Quilt Inspiration: Bloomin by Tamara Kate

 

I love simplicity, and this Bloomin quilt by Tamara Kate for Michael Miller is definitely one I adore.  I recently joined the Kona Cotton Club at Pink Castle Fabrics to receive fat eighths every month though these blocks above are Cotton Couture.  However, the design looks very doable.  Just sew rows together and then add side setting and corner setting triangles right?  I did that for the backing of the family tree quilt I finished last year, but maybe it's time to challenge myself and do it as a quilt top.

Ceramic Hearts for a Pop-Up Sale

Quilting: Design Re-do

Quilting: Christmas Tree Skirt Done!

Finished after the holidays with the tree already packed away, but I love it, especially with the bobbles.

2018 Mighty Lucky Quilting Club

I signed up and paid for the 2018 Mighty Lucky Quilting Club even though I hadn't really enjoyed the 2016 club and then decided not to participate in 2017.  I changed my mind because it's now bimonthly rather than monthly, which feels more doable; two of my favorite video quilting instructors--Carolyn Friedlander and Angela Walters--as well as some other sewlebrities collaborated to design a cohesive end product of a throw quilt; and instruction will be devoted to C O L O R, which I obsessed on in my last few quilt projects.

I auditioned colors in Carolyn Friedlander's coloring templates and showed them to my husband to choose his favorite.  He chose my last coloring page which surprised me.  I was drawn to the first of blue, aqua and chartreuse and asked him why not that one? He replied that it was too simple--an aesthetic I love in modern quilting--but okay I'll try something different.

The color palette chosen by the hubs evolved from another one I was drawn to of purple, lilac, orange yellow, orange, coral red, and light brown.  To my last coloring template, I added chartreuse and kelly green and eliminated the coral red.  However, I thought maybe the eye needed a rest from all that vibrancy, and so I also threw in the neutrals of light gray and white to tone it all down.

 After I auditioned all those colors in Carolyn Friedlander's actual block design, I think it's rather garish.  Also there's the matter of my skill set.  I am an enthusiastic beginner, not an intermediate quilter yet.  I've not a lot of experience with foundation paper piecing.  Thus, I visited a subscription video arts and craft site for a multi-part class of Friedlander's on Paper-Pieced Quilts.  Thank goodness I watched because I realized I need to simplify the colors in the blocks even more.  I've a palette of six colors, which is perfect as Friedlander's design call for 12 blocks total, and so each block will be comprised of triangles in white and in one of the six colors from the palette.  Rather than randomly interspersing all the colors, I'll sew a row of white triangles and then a row of colored triangles.  Back to coloring another block/flow layout!  But  it's cheaper and wiser to audition first with color pencils and paper rather than expensive quilting cottons.

Quilting: Christmas Tree Skirt

I finished quilting this Christmas tree skirt last night.  I bought this charm pack called Winterland (I think) on clearance.  I was trying to explain modern quilting to a sister-in-law, and I should've added that the color palette distinguishes modern from traditional.  Instead of the usual hunter green and maroon red I've seen in winter sewing projects, I love the cherry red, aqua and cyan blue, and kelly green with touches of chartreuse in this color palette.  I revisited Jenny Doan's tutorial, and if I'd had more time, I would have stenciled geometric trees in the white border and maybe a snowflake here and there in the charm squares.  However I love the square spirals within the charm squares and straight lines in the border.  I'm thinking of finding a coordinating blue fabric to make the binding, but since time is of the essence--I want to drape this around my Christmas tree for my Chinese dumpling making party this evening--I'm going to bind it in white, which is wintry and clean to me.