Ready for Allietare!

For several years now I've watched other quilters around the blogosphere sew one of Bonnie Hunter's yearly mystery quilts. I always say, "oh, that is too much sewing for me!" Plus, it is very, very, very hard for me to give up creative control like that.

But this fall I've been feeling like it's time to get over this idea that everything I make has to take forever. Many people finish one of Bonnie's detailed, bed-sized quilts in the allotted six weeks. It's time to break through my hang ups and finish something fast!

Bonnie's hotel room view in Italy

Plus, I was immediately inspired by the above photo from Bonnie's introduction to this year's mystery, "Allietare!" I love the yellow ochre walls! I remembered that Kaffe Fassett was also very inspired by those Mediterranean colours. In particular, I remembered this photo...

...from Kaffe's first book, Glorious Knitting. I've always wanted to make this sweater, but I look terrible in gold. So here's my chance to use the colour in a quilt instead! I have plenty of gold and ochre Kaffe fabrics.

Bonnie's mystery quilt colours will be gold, red, black, white and grey. All the colours can be made up from scraps except the grey, which she says should be a single 1.5 yard piece of fabric. I had everything except the grey in my stash.

So, if I'm going to make one change to personalize the project, the grey is the obvious place to make it. Since it's a mystery, I can only guess about the function of the grey in the quilt. If it's going to be a black/grey/white gradient, then I'm in trouble. I'm hoping that it's going to work something like the grout around tiles, a shadow to highlight the bright colours.

Thinking of the two photos above, and using a little colour theory, I thought that something between the blue sky and purple stars might work instead. I bought a blue/purple/grey batik, and a blue/purple print by Kaffe's partner Brandon Mably.

Now, which one is best?

Use your hand to cover one side at a time. Interesting, eh? To my eye, the batik on the left makes the reds and golds seem brighter, while the rings on the right seem to make them faded and dull.

In real life the batik is a little more green, and the rings are more purple. Before I laid them both out, I really thought the purple-y rings were going to be the right fabric, because shadows tend to be purple. But, if the purpose of this fabric is to lift the reds and golds, then the batik is definitely the winner!

I think there are two reasons. First, the rings have more contrast, so they catch the eye first and compete with the other fabrics. Second, the rings are flat, solid colours, so they seem on the same level as the red and gold prints. The mottled and shaded batik, on the other hand, looks much further away than the prints. So hopefully, more depth and contrast between the fabrics will create more drama in the finished piece!

Now I'm dying to see how it works out. One week to go!

Modern Utility Quilt

In her wrap of the second AHIQ link up, Ann said that "Modern utility quilts are an official movement."

Well, I thought, "my letters and words are not destined for a utility quilt."

But... I really could use a small quilt to cover my hand sewing chair, especially during the summer. And then, I was very inspired by the windmill quilts made by Ann and her quilting sister. Especially all the gorgeous Hawaiian fabrics her sister used. This seemed like a good way to use up some of those big prints in my stash!

My stash has a box called "Novelty," and I knew I had this fabric in there:

I bought it on a whim at a show, and I thought I'd probably never use it. But, now it is the inspiration for a whole quilt! I love the pink, red and white palette.

The Novelty box had other food-themed fabrics as well, including a couple yards of this sushi fabric:

I remember that I actually wanted more than two yards, but it sold out before I could buy it! I do love all the colours, especially the rich Chinese red. And that teapot is looking pretty good sewn up, too:

I found enough pink, white and red foodie fabrics for half the quilt, and then I filled it in with some ginghams (tablecloths!) and dots. With a hint of cucumber, citron, and lime:

Sounds tasty, doesn't it?

I think Ann's quilt is from Sujata Shah's book, Cultural Fusion Quilts. Ann's quilt blocks are square, but I thought they might look good as rectangles. A little more modern, a little more dynamic. The only catch with a rectangle is that you have to make half pointing left, and half pointing right.

Here are a few on the design wall, just to see:

I really, really wanted to do the whole thing fast and have a small flimsy finished in time for next Tuesday's link up. Unfortunately, I lost my head and ended up cutting way, way too much. So now it is queen-sized! Another big quilt! We'll see how far I am by Tuesday. Right now I'm only half way through the blocks:

And now I still won't have a suitable utility quilt for my chair. But, I bet the same block would look great in all my old Asian fabrics! And I think the box of Christmas fabric I have would benefit from some of this too. Maybe next year!

Design Wall Monday

Since I don't have a permanent design wall, this is the first time I've had something to share with the Design Wall Monday link up. My "design wall" is a white flannel sheet that I drape across the front of two Ikea wardrobes. It works quite well!

But, it is just 2 m (78") wide, so sometimes new solutions are required.

On the wall are the first few rows of Carrie Nelson's X-Rated quilt design from this book. I'm calling my version Aloha Kisses, with all its Hawaiian-themed fabrics. I originally planned to make it as a throw quilt. But since the weather has started to get colder, suddenly I feel the need for bed-sized quilts! I bought fat quarters of all these fabrics, so I have plenty left to make it larger.

This quilt has to be laid out and all the pieces carefully numbered, or it won't go together right. Rather than lay it out in sections, I realized that I could use one square to represent the whole cross:

Now I can fit all the fabrics on the wall at the same time!

It was still a challenge to fill in the missing pieces and pack it up in order. But, I feel optimistic that it will work.

I won't be sewing it, though, until the new year. I want to see if I can sort out some Leaders and Enders to use with the white thread I need for this project. Plus, this year, also for the first time, I've decided to do Bonnie Hunter's new mystery quilt, Allietare. So I'm clearing the decks to make room for that.

In the meantime, check out the other design walls at the link up here!