Charity quilt #5 from Kaffe Fassett fabrics - Flying colors

This is the 5th quilt top that I made from the box of donated fabrics from Audrey Prothero.  She loves Kaffe Fassett fabrics and has so much that she asked me to see if I could make some charity quilt tops from them.  December is the month of the year that I dedicate to making charity quilts and quilt tops (also baking Christmas cookies!).  I had lots of time to sew with the snowy weather this year.

I found this quilt as a free pattern from Art Gallery Quilts and its called "Flying Colors".  I purchased 3 yards of navy blue grunge for the background and used the Kaffe Fassett material for all of the colored pieces.  It's entirely made from flying geese blocks and using the no-waste method that is also detailed in the free pattern.  The quilt pattern makes a quilt that is 60" x 60".  That is a tad too short for our charity group, so I added 3 @ 3" strips at the top, middle and bottom.  This quilt top measures 60" x 69".

I hope you like it!

No Grunge on this quilt - Emily's quilt Part Two

This is a continuation of a previous post about the graduation quilt I'm making for Emily.

I bought some white-on-white fabric just for this quilt.  I had a grunge fabric in my stash that I liked too.  Both of these fabrics were planned to be used in this quilt.  I wasn't sure that I liked the combination.  Most of time, I like to mix up the backgrounds to give the quilt a little more personality.  Originally, I thought that I would add gray fabrics too, but the poor pastels didn't hold up.  Do you mix up the backgrounds too?

Since I was wobbling on the decision to use the grunge fabric, I asked some of my long time quilting friends for input.  Immediately, one of them told me to loose the grunge.  It made the quilt look dirty, which is sometimes the fun part of grunge fabric.  I knew she was right.  It did make this quilt look dirty instead of young and flirty.  Hey, I'm a poet!

So, no grunge on this quilt.  I pulled out some solid white from my stash and cut that up for some of the blocks, and here it is now with the plain white instead of the grunge fabric.  It looks so much better now.

I hope you have a posse that gives you honest feedback too.

Fabrics on Art Quilts

In some of my previous blogs, I've mentioned sheer fabrics and how they've been added to the nest quilts that are part of my mixed media art quilts.  Some of them have one or two layers of organza to create depth and blur the background.  Some have organza or tulle used as a sandwich to trap the mixed media fibers of the nests.  Some have tulle to add darker or lighter features. This art quilt has a different kind of tulle and some other cool fabrics.

A fancy tulle fabric with silver sequins jumped out at me as I was looking for inspiration for a nighttime quilt at JoAnn's Fabric.  I think that fabric speaks to us.  You know how that is - you touch it and stroke it and all kinds of ideas of how to use it jump into your head.  Or it's a color that you love, a texture that appeals to you, and its on sale! You just have to own it!  So this fancy tulle came home with me.

Nest 12 - Moonlit night by Joanne Adams Roth

I already had the background fabric for this nest quilt, which was made by Judy Robertson who creates the loveliest hand dyed fabrics.  I usually have to own one of her pieces for years before I have the nerve to cut into it.  This piece was up on my design wall for a month while I was thinking about another nest quilt.  After a visit by my daughter in law and granddaughters, where they gave me some suggestions, I was off and running.

I picked up a fabulous grunge fabric made by Moda Fabrics at Fiddlesticks Quilt Shop that I used for the moon.  I like the mottled look a lot.


There were 6 different colors of thread used for the quilting.  I change threads both in the top and bottom a lot when quilting an art quilt!












The nest was made with purple ribbon that was fused down with misty fuse.  My first try with this technique gave me mixed results, so I'll have to fine tune that process!  Let me just say that sticky fingers make it hard to place tiny strips of fabric onto the background.

I hope you like the quilt!