April quilt meet-Mumbai

It was the 1st of April and we quilters in Mumbai decided to meet up. No April fools day but yes a lot of fooling around.
Here you see a picture of the entire group, sans me…I am the official photographer as I jokingly put it 😉
I am there of course, just behind the camera.

Quilt Meet

Hema volunteered to host us and had the most amazing spread ready for us, not just in terms of quilts but food as well 🙂

Hema with her latest Quilt

Hema’s quilt

Hema and Usha’s other quilts

Above pics show her other quilts…what a treat for the eyes.

Amazing stories flowed in one after the other, be it the initial days of making quilt tops and getting quilted them by a tailor to not knowing the name of the blocks to having only books for reference before the omnipresent Google era.

Geeta’s splendid sampler

Admiring the splendid sampler

Saira’s work:

Saira’s Show and tell

Saira’s amazing sling bag…

Saira’s Dizzy Daisy Quilt top…

And finally my Tula pink Sampler Quilt top…

My Tula Pink Sampler Quilt

A day full of Quilt speak and motivation galore…

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Dizzy Daisy Quilt

When I saw the Dizzy Daisy tutorial by the Missouri Star Quilt Company I leapt up with joy. It looked so beautiful and so easy, a perfect project far a spring break. This is also a time when my dad-in-law’s birthday is around the corner so it would make a good quilt for my in-laws.

Here are some work in progress snaps and tips as I go along!

Dizzy Daisy Quilt

Dizzy Daisy Quilt

A few tips:

Tip1: Be cognizant of the seams and nest them. I thought it was a good idea to iron them outwards in each petal, although I usually prefer ironing to the dark side.

Tip2: Be cognizant of the direction of the petal tips. See if you want all your flowers to go clockwise or all anti-clockwise or a mix of both.

Tip3. If you are not a beginner sewists and bordering on an intermediate, then you can just eyeball the 2.5″ squares and sew across the diagonal, it just saves a lot of time(Kausalya’s tip).

42 blocks ==> 42×4 petals with 3 squares each are 504 small squares.

Tip4. When you iron them after cutting the triangles out, iron them on the wrong side of the charm square. One press sets the stitches and the second press ensures that the block stays flat. Since the triangles are sewn on the bias, best to iron them from the rear so the blocks stay flat and do not wrinkle.

Hope the tips help you, especially members of the India Quilt Guild Group on Facebook that are doing the Quilt Along with me.

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Abstract Expression: Portrait workshop

The first time I saw this wall quilt, I thought it was impossible; never even wanted to attempt it. My painting skills are limited to just sketching…ha ha

However, Shruti convinced me that this was doable and was a worthy skill to have. I am glad I agreed. The workshop was over the long weekend, so Prajakta from Green leaf quilts and I decided to drive down and stay at our friends place, Kausalya. The workshop was at her studio, KaPa.What a gracious host!

So one sunny Friday morning at 6am, we set out on a drive of 150 odd km to KaPa studio to join other quilters and learn how to make an Abstract Portrait quilt. To be frank, at this point, we were just going off on a short holiday, wasn’t sure what the final quilt would look like, if it ever got completed.

We reached there by about 9:30am and shortly after started the workshop. The studio is absolutely state of the art with Bernina sewing machines around and she had stocked the fridge with cold water and drinks, snacks etc. The studio has nice white walls, wide windows for natural light to seep in and absolutely every quilting notion one needs in a workshop.

We started with trying out the portrait technique on paper, mine looked disastrous …
Then in the afternoon, after a lovely sumptuous lunch, we started our work on our quilts. At the end of Day1, this is how it looked …

Day 2 started with face shading and coloured fabric, understanding the direction of light on our picture, eyes, placement of warm and cool colours…then wonderful lunch and back to the desk. In the fternoon, we basted and quilted the piece.A full two day workshop and a lot of hard work!
But every minute was worth it 🙂

While we were at it, she also taught us a new binding method. The teacher was awesome. That what I like about her–he will challenge your skill level and make you do wonderfully difficult quilts. As far as mine is concerned, I am still wondering if I was the one who made it.

Here is hers and me with mine next to it. Not bad for a first attempt. Although hers looks much better and cleaner.

me and mine

 

Herringbone quilt

Recently I bought a layer cake in Indian fabric. The idea was to make a herringbone quilt that I had seen on the MSQC Youtube page and looked pretty quick and easy when she made it.

So I thought of giving it a go! Happy that the quilt is made up of HSTs and happier that it is not made the way I make it.

One of my new year resolutions was to do the same blocks in a different way. These are made of quarter square triangle. Thats one off my list !!

After a lot of sewing and chain piecing and rotary cutting and dog ear trimming, the final quilt top was ready.

I am soooo happy with the output that i instantly forgot all the late night sewing it took to get here 🙂
Its lovely and colourful. Here its the little one and his friend who are holding it up for me and in the bottom picture, its me 🙂
Love the stained glass image against the cold winter window …

Quilt Details:
Quilt fabric: Indian
Thread : Local Polycot and Spade cotton
Size: 75″X 90″
Quilt name: The Indian Herringbone

Linking it to WIP wednesday at Freshly Pieced
and
Lets get Social at Sew Fresh Quilts

 

Modern HST quilt

This is a lovely quilt top that I made in the early part of the year! I loved it to the core, the HSTs, the colour combination, the solid fabrics…loved just about everything that went into making the quilt.

HST quilt

Then off it went to my friend Shruti, in Sangli who quilted it with the most beautiful FMQ paisleys that ever was…with a slightly shimmering ivory thread that takes the quilt to a whole different level. Hubby saw it for the first time and said “Now! This looks professional” and I just gave a satisfied smile like a proud mother being complemented on her kid’s nursery rhyme skills 🙂

A couple of quick pictures before it left the house.Here is the little one posing with the quilt, rather shying away.

The quilt is now gifted away to my cousin’s son for his birthday…

HST Modern Quilt

 

Super easy ‘Roadways Playmat’

A playmat with easy FMQ was long due. My little one catches a cold when he plays on the floor which has marbelite tiles. So I have been thinking of making a playmat for him for a while now. However, the mother and son had long discussions on how the playmat should look and whether it should cater to his Lego blocks or his Hot wheel cars. Finally, this playmat emerged.

Wholecloth Platmat

Not because we got to a consensus, but because we had varying views on the playmat. Each time we discussed, the views changed along with the ‘lil one’s demands. At some point, I just put my foot down and said, “I am making a wholecloth playmat”…if we ever reach a consensus then I can sew another one …ha ha ha

It turned out quite nice actually and got completed in record time. The side binding used one of my triangle decorative stitches in the sewing machine in neon green. The neon threads that I have been itching to use came of help 🙂

at the beach

Here, the little one is using the playmat with his sand toys 🙂

Quilt Type: Wholecloth
Quilt name: Roadways Playmat
Size: 40″X55″
Purpose: Playmat
Fabric: Roadways and railways with European cities, local fabric

 

Black-White and yellow: A Modern Quilt

Quilt dimension: 40″X50″
Binding: 2″ double binding
Fabric: printed fabric sent by a quilting friend , yellow and white from the stash, hand dyed binding fabric
Purpose: Gift for sis’ friend who recently had a baby girl

The quilt top was complete a long time back and was waiting in my cupboard to be quilted and bound.This Saturday I found time to quilt it with butterflies and bind it with a hand dyed yellow poplin.

Butterfly quilt

Here it lies on my sofa in all its splendour!

I like the pop of yellow in between and the fact that I could use the printed fabric productively. Its not my kind of modern, but I wanted to test if I could convert it into something beautiful and quilty!

I was looking for an easy FMQ design to cover up the white sashing and the butterflies just seemed so apt 🙂 Am glad how they turned out and the way the yellow quilting complements the yellow blocks…initially, I wanted to try a darker shade of yellow so taht it shows on the white but later decided to go with the thread that matches the fabric. I am glad I did, as a chrome or ochre quilting would have looked out of place.

Yellow butterflies

Note: A simple fabric can be elevated using a pop of colour and appropriate quilting …

Happy with the August finish 🙂 and a perfect quilt for a little one to brighten up her rainy day !!