Tag: my quilts

1980’s log cabin


Back in January, Carrie Nelson and I were on a road trip and stopped by to see Kimberly at The Fat Quarter Shop. Kimberly decided to start a series of Q& A with Kimberly videos and we were the guinea pigs. We had a great time visiting and answering questions from online viewers. I mentioned the log cabin quilt that I made back in the 80’s. I have had several people ask me to show the quilt so I dug it out of the playpen from my grandson’s house.

Read more

what can you make with…?

charm pack and moda candyWhat can you make with a Moda Charm pack, a moda candy and a few yards of bella solids?

123I am pulling this blog post out of my draft section because I share a free little pattern download at the bottom of the post but also wanted to share the incredible quilting.

124

A charm pack (42-5″ squares) and a mini charm pack (42-2 1/2″ squares) So easy. Start sewing with the precuts to make a quick project during balancing all the summer schedules. Plenty of room for autographs for a family reunion project.

125WOWSER! Feathers Galore!

126Hope everyone is enjoying the beginning of summer.

Here in Texas the heat and humidity has hit us.

If you want the pattern, click here for a free download.

Pattern includes a larger version that uses 2 charm packs and 2 mini charms.

I would love to see what you make. Share your pic on FB or IG and tag me, @modalissa.

Save

Save

Kettle Corn

APQOCT-COVER_DIGITAL

How super cool is Lisa Bongean of Primitive Gatherings? She is the first person to be shown on the cover of American Patchwork & Quilting. This does make her the official cover girl of quilting. Nick, her husband, thought she should do the photo shoot in a bikini, until everyone informed him it was not that type of cover girl. (just kidding, Nick!!)IMG_1660

I was tickled to see Lisa on the cover and then continued to flip through the pages to see some of my other friends. Vanessa Goetzen of Lella Boutique’s bright shiny face on page 5, Betsy Chutchian‘s reproduction quilt, Just Toasty on page 35,  Pat Sloan, Bonanza of Baskets on page 54, and then on page 79 I almost wet my pants. There was my quilt, Kettle Corn. You know I love scrappy quilts and mixing all kinds of Moda designers fabrics into one quilt. I also love fall and I can be found munching on kettle corn regardless of what time of the year it is. IMG_1662My family must think I am a bit of a mad scientist. I am always dipping, dying, bleaching and messing with fabrics. I had a variety of fabrics and wondered what they would look like bleached and overdyed.  I loved how some of the modern lines turned almost vintage with a dunk into bleach. Shown here is the quilt top before it was sent to the quilter. It really shows off the variety of prints.

IMG_1663

Everything including fabrics from Sandy Gervias, Urban Chics, Zen Chic, Vanessa Christenson, Barbara Brackman, Fig Tree and Sweetwater. I guess I could have named it Kitchen Sink since many of the fabrics have spent some time there and I threw in such a variety.  Love it!IMG_1664

 

IMG_1666

To be in such good company with all the people in this issue warms my heart.IMG_1667

Can’t wait for the season to change to fall and be surrounded by all things pumpkins.

IMG_1668Look for the October issue of American Patchwork and Quilting!!

Also a thank you shout out to Carrie Nelson and Elizabeth Besse. I was recouping from surgery so they jumped in and wrote the article for me.

I had the easy part of making the quilt.

-modalissa

Save

Save

Save

Vin DuJour Stars

Vin DuJour Stars

Sounds like a peaceful evening under a sky full of twinkling lights drinking a few glasses of bubbly.

ya right
The name of the quilt does almost sound magical and yet it is just the description of one of my favorite quilts.
The fabric was named Vin DuJour by 3 sisters and duh, the blocks are stars, hence the name, Vin DuJour Stars.
The stars are BIG stars. Each block is almost 30″before trimming.

I am not a fan of purple, or I wasn’t a fan of purple until I made this quilt.
Come on, old ladies like purple.
I am not an old lady so why would I ever dream of liking purple?

Until now, I guess there all shades of purple and this deep grape won me over.
The name of the collection was Vin DuJour so the color names were Burgundy,
Champagne and Grape.
Excess research was done, if you know what I mean, to create these designs and colors.
The stars were made using 2 Vin DuJour Jelly Rolls so the strips were already cut at 2 1/2″ and i just started sewing.
Each of the stars were pieced with a different color placement, so they really do twinkle throughout.
If you are interested in this pattern, McCall’s does have a link to download the digital version of the Jan/Feb 2014 issue.
If a big quilt like this is a bit too much to bite off right now, they have also created a 1 block wallhanging option.
This would be dreamy made from a Christmas collection.
One more little thing about this quilt is my daughter absolutely loves it, begged for it and now owns it.
She is not old at all, actually she is pretty cool.
So purple is for cool people.
-modalissa
** this is a continuing series in my effort to document my quilts for history. Since what you put on the internet stays there forever,
I thought this would be as safe as a place as any.

 

 

Irish Chain Blog Hop

Hello and Welcome, 
I am thrilled and nervous at the same time to kick off Melissa Corry’s Irish Chain Blog hop. Melissa has all kinds of fun things planned for this hop. Each day you will be visiting 2 different stops and I guarantee there will be so much color throughout. 

 
Did you play with Pick Up Sticks as a kid? I found them quite challenging and spent hours balancing those little buggers. Melissa’s pick up sticks quilt is a realistic interpretation of thin colorful sticks balancing end to end throughout the quilt. Melissa used Carolyn Frielander’s collection which also gave this quilt an architectural feel.

I wanted to mix mine up and started with the classic colors of Red and White but was not to happy with my choices. I kept coming back to Melissa’s version. We have all agonized over color and fabrics, right? I wanted mine to look exactly like the one I saw, Exactly. Please tell me you have done that.

I did 15 jumping jacks to get my heart pumping and blood to the brain.
Then I decided I would do a positive – negative version of her quilt. I still wanted an architectural, yet almost industrial look so I went with an assortment of greys and used whites as my sticks.
My quilt top looks like steel buildings with reflective windows climbing the skyline. 

If you squint at the picture above it almost looks robotic.

Squint again and there is a chunky plus sign shape that will be quilted as an overall design. I think this will give the quilt a sleek secondary look.

The fabrics are a combination of greys, whites and cremes from Amy Ellis and Zen Chic. They are so perfect for a quilt for a man in your life.

 Hop on over to Fat Quarter Shop to see the quilt that Joceyln is making. 

Check back every day as these talented quilters each share their Irish Chain.

June 8th –   Happy Quilting – Blog
Hop Intro
June 9th –   Moda Lissa – Lissa Alexander
                  Fat Quarter Shop – Jocelyn Ueng
June 10th –  Piece
N Quilt
– Natalia Bonner
                  In
Color Order
– Jeni Baker
June 11th –  Amy’s
Creative Side
– Amy Ellis
                  Sew
Kind of Wonderful
– Jenny Pedigo
June 12th –  Quilt
Story
– Megan Jimenez
                  Diary
of a Quilter
– Amy Smart
June 15th –  Freshly
Pieced
– Lee Heinrich
                  Christa
Quilts
– Christa Watson
June 16th –  Moda
Cutting Table
– Carrie Nelson
                  Little
Miss Shabby
– Corey Yoder
June 17th –  Fresh
Lemons
– Faith Jones
                  V
and Co.
 – Vanessa Christenson
June 18th –  A
Quilting Life
– Sherri McConnell
                  Stitch
This!
– Jenny Wilding Cardon
June 19th –  Happy Quilting – Wrap
Up & Grand Prizes

Melissa has some goodies lined up for her Grand Prize Giveaway  

There will be a Grand Prize Giveaway on the final day of
the blog hop along with the Charity Quilt Reveal.  There are 2 super
fun grand-prize Giveaways with lots of fabric, books, and even a mini quilt.    To enter the giveaway, they just
need to leave a comment on the MELISSA’s Intro Post. ( CLICK HERE FOR A LINK TO MELLISSA’S  POST TO ENTER.)

French General Irish Chain

Pom Pom De Paris by French General

We have had a bit of sunshine for the first time in weeks. The deluge of
rain seems to have stopped so I thought it a perfect time to pull out
another quilt and document the specifics. I thought this Irish Chain
would be good to talk about since next week I will be taking part in
Melissa Corry’s Irish Chain blog hop.
 This old quilt is just the opposite of what I will be showing next week, but
more on that Monday. 

When I say old, spring 2011 was when this fabric was available in stores. Seems like eons ago. 
I love the look of  Blended Quilts that Marsha McCloskey and Sharon Yenter are known for. This fabric collection seemed like a perfect fit. 

So many of the prints were large scale and disappeared or blended into each other when cut smaller for the irish chain pieces. I guess that is the point of blended quilts, right?

 I love the muted butter yellow prints in this collection. The quilt has been washed a few times adding to it’s well loved look.

  I
did not let one scrap go to waste by adding the large prints, butter
yellows and woven textures along with any orphan blocks or pieces from
the quilt top to create a 2 sided quilt. 

 

A feathered wreath design was quilted in natural thread filling all of the natural area.
This is also the time for my public service announcement to document your quilts. I did not do that so I can remember who the quilter was. Maggi, was it you?
 I was lucky enough for this quilt to be featured in Quiltmania magazine 2012.
Thank you for reading along as I document my library of quilts and talk a step back into time!
Join me back here Monday for a fun blog hop featuring 

 -Modalissa

Log Cabin- circa 1982

One of my previous posts mentioned that I was going to document a few of my quilts and share their stories. so in no particular order……

This is probably one of my best loved quilts, really I should say best USED quilts. It is also one of the first quilts that I had machine quilted in a wonderful all over snoopy loop design. At the time commercial machine quilting was fairly new. Machine quilting and the talented machine quilters have single handedly reinvented the art of quilting. Machine quilting has also helped facilitate making more quilts. Thank you for that!!

 The general poop about this quilt is as follows:
The strips are 1″ finished. The layout of these blocks is done in a big barn raising style. The border is a mission valley woven. Traditionally the center of log cabins were red or yellow representing love or warmth in the home. A friend of mine hung this quilt in her den for years. She needed something to cover the wall while decorating for a party and we both thought this quilt was just the thing. Since her home was like my second home the quilt stayed there for years until I pointed out to her that the corner of the quilt still needed the binding sewn down.

 
Since then this quilt has been on many a family picnic, fort building adventure and now resides as a play mat for my little grandson.
Another tidbit about this quilt is that I used all kinds of fabrics. In the 80’s I was a young mom and a fairly new quilter. There were not very many quilt stores around at this time. I would go to any fabric store and buy fabric by the inch. Can you believe that?
Right?
That would be insane now.

 I would go and buy a few inches of as many different fabrics as I could possible find. Since the selection was limited this also meant that not everything matched or maybe I was not yet very confident in my color choices or both.
I sent the quilt top to a machine quilter in another state. This was in the early eighties and keep in mind, the quilting resurgence started in 1975. There were not many quilt stores, and there certainly were not many home machine quilters. I found a company that quilted fabric for those big puffy bedspreads.
I convinced them to quilt my patchwork and NO, I did not want 3″ tall batting.
I am sure they thought, oh this poor young thing, she has no hope or sense of color.
Little did they know that I had a plan all along. I wet the entire quilt and threw it in my washing machine along with a little bit of tan rit dye. I thought what the heck, and loved the look of the quilt when I was done. Some how magically the tan dye made all those calicos “go-together.”

You could possibly say this was the beginning of my love of jelly rolls. And I do still love to experiment with bleaching and dyeing fabrics!!

enjoy,
modalissa