Cut it Straight: May 2015

Wednesday, May 20, 2015

I Spy in the Cubby-Holes

I have always been intrigued by optical illusions.
So I decided to use the 'attic windows' idea to create an I Spy for a special friend.
(A special Grandma)

60 Pictures to Spy.

And hours of fun with the Grandchildren.

I'm posting about this artistic endeavor - and am entering this quilt in the

Blogger's Quilt Festival - in the Art Quilt category

You can visit the Festival and Vote for your favorite quilts in all the categories

by clicking HERE

I got to practice making y-seams (60 of them!) and got pretty good at it.

To add to the optical illusion effect, I felt the picture frames needed a black highlight in the diagonal seam... so I hand embroidered a black accent line in each square.

(hmm... the quilt was not hanging straight on the fence -

and wind was blowing so the lines are kinda wavy in this photo...)

You can see the black embroidery accents in this photo.

I plan to sign the quilt on one of those baseballs -

the ball next to the one with Babe Ruth's autograph.

I used black strips as lattice on the front. The strips on the front I cut at 1.25 inches.

With my a-little-more-than-quarter-inch-seams, the black lattice finished at around 3/4 inches.

You can read about how to construct the quilt using this technique by visiting The Happy Zombie .

But the part of the quilt that just makes me SMILE is the BACK.

Using the quilt-as-you-go method, I varied the colors of the linking lattice

to create this really fun rainbow effect.

And the denim will make this perfect to use as a picnic blanket.

This Grandma has a daughter who participated in a Quilt Club I had when my girls were in high school. I had a signature fabric that I included in a number of blocks I made for the girls. Chocolate. It was chocolate fabric. And that fabric makes its appearance in this quilt as well.

I tried to make the whole quilt look like maybe it was a bookshelf of Cubby-holes.

You can see the left border appearing like the side of a bookshelf.

You can see the top of the bookshelf, as well.

And I notched the top right hand corner to finish the illusion of a bookshelf.

This Quilt was just so much fun to make.
I hope you will go and vote for your favorite Art Quilt at the Blogger's Quilt Festival HERE.

You can also access all of the categories in the Blogger's Quilt Fest

And

you can nominate and/or vote for your favorite in the Viewer's Choice category HERE.

How fun is this?! To go to a Quilt Show and not have to leave your home.
And
YOU get to have a say in which quilts win the prizes.

CathyH

T-Shirts

Two suitcases full of t-shirts. . . and an educational career of memories.
My challenge was to sort the t-shirts and make a quilt (or more than one quilt)
to preserve those high school and college memories.

This is what came from half of those t-shirts:

I'm (finally) posting about this adventure - and am entering this quilt in the

Blogger's Quilt Festival - in the Large Quilt category.

You can visit the Festival and Vote for your favorite quilts in all the categories

by clicking HERE

I used a quilt-as-you go technique that allowed me to quilt each t-shirt top separately. I was able to out-line some of the words on the front of the t-shirts without having to manipulate the whole quilt top under the arm of my little Singer sewing machine.

I used black strips as lattice on both the front and the back. The strips on the front I cut at 1.5 inches. The strips on the back I cut at 2 inches wide. You can read about how to construct the quilt using this technique by visiting The Happy Zombie .

The quilt measures 85" by 54".

Here you can see how I outlined the College name from the front of the t-shirt -

and it shows up so well on the back of the quilt.