Charity quilt pattern and picture

December has traditionally been the month that I make charity quilts.  Since I had a lull in the action on my quilts, I pulled out some scraps and went for it!  I developed a quick and easy pattern:

CHARITY SCRAP QUILT
60” W x 75” H

From your scraps:
Feature fabric(s) Cut 60 each 5-1/2” squares
Coordinating fabrics dark:  Cut 90 each 6” square
Coordinating fabrics light:  Cut 90 each 6” square
Preparing the half square triangles
Draw a line on the diagonal of the light 6” squares
Place a light fabric right sides together with a dark fabric
Sew ¼” on both sides of the diagonal line
Cut on the diagonal line
Press the seams towards the dark fabric.
Trim all of the half square triangle blocks to 5-1/2” x 5-1/2”
You should have 180 half square triangles
Layout
You will end up with 12 blocks across and 15 blocks down.
Layout the pieces to your liking, distributing the fabrics throughout the quilt.
Sewing
Sew the 15 squares in each vertical row.
Press the first, 3^rd, and every odd row with all the seams facing down.
Press the second, 4^th, and every even row with all the seams facing up.
Sew the vertical rows together, nesting all the seams in opposing directions.
Press all of these vertical seams in one direction – right or left.
Stay stitch the outside edges by sewing a scant ¼” around all the edges
Backing
You’ll need backing that measures 68” x 83”.  This can be made with scraps.

And here's the first two:

I hope the people who get these quilts will like them!

Bryce Canyon Shadow Quilt Part 5 - FINAL

This is a continuation of 4 previous posts about the making of the Bryce Canyon Shadow quilt.

The next thing that I tackled was the picture of my husband.  I decided to add him in black and tones of gray so that it would stand out against the colored background. I used a similar technique that I used on a tree against a colored background a few years ago. The figure was put together using fusible web and a non-stick sheet. And of course, I forgot to take progress pictures!

After all the pieces were in place, I ironed them to fuse them together and let them cool.  Then I transferred the figure to the quilted background and fused it down.  The final step was to sew around all of the edges.

Sometimes, I straighten the edges on my art quilts, and sometimes I square it all up and add binding.  Since the paper fabric was pretty stiff, I knew that it would be hard to turn the edges to the back.  So, binding seemed to be the logical choice.  Black also seemed a natural choice.  Here it is all done!  It measures 31" W x 45" H.

I hope you like it.

Bryce Canyon Shadow Quilt - part 4

 This is a continuation of 3 previous posts about the making of the Bryce Canyon Shadow Quilt.

After the pieces of "paper" fabric dried, I added more paint and tinted each section darker than the first one, until I achieved 4 tones of each colors.  Then I took pictures of the pieces in monotone to make sure that I had enough difference for the pieces to show.  

Now that I had all the base materials, it was time to put them together on the design wall.

I cut out sections of the pattern, pinned that to the right shade of each color, cut around the sections and spray basted them directly to the batting, which was placed underneath the full sized pattern.

After all the main pieces were placed, I cut out all of the little pieces and pasted them to the background.  I don't know if I would do this again; you can barely see the little spots of color against the background, which already had plenty of variation.

I placed a piece of gray tulle on top of the background.  Then I placed 3 layers of black tulle underneath the section of the shadow.  I sewed around this a couple of times, then cut away the excess.  

I hope that you like the progress so far.

Bryce Canyon shadow quilt - Part Three

This is a continuation of a couple of previous posts about the making of the Bryce Canyon shadow quilt.

I decided that I would make my own "paper" fabric for this quilt and paint all of the pieces.  I started with muslin that I already had on my shelf.  Then I tore up a bunch of tissue paper, which I also had on hand.  

I traced the sections of the design onto freezer paper from the wrong side of my pattern so that I would know what shape I was heading for. A light box is invaluable when you're tracing from the wrong side. 

These were ironed the muslin.

The tissue paper was pasted to the muslin with a mixture of half water and half Elmer's school glue.   The tissue tears pretty easily, so you have to dab it on instead of painting it on.  More of an up and down motion.  I knew that I wanted to make 3 colors:  orange, blue, and purple.  And that all of those colors needed to be in 4 shades from light to dark.  So, I added the paint to the glue solution to get the base first color onto the muslin.   Here are the orange sections.

Here are pictures of the painted "paper" fabric that would form the background for this quilt.

All of those pieces were dried overnight, then pressed.