Tag Archives: all about angles

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The products featured in this post were given to me by Island Batik, including products from Hobbs and Aurifil.

I'm a multitasker at heart. Sometimes when I am planning a project, I like to figure out how I'll incorporate multiple goals. This includes quilt challenges and personal design goals. This week's Project QUILTING challenge of Bold and Brave wasn't really calling to me, so I was dragging my feet on formulating a plan. Then I found out that my Island Batik Ambassador box was due to arrive on Wednesday. I figured that meant I was supposed to dive right in and use it for my PQ challenge. It also meant I could procrastinate for a couple more days until the box arrived. ;-)

This project ties to the Bold and Brave theme in a couple of ways. This is the first official month in my role as an Island Batik Ambassador. It was brave of me to put myself out there and apply, and I'm excited to work with their bold colors. Also, I am excited to have started my quilt teaching career. I was a middle school math teacher for eleven years and it's great to be back in a classroom setting. The design of my mini quilt comes from my second Planned Improv workshop, All About Angles, which I'll be debuting soon. The workshop is designed to feature reversible fabrics (solids, hand dyes, cross weaves, batiks) so it lent itself well to choosing from my box of Island Batik fabrics. I love all the bright colors in the Morning Sunshine collection and chose a variety from that bundle to get started. After much debate, I settled on:

  • Sunflower in Rainbow
  • Mini Dot in Sun
  • Grass in Lime
  • Dot in Turquoise
  • Grass in Purple

Back to that multitasking that I mentioned. This mini quilt is my Project QUILTING Bold and Brave challenge quilt, my Island Batik Ambassador Mini Love project, and a class sample for my Planned Improv: All About Angles workshop. A three-fer!

It finishes at 20.5" x 24", pieced and simply quilted with Aurifil white 50wt thread, and features Hobbs Thermore Ultra-Thin Polyester batting.

I chose my binding from one of my Stash Builder rolls. It was a 5" x WOF strip and I managed to make it work by piecing my binding with straight seams since I was worried I didn't have enough fabric to piece on an angle... and I was right! It was a very close call.

 

I love mini quilts. They provide a great opportunity for a fast finish, an especially nice option for gifts. They can provide a splash of color on a wall or table. And mini quilts are my favorite way to try out a new technique. Something about their small size means it isn't too big of a commitment for a first run with a new skill.

Thanks for visiting. I'm linking up to Project QUILTING 9.3. Voting opens Sunday morning, so be sure to check out the other projects and vote for your ten favorites. (Mine is #57.)

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The MQG Michael Miller fabric challenge for QuiltCon 2018 featured the Our Yard collection by Sarah Campbell. I love peacocks and knew from the beginning that I wanted to feature the peacock from the animal print.

I’ve been playing with Planned Improv and chose my All About Angles technique for this project, adding in fussy cutting to feature the animals. I visited Golden State Quilting, my LQS, to choose solids to coordinate with the line. I settled on Stone, Charcoal, Seafoam, Girl, and Watermelon, in addition to the Gold included in the challenge pack. Here's a peek at my design wall in the middle of my process.

I settled on a long, narrow layout for my quilt. It solved the problem I was having with the distribution of the animals and I liked how my eye traveled over the quilt.

For the quilting, I chose three motifs that each had horizontal movement and switched between the three for each row. On the animal prints I combined that row's motif with outline quilting around the feature animals and other elements. I enjoyed the challenge of free motion quilting around the animals as well as working with a palette outside of my norm. It's quilted with Aurifil Beige (#5010) in 50 wt. I liked that the beige had a nice contrast without being too dramatic. I think I need to invest in more neutral colored thread.

I love a striped binding and was happy use the stripe from the challenge pack for my binding. I got some help from my friend Mel for how to baste my binding with Elmer's glue. It was a hot mess last time I tried, but this time it worked out so well! Then no binding clips needed to hand stitch it.

 

All About Angles and Animals finished at 16" x 40.5". It was one of my two submissions for consideration to hang at QuiltCon 2018 in Pasadena, CA. Notifications are due out by the end of the month.

 

Coming in 2018!!

I will begin teaching my All About Angles workshop in 2018. This 6-hour workshop includes cutting techniques to build sections featuring complementary angles with no measuring and no math. Students bring a selection of solids, batiks or hand-dyed fabrics and leave with a  completed slab (larger than you see below) suitable for finishing as a mini quilt or building upon for a larger project.

 

I've linked up to the 2017 Q4 Finish Along link up. See my whole Q4 list here.

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