Back in August there was a retreat, and in the next week or so I finished two tops from blocks sent to the retreat. Finally, I got to quilting one of them.
~40 x60
Inspired by a recent guild workshop with Christina Camelli, followed by her second Craftsy class, I pulled out the top and tried the vine quilting design that she had demonstrated.
Quilting detail
I thought it went well with the border and backing fabric.
Love those animal musicians
It was easy in that vines could go any direction and leaves be any size. It was difficult in that some directions of stitching blocked the view of the stem I was trying to travel stitch on. Also, the prints that hide quilting mistakes also hide quilting, so occasionally I’d quilted over another motif. Luckily the quilting was not invisible on most of the fabrics. When a box is full, this quilt will be sent to Quilts Beyond Borders.
As often happens, the quilt lay flat until I stitched the binding–in this case the back brought around to the front as a shortcut.
Another project of the day was to make my January weather block.
January high temps in Portland, OR
The basic project is to assign a color to a group of temperatures, then make a square, a rectangle, or knit a certain amount in the color that represents the high of the day. Here is a public Facebook page if you want to see other approaches to weather based design. As you can see, most people are designing by row. I decided to try calendar format. My squares are 2 1/2 inches, so that will give me 14-inch blocks if I fill in the top and bottom as above. Here is my palette:
I may never get to use purple and red; we’ll see. Purple is for lower than 30F and red for higher than 100F. I could have gotten more variety if, like some, I’d divided into groups of five. But since I plan to make numbers in the relevant color for the legend on the back, I didn’t want to double the number blocks. Lazy, aren’t I?
It will be fun to see how it turns out. Not random in that every color does not have an equal opportunity to be selected each time, but also not exactly planned by design principles.
I’ll link with Free Motion Mavericks , TGIFF (click on the frog to get to the thumbnails), and Finish it up Friday ; click and enjoy.
knitNkwilt 
I should send you some of our Bureau of Meteorology maps showing ‘heavy’ weather – you’d get to use the full colour range! Lovely vine quilting!
The weather is an interesting block. I could definitely have used the purple this month! As long as I live in this humidity, I wouldn’t want to use the red! But in the desert, yeah, I’d have solid blocks of red! =) I like your vine quilting. What if you washed the quilt, would the binding flatten then?
Good for you, trying out that quilting pattern. Leaves on a vine are now one of my favorite quilting designs (but I’m not doing the quilting!). I can see the appeal of weather dictated blocks. It will be interesting to see how it all turns out!
The retreat quilt looks great- and I’m intrigued by your weather design!
The weather block in calendar shape is such a fun project! If you take a trip would it be the temp of the place you are, or your home town?
It was nice to see the quilt and vine quilting. In what order did you do the stitching? Thanks!
June, I think I would keep the temp of my home town.
I started the vine in the center with branches of 6-10inches. I worked one quarter of the quilt at a time moving like when meandering, only making branches curve where I needed them to be. It involved some quilting from edge to center and got puckery in a couple places (though I think a laundering will take care of that). Next time I may work so I go always from center out. toward the end I got the idea of zig zagging my branches so that I covered more space. Hope this makes sense.
Thank you! Working one quarter at a time sounds really good. And trying for center to the sides sounds good too! I appreciate your tips!
The vine quilting is great!
I really like your vine quilting. When I was more of a hand quilter, vines were my favorite motif, but I haven’t worked up the nerve to do them in FMQ yet. I know I should just go for it. Good for you! It’s intriguing to me that you are at the mercy of the weather in your calendar quilt. What a great way to “build” randomness into a quilt!
I like the little green accents in the red quilt!
I am really impressed at you with the quilting! I think I’m just scared to try. I do plan to give it a go on one of my vintage machines, but that awaits various other home improvements. You are doing a great job. Also like the idea of letting weather predict the pattern…sounds like fun. Re the wavy borders I have had some success with blocking quilts while they are damp, similar to the way mom used to block knitted items after washing. If you have a floor that’s big enough to spread it out on towels and leave it for a couple of days, that’s one way. I’ve only been able to do smaller pieces that I dampen (with steam) and tack up square on my “design wall”.
BTW, I just got back from a trip to Tahoe…your post title caught my eye!
Your FMQ looks great! I have some I need to do for practice – I think I just need to wade in and do it. Thanks for the inspiration!
Your weather blocks are very intriguing – Jan & Feb up here would have worked through most of the colors inside of one month since we’ve had lows below zero and highs in the sixties. Sometimes in the same week…
Hello Claire,
This is a gorgeous quilt, so perfect for a child! I love the vibrant colours, with the splashes of green here and there, and FMQ vines always look good. However, I know exactly what you mean about losing your way when quilting over a busy print – it is so easy to get lost.
Thank you for linking up with Free Motion Mavericks!
Love, Muv