Blogger's Quilt Festival: "The Eternity Quilt" and "The New York Cat Mat"

My two quilts for the Blogger's Quilt Festival are the Eternity Quilt and the New York Cat Mat.

Eternity Quilt

I made this for a creative project my church service was putting together. It was ridiculously complex, and only after I finished it did I realise there was a much much MUCH easier way to put it together! *facepalm*

However, it was also my first wholly self-quilted quilt using the quilting machine at my LQS (The Avanti HQ at Hobbysew Top Ryde). And, of course, it had to be a complicated design. The quilting I had planned for this baby was not only not rectangular, it featured negative space, and the need for some very fine stippling to bring out the negative space. Never let it be said I'm not up for a challenge!

a super-sized picture version

The Eternity Quilt
Quilt Measurements: 94" x 94"
Special Techniques used: Quilting around negative space.
Quilted By: Sel @ Mad Quilter's Disease (a.k.a. me!)

I'm quite pleased with it, even if it's not technically perfect. It's going in the Sydney Quilt Show 2013 - my first quilt show!

The New York Cat Mat

The name of this one is both true and slightly humourous, since it was intended as a 'mini quilt' but the cats have ended up colonising it.

It was made during the New York Beauty Quilt Along by Sew Sweetness back in February last year. I started in jewel-toned batiks, but then found I didn't like the colours quite as much as I thought I would. So I only ended up making 6 blocks - two of them the basic "Block 0".

I quilted it with Penny Poppleton's machine ("Thor", a Bernina 400) and it turned out rather better than I expected. I wanted to practise some of the FMQ techniques in Angela Walter's famous book "Free-Motion Quilting" on a home machine, and although it was a little small and fiddly to undertake, Thor never failed me!

I left the 'spikes' unquilted, but closely quilted just about everything else in the quarter-circle sections, including the centre dots which were close-quilted spirals, and then did a mini version of my standard 'fiery curls' FMQ pattern (also visible on the Eternity Quilt).

The New York Cat Mat
Quilt Measurements: 11" x 28"
Special Techniques used: Paper-piecing, free-motion quilting.
Quilted By: Sel @ Mad Quilter's Disease (a.k.a. me!)

The Eternity Quilt: From Go To Whoa

Around August last year, the service I attend at my church decided to do a creative project, where creative people in the congregation put together an artwork based around a line from the Apostle's Creed:

I believe in God,
the Father almighty,
Creator of heaven and earth,
and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died and was buried;
he descended into hell;
on the third day he rose again from the dead;
he ascended into heaven,
and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty;
from there he will come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting.
Amen

I chose the line "the life everlasting". Which is a bit of an odd duck choice for a quilter - how do you design a quilt that embodies the concept of everlasting life?

While pondering my choices (infinity, a fibonacci sequence, some kind of spiral quilt) I also considered the synonyms for 'everlasting' and one of the options that came up was the term 'eternity'.

'Eternity' had a lot more Google results than 'everlasting'. In particular, it had the Arthur Stace Eternity graffiti tag, which is well-known to Sydney Christians. Arthur Stace, returned from WWII, turned to a life of crime, only to find God in the late fifties. He then started chalking the word 'eternity' in copperplate all over the sidewalks and walls of 1960s Sydney - a reminder that our life on this earth is short and that we'll face judgement and eternity after.

Another result - and more immediately relevant to the quilter in me - was the Eternity puzzle - a mathematical/computer puzzle of 209 pieces.

Yes, it looks complicated, but it can be broken down into equilateral triangles and half-equilateral triangles by rows.

So I had a design - all well and good! Now how to put it into practice?

What I needed was a large collection of fabric in a large variety of colours. Oh, so conveniently, the Kona solids series had 213 colours (at the time) - with an extra 28 colours coming out in late 2012. Perfect! All I had to do was buy the Kona Lights and Kona Darks boxes - each with 100 solid colours.

My credit card nearly had a hernia.

1. Kona colours, 2. Kona colour matching!, 3. Kona darks, 4. EternitySolution, 5. Selvages! Getting there!, 6. Eternity quilt: pieces, 7. Eternity quilt: I really don't want to think about how many pieces there are..., 8. Kona lights, 9. Eternity quilt:organised piles.to be sewn next week!, 10. Greens and browns and creams., 11. Eternity quilt rows 1&2, 12. Eternity-ArthurStace, 13. Eternity quilt: pieces laid out

Organising the colours, arranging the colours, and then labelling each colour was a herculanean task. I needed at least eight equilatriangles of every colour to make each puzzle shape - one or two of them needed nine, due to the half equilatriangles.

And then there was the piecing. Oh boy. The piecing.

1. Material Obsession's Swap Day: the Eternity Quilt, finished and hung., 2. Eternity quilt: closeup, 3. Half triangles to eternity, 4. Eternity quilt: as at Friday, 5. Rows laid out, ready to sew. I could probably get these done tonight., 6. Pieces of eternity: taking longer than expected. *sigh*, 7. Eternity quilt: ready for basting, 8. Eternity quilt: the signature doesn't seem quite big enough..., 9. Quilting like a crazy quilting thing!, 10. Eternity quilt: Saturday, 11. Eternity quilt: Saturday, 12. Trimming, 13. Eternity quilt: sewing together

The plan was always to quilt 'Eternity' on it - in honour and memory of Arthur Stace and the bible verse:

Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time.
He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God's work from beginning to end.

Ecclesiastes 3:11, New Living Translation

I quilted it myself, using the Avanti HQ longarm at Hobbysew Top Ryde.

The main pattern is my trademark 'fiery curls' - fairly large, getting smaller as they go further in, with a fine stipple all around the quilted 'Eternity' signature.

I would have preferred to do some trapunto to plump up the word "Eternity", but didn't really have the time or the know-how then. It seems visible enough.

The ladies of the Sydney Modern Quilt Guild helped me sew the binding on at one of our sew-ins - just in time for Swap Day at Material Obsession!

Since then, it's been photographed for the booklet my church is putting together on the Apostle's Creed (with photography/prints of many other artworks), and has just accepted into the Sydney Quilt Show 2013 where it's going into the "Art Quilt (Open)" category for judging!

2012 recap: a big year

I’ve been a bit slow with this post – the recap of 2012 and the goals for 2013. Partly because I was away in Vietnam during that week when I usually do all my “past year, next year” organisation, and partly because my computer died at the start of December and I didn’t get around to replacing it until last week. I’ve been doing everything off my work computer which, while sturdy, makes me a bit antsy at times.

And it’s so much easier to 'do' than to 'recap'!

I'd have done a collage of my projects, only I don't have the time right now.

My goals for 2012 were:

1. Finish another 12 quilt tops.
2. Make at least 1 quilt from go to whoa - including the quilting stage, which I usually fob off to someone else.
3. Start making quilts and patterns with an intent to sell.

My results for 2012 were:

1. Not quite. My excuse is that we were doing kitchen renovations from February until August, and I had no sewing space because the kitchen essentially got moved into my sewing room.
2. Yes! The Eternity Quilt. Designed, cut, pieced, quilted, and bound by me!
3. Well, I did some quilt block patterns but they were nothing special. I'm not sure I'm cut out for the 'making patterns to sell' angle - it's not my focus, although I might still make some quilts to sell in future.

2012 Works

California Girl: A very quick project that turned out rather nice. More pastels than I like, but it'll be to someone's taste, I'm sure! (And the photography doesn't help.)

Charmed Prints: A quilt-along with Anne-Marie of Gen X Quilters.

HST Harvest: Using up the FQs of a "harvest themed" fabric collection I bought four years ago and which I don't like anymore. (The colours are Not My Thing at all!)

Floating Wildflowers: For the wedding of a friend in April. Another fabric collection I bought four years ago and hadn't yet used. I like this one better - the dark jewel tones, the design - much more to my tastes!

New York Beauty Blocks: Was to be for a huge NYB quilt-along, but I didn't like the colours I chose. I worked in mostly-solid or monochrome batiks and it just didn't work for me. So I'll make a small hanging from this and do a fullsize (or bigger size) quilt in some other fabric collection.

Nobody Puts Baby In The Corner - Scrap Attack: Definitely a pattern to do again in future - love the scrappiness, and the off-white 'backing'. It would be interesting to do this with a layer cake (or jelly roll) and a background fabric...

Azerbaijani scarf for Eurovision: For my friend's Eurovision party back in May!

Two baby quilts: a commission by a friend for her nephew and niece.

mug rug: Part of a mug-rug exchange. Only mine was a bit large - it's more of a soup-bowl rug!

Heirloom: I was trying to do this in the manner of a quilt I saw online, but I think that one was more of a 'coins' style design, which makes a difference - this design is a little too rich for my eye.

Build Me Up Buttercup: I love the fabric, but I don't think the design quite hits me. Yellow (it's actually 'Kona Daffodil' not 'Kona Buttercup' but the name stuck) is not my favourite of colours - I prefer it as an accent, not a theme.

Snowflake block: My first block tutorial! Design is by Madame Parfait, but she never posted the tutorial. This one's a bit rough, and I really need to make a whole quiltload. Perhaps in 2013?

Stepdad’s Cushions: Commissioned by my mum for the stepdad, oh, two years ago. Finally finished this year. Along with her quilt. They now sit in pride of place on their bed.

Batman block: A block tutorial for the Wicked! bloghop in October 2013. I need to use this block - perhaps in a cushion cover?

Eternity: My 2013 nemesis, dreamed up for a church project and completed in a ridiculously short time given its complexity level. Four months from inception to completion, and I did every inch of it, from design to cutting to piecing to quilting.

So that’s 2012, done and dusted!

Up next, 2013 goals.

WIP Wednesday: the one where Eternity is finished!

Warning: long post ahead. But many pictures to relieve the walls of text!

FINISHED: Heck To The Yeah!

The Eternity Quilt

WE ARE FINISHED, BABY!

Pieced, quilted, bound, and done!

This photo was taken at Material Obsession's Swap Day - the Sydney Modern Quilt Guild had a small table down the back corner of the garden, and so we displayed our various quilts - Penny Poppleton's 7-Day Hexagon Quilt, Pinkying's Sunset+, and my Modern Maze top. It was a great day filled with much chatting and conversation and fabric purchasing. I'm very carefully not thinking about how much I bought at the various stalls!

With the Eternity Quilt's completion, I can safely say that I've achieved at least one of my goals for quilting this year, which was to make a quilt from beginning to end - piecing, quilting, binding.

Of course, I had to pick the biggest, most complicated quilt out of the ones I've made this year. *sigh*

But now that I've done it once, it can only get easier, right? :)

WIPs: And Miles To Go Before I Sleep

This is the bit where everything kind of gets blurry in my head. I've been working on Eternity so long and so hard for the last couple of months that I've almost forgotten what other projects I had before!

Terrain Challenge
This has sadly languished after I discovered that I was going to have to sew a lot more strips together to get the full-sized quilt I want out of it.

Luckily, I am not short of Terrain fabric...

And I think Terrain is going on the backburner while I deal with the familial Christmas Presents. (January. It'll be done by January. Yeah.)

Christmas
So hard to work out gifts for my family! I've given just about everyone quilts now. Except for Stepbro2, which I should probably rectify. I might offer him a quilt, made to his colour/style preferences.

Otherwise, the siblings (sibling-and-spouse in one case) are all getting French Memo Boards, covered specific to their preferences. Don't know if they'll use them or just tuck them away to carry dust. Whatever. Useful and simple and (at least for the sisters) practical. I should probably make one for the half-bro in HK, and one for the new stepbro in Vietnam. (Extended families. Eesh.)

I think I have some time this Sunday...

TO DO: For All We Know The Best Is Yet To Come
Projects for the new year:

Sydney Modern Quilt Guild - Hexa-Go-Go Charity Quilt
One of the tenets of the Sydney Modern Quilt Guild is to contribute back to the community by contributing charity quilts and acts of service.

To that end, we're putting together two quilts for entry in the Sydney Quilt Show (June 2013), one of which will be from Tacha Bruecher's famous Hexa-Go-Go book. Tacha has even offered to put together a block herself, for which we are very very grateful!

(Photo of one of the quilts in Hexa-Go-Go.)

The quilts will be raffled or auctioned off after the Quilt Show and the proceeds donated to a charity that specialises in the care and support of women displaced by domestic violence. we wanted something very specifically female-oriented (which is not to say that men don't experience domestic violence, only that due to the nature of society, women often find themselves without legal or financial support when relationships turn bad).

These are my blocks to make (I took a whole row):

Incidentally, if you would like to contribute a block - whether you're Australian or an international - it would be wonderful if you would mail us at the Sydney MQG (sydneymodernquiltguild at gmail dot com) and we'll send you one of the kits (if you specify a preferred colour, we should be able to accomodate that).

There are more details in this post, but the short of it is that you'll work from your stash, you'll be paper-piecing a block to a color map, and sending it back to us, along with a few extra strips for the borders of your block. We're looking to have this done by the end of January 2013, so time is a factor, but if you're willing and able over the Christmas/New Year period, we'd love all the help we can get!

TARDIS Teapot Rug
For a friend presently stationed in Germany. The square of fabric was from Spoonflower back when I first discovered printable fabrics. I got it because, hey, TARDISes! (TARDII?) *geeks out*

We're actually sending a care package to Germany, although she's coming back home for Christmas. Then, when she gets back to Germany, she'll have a box full of goodies from home! Among which we've sent a teapot and tea. And now a TARDIS Teapot Rug. If I can get it quilted and bound in the next couple of days. Ugh. NO TIME.

Gift Quilts
I'll be travelling through the USA next September, San Francisco, Atlanta, probably North Carolina/Virginia, and then New York, before heading out to Europe (Venice and Italy). Big trip!

Since I'll be staying with friends along the way, I'd like to give them all quilts as gifts. As well as wanting to get a bunch of quilts over to friends in the US that I stayed with time after time in the noughties before I started quilting.

So, the plan is to make a lot of quilts, take over a lot of quilts, gift a lot of quilts...and then come back with ALL THE FABRIC.

One of the quilts I'm going to make is for an Egyptophile, which is why I was very excited when Robert Kaufman brought out the Valley Of The Kings fabric line a couple of years back:

I'd really like the panel if I could find it, but I didn't get the FQ bundle and so, no panel. Anyone know where I could find one?

--

And that's my rather long WIP Wednesday post!

How about yours? Have you linked up? Have you commented on other people's projects?

WIP Wednesday - the one with blocks and quilting

WIPs!

Birthday Blocks

Getting there!

One coffee-themed block:

Only it's the wrong design!

The second coffee-themed block - this one is the correct design!

Stars block from 99 Modern Quilt Blocks:

Nobody Puts Baby In The Corner

I've been avoiding quilting my own quilts, partly because my machine is just not up to the challenge of large-scale quilting in anything other than straight lines, partly because I didn't want to open that door.

But I need at least one quilt for Material Obsession's Swap Day on Saturday - something bright and 'modern', and the only thing that even vaguely fit the order was Nobody Puts Baby In The Corner, last photographed here:

I don't know if it will exactly fit in with the vivacity of the quilts that are Material Obsession's meat and milk, but I figured it was better than my alternatives.

The quilting is very basic - 'stitch in the ditch' in a diamond pattern, following the pattern of the blocks. It's not very tight quilting, so I imagine there'll be quite a bit of puffiness as it goes through washes and washes.

I'll be sewing the binding on over the next couple of days/nights.

Quilting Lessons

I did my machine quilting course last Wednesday on the Avanti longarm machine. Very nice, very educational. Lots to learn and take in, but also a pleasure to work with.

I wish I'd taken the Angela Walter's Free Motion Quilting book along with me so I could try out the various quilting styles, but, hey, there's lots of quilts yet to go!

After I finish The Eternity Quilt, I may start working on the piles of quilt tops that I haven't gotten around to quilting - partly because when I finished them I didn't have the money to get them quilted, partly because at least one of them will need specialised quilting

Speaking of which...

Eternity Quilt

Still a WIP - until this weekend!

Again, I'm hoping to get this done for Material Obsession's Swap Day - this coming Saturday. And I have three or so hours booked at the Avanti this afternoon, so hopefully some inroads will be made on the quilting. At the least, I want the copperplate outlined and emphasised with some very fine stippling. Once that's done, I'll branch out further out with curls and flourishes all the way to the edge of the quilt.

I'm privately hoping to get the binding completed tomorrow, but realistically it's very unlikely. It's a HUGE quilt! I'll be very glad to have it done, though!

eta: OMG. DONE LIKE A DINNER.

Other things

I'm going to visit my dad and his new wife in Vietnam after Christmas. I'm contemplating taking a quilt along for her - not sure quite what, though - I know almost nothing about her style, or what she might like, and I'd hate to put a lot of effort into something she thinks is 'meh'. (I don't know, she might think it's 'meh' anyway?) She seems like a very fashionable person. And I am decidedly...not fashionable. :)

Maybe leave it until after I've visited them and have a better idea of her likes/dislikes? Or whether she'd want a quilt at all.

Swap Day

I'm offering one package comprising a half-metre each of three Mendocino Mermaids prints. Go and enter the giveaway!

Cat is not included in giveaway!

I <3 Kona

Received the charms from my charm swap with Alyssa at Pile O'Fabric

Now to think of what to make with them!

And I think that's about it for me!

So what have you been working on this week?