cut out all of the fabric for the blocks, along with the monthly patterns and presented them to everyone who wanted one in the small quilt group I attended. At the end of the first year…and even the second and third year, I saw so many different variations made of the ladies who put that quilt together. Some added wider sashing and borders to create a lap quilt. Some didn’t add sashing at all (like in my quilt image below) but made up for the loss by adding bigger border pieces. We had a small quilt fest at the community library and showed off our quilts and it was amazing how many different quilts were made from the exact same set of blocks that I used. I was tickled pink!
Pioneer Sampler 2009 BOM Project Original from BOMquilts.com
How’s your stash looking? Are you adding more than you’re using? I had to laugh at a lady who is in our local quilt group. I am no longer able to attend the meetings but the group lives on and this friend is still part of the group. Anyway, after two or three years, I realized she had never made a quilt block, never a quilt. She showed off a number of projects she’d done such as cross-stitched Christmas stockings and dresses for her granddaughters…but no quilty projects! I started teasing her about it. She maintained she was still in the ‘gathering’ stage. Okay, I can respect that. I get in that stage sometimes, too. I know what I want to make but the fabric that I have on hand just doesn’t speak to me as a fabric to go into that project. So, I gather. I find a fabric here and there and everywhere, buy small quantities (maybe just a fat quarter) and once I have all of the fabrics together, I test a block to see if my vision is actually coming through with those fabrics. I may feel all is well and complete the project. I may feel like I am missing one or two fabrics, so I keep gathering.
Then I have all of these small bits and pieces of fabric and they end up in a stash basket. And I fill up my stash basket and have to go purchase more. And then I realize my stash baskets are taking over my sewing room…my house…the world!!!
On the other hand, I have this block that isn’t exactly what I want for the quilt in question, so the block goes on another shelf, waiting for me to do something with it. After six months, I notice the dust on that block so I pull it down, shake it out…and put it right back where I found it. Wait a minute. That’s not how this is supposed to work! I am not doing anything with those misfit blocks except adding to the pile and dusting them off. I need to either pass them along to someone who can do something with them or put them to use in a quilt project of some sort. As embarrassing as it is, I have blocks I made five and six years ago that STILL don’t have a quilty home – except for the piles on my shelves.
NOW what do I do?
I turned to my longarm quilter, Meloney Funk, to find out how she deals with her stash and her UFO’s. Surely I’m not the only one who has been overcome with more stash than are needed and more UFO’s than are wanted.
Meloney says, “I belong to a number of Yahoo groups. Stashbusters has been the one to help me focus on not buying material and using up what I have. They have a yearly UFO challenge which requires me to be accountable to the group on what I’ve accomplished. This year they are having us make our UFO list and then they pick 2 numbers from the list for us to work on.”
“The Sampler Society UFO challenge is a little different.” Meloney continues, “They have you pick 6 UFOs to work on and then draw numbers of which one is to be worked on. This caused me to complete 6 UFOs last year that might never have come to the top of my list. The accountability makes me want to focus and finish. I’ve finished 14 small UFOs in the month of January.”
Aha! It appears that the key is to be accountable to others, to help motivate you to tackle both your stash and your UFO’s. You don’t want to look bad to your fellow quilters and you want to make sure you are using up the fabrics you probably won’t use in the near future as well as finish your UFO’s. Meloney has wisdom. I need to learn from her!
Well, I would except – do you remember that “Jack and the Beanstock” book?
Yeah, that’s the one – plant the special bean seeds and it’ll take you to the giant in the sky. Ummm, well…I can’t see over my shelves because my stash and UFO’s have grown so high that they’re pushing against the ceiling. I’ll see you l…a……t…….e……….r……………