Snow Crab Nebula - Blogger's Quilt Festival

Happy Saturday, all! For those coming from the Blogger's Quilt Festival with Amy's Creative Side, welcome! In addition to my Seeing The Forest quilt, I decided to share Snow Crab Nebula in the Art Quilt category. Gulp! For those who have seen this before, bear with me -- there are some new photos! :)

This project began with my first snow dyeing experiment earlier this year. Yellow, ringed with red and then purple snow dyes turned this:

Into this:

This looked like one of those NASA images from space to me so I decided to see what I could do to accentuate it with some free motion quilting.

Snow Crab Nebula - Front

Quilting Detail

For the quilting, I did swirls, pebbles, wishbones, loop-d-loops, stars/satellites, and ribbons. I put the information I learned from Angela Walter's Free Motion Quilting Negative Space class on Craftsy to good use in mixing up the swirls and pebbles and moving from one type of motif to another.

I used a variety of Aurifil colours in the yellow, orange, red and purple families (#2277, 5009, 1103, 2581, 1240, 1243, 2140 to be specific) in the front and black thread in the back. I just love the sheen of the Aurifil thread against the colours of the fabric.

Quilting Detail

My husband suggested I call it Snow Crab Nebula since it was created with snow dyeing. Works for me!

Snow Crab Nebula - Quilting Detail

Snow Crab Nebula - Quilting Detail

Snow Crab Nebula - Quilting Detail

To play with the theme, I used some solar system fabric for the back.

Snow Crab Nebula - Back

Final stats:
Quilt name: Snow Crab Nebula
Measurements: 19" by 21"
Special techniques: Snow dyeing, free motion quilting, non-mitred facing
Machine quilted: Free motion quilted by me!
Entering this in the Art Quilt category for the Blogger's Quilt Festival.

Here are my entries into past Blogger's Quilt Festivals:

Fall 2012

Spring 2012

Fall 2011

Thanks for stopping by! For lots more inspiration, check out the other entries in the Blogger's Quilt Festival at Amy's Creative Side -- it's always a fabulous show. Thank you, Amy, for putting all of this together!

Seeing The Forest - Blogger's Quilt Festival

Yay, it's Blogger's Quilt Festival time again! I'm very happy to be sharing my Seeing The Forest quilt. If this is your first time here, welcome! For those who saw this quilt last week, please indulge me a little longer. :)

This quilt started out at as a fat eighth bundle of Westminster shot cottons and Helen Howes' Twelve Trees pattern that I got from Mad About Patchwork.

I'm not great at sticking with a pattern though so I added in four more trees, and flipped half of them so they looked like a reflection of the top eight.

For the quilting, I went with horizontal matchstick quilting (kind of like bark?) and I LOVE the effect on both sides of the quilt. I used a Sulky variegated thread that went from burgundy to plum.

The quilting lines are spaced anywhere for 1/8" to 1/3" apart. I was worried that the tight quilting might make the quilt too stiff. Nope, the shot cottons handle it beautifully.

The full reveal:

Seeing The Forest - Front

I love the back almost as much as the front! The insert is made from scraps from the front.

Seeing The Forest - Back

Maxing and relaxing on the steps

Final stats:
Quilt name: Seeing The Forest
Measurements: 40" by 59"
Special techniques: Slash and insert piecing
Machine quilted: Matchstick quilting by me
Entering this in the ROYBGIV category for the Blogger's Quilt Festival.


Here are my entries into past Blogger's Quilt Festivals:

Fall 2012

Spring 2012

Fall 2011

Thanks for stopping by! For lots more inspiration, check out the other entries in the Blogger's Quilt Festival at Amy's Creative Side -- it's always a fabulous show. Thank you, Amy, for putting all of this together!

Works in Progress Wednesday - The Reorg Edition

Being unable to find a pattern in my sewing room has prompted a bit of a reorg. I like being organized although it often takes me a few 'systems' before I get there. Although it probably doesn't look it to an outsider, my sewing room is about 70% organized effectively. It's that 30% that occassionally drives me crazy. I hate being unable to find things. So there will be some sorting, some moving. There will also be some purging of stuff. I picked up "Organizing Solutions for Every Quilter" by Carolyn Woods recently so that should help. Any tips for organizing patterns? Scraps? Cloth dyeing stuff? I'm looking forward to the reorg and to finding that bloody pattern!

So the quilty 411 this week is...

New Projects: 

Simply Solids Bee: For May, Shena chose this fun Alberta Triangles block. I was feeling springy so chose to do mine in greens and purples.

Completed Projects:

Seeing the Forest: Blogged!

Current Projects:

Hard Core: Top is done and the quilt is basted. Thank you all for the feedback on the quilting. I think I know which one to go with now. :)

Something New Sampler: No progress.

Scrappy Trip Along: No progress.

Scrap{Bee} Quilt: No progress.

Kingston quilt: No progress.

On Hold/UFO Mash-up:
Stained Glass Lillies
Travellin' Pic Stitch Blog Hop

Appliqué/Quilt/Paint Thing

Modern Block Monday Sampler 

Chop Suey

Collage Tree 

Asterisk Christmas Table Runner 

Red and Tan Bargello in the Round 2

Happy Villages

Fibonacci's Not Random

Red and Cream Amish Wedding Ring

Wedding quilt

Nine patch colourwash

WIP Wednesday Recap: 

New projects: 1

Completed projects: 2

Current projects: 5

On Hold/UFO: 13

Bucket List: 30

I'm linking in to WIP Wednesday at The Needle and Thread Network and to W.i.P. Wednesday at Freshly Pieced. Thanks Monika and Lee for hosting such great linkies!

Giddy

I'm really giddy right now and have been since yesterday morning. I was already in a great mood having been spoiled by my boys with breakfast in bed, but when I walked into the Festival of Quilts to do my volunteer shift, I heard someone congratulate me on my ribbons. Yes, ribbons...plural! One ribbon would have sent me over the moon, but ribbons plural?! I thought my head was going to explode on the spot. The talent in my guild is incredible and it took me two years of being a member before I showed anything during our meetings' Show and Share. I'm just so honoured! *Huge goofy grin*

I ran around to check my quilts out. Snow Crab Nebula won 1st in the President's Challenge (Theme: Shooting Stars). Of course, the hubster takes credit for this one because he named it. LOL!

What The FMQAYGQAL? won 3rd in Viewer's Choice for Small Bed Quilt Machine Quilted.

 Su{Brrr}nova won 2nd Merit Award for Small Bed Quilt Machine Quilted.

I'm still doing the happy dance today.

Even while I contemplate this:

The top for Hard Core is done and I'm mulling over ideas for the quilting. Originally, I had envisioned something like this -- rays of different free motion motifs going all the way around:

But then I saw some fabulous examples of precise spirals and I thought of adding in some intersecting straight lines, kind of like this:

And now I'm torn. Thoughts? Other ideas?

I'm also linking up to Design Wall Monday with Patchwork Times because they always have great ideas.

Hope you had a fabulous weekend!