Awesome Fire & Ice Quilt from the cute life

I am in awe of the cool quilt!!  It is entirely paper pieced using all solids.  Me=impressed.  This feature is from Amy of the cute life...if you'd like to make this great quilt you can find it in her patterns.  Amy also has some fun tutorials to share as well.  Thanks for sharing your great quilt with us today!



It's that time of year again! I'm so excited to reveal to you the (finally) finished Fire & Ice quilt. I paper pieced this quilt completely out of solids. I am so lucky that my mom lives near a quilting store with anentire wall of solids to choose from! My extremely wonderful husband helped me pick the colors out, which took quite awhile. Color choice was key in making this pattern really pop. They had to gradate well from one color to the next, and color intensity also played a huge role. Some colors didn't make the cut because they looked overly saturated or just too pale when placed next to the neighboring colors.

This has been a labor of love, and the first paper pieced pattern I ever designed myself. The shape is based on a keystone - as in, the middle brick that you place into an arch very last.

Keystones have a lovely wedge shape, and for some reason, I thought of depicting fire with the colors.Originally, there were supposed to be a lot more warm colors, with fuchsias, and just a touch of blue (picture the really hot blue flames) but you have to work with the fabrics available! The fuchsias in the store didn't play well with the rest of the colors. And this ended up working really well, with 8 warms and 8 cools, so I changed the name from the "Fire" quilt to the "Fire & Ice" quilt. I was hesitant to use black binding, as I feared it would be too pitch black, but I'm glad I went for it.

For the backing, I chose a graphic black and white print, which helped dictate the black binding. I pieced it with some black stripes in a simple, clean design:

I quilted it with straight lines, running from one corner of each piece to the opposite corner. Deciding how to quilt it was a real battle for me, and I got a lot of amazing suggestions, but in the end, I thought this went best with the feel of the quilt.

Since there were so many colors in the quilt top, I used monofilament thread on the top (you can see it shining in the light a little bit), and Sulky variegated gray thread on the back. The quilting hides in the busy pattern, but it's showcased in the black strips:

All in all, I'm so proud of this quilt - it's been my second baby for awhile now! - and I'm really happy to show it off to you. 

I hope to have a pattern soon, but that'll take some time, since it's a bit complex. So for now, thanks for stopping by and be sure to check out all the other awesome quilts at the Blogger's Quilt Festival!!! And many thanks to Amy for putting on such a wonderful link up.

Foxy Geese and Fabric Tuesday!

First the winner of our awesome Stitch Sanctuary giveaway, the Deluxe Sew Steady Table and Polish Kit from Dream World...drumroll...CONGRATS!!!

Amanda said...

I visited their site - such a nice selection to browse!

SEPTEMBER 6, 2012 9:00 PM 

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On Mother's Day (and my birthday) I like to just sew whatever I want for fun.  And it usually means starting a new project, and often a project with no real purpose!  Ha!  And so this Mother's Day was the same, I decided I wanted to put together a simple and modern flying geese quilt.

Mostly the quilt's fabrics are Outfoxed by Lizzy House.  There is also one print (I think) of Joel Dewberry's Heirloom (love love this line more and more everyday, I use it so much!!).

Again this was a fun color departure for me. I love all colors, I just really love color.  But like I've said many times, I lean way more towards blues and greens.  So purples, pinks and oranges so different for me and exciting :)  I've been very mindful of this and when choosing new fabrics for my stash and I really try to be more diverse!

When and how this will be quilted?  TBD.  I've looked around for some quilting ideas, I'll keep it simple, probably following the peaks of the geese, just working out exactly how I'll do it.  When this will happen....? :)  The finished size is about 43" x 50".

Fabric Tuesday #103

click here to see more about Fabric Tuesday

And now your projects for the week!!  Have you been productive now that fall is upon us?  Can't wait to see! :)

Teje's Baby Stars Quilt

Teje from Nero's Post and Patch is always posting and sharing such fabulous things, we constantly feature her on Fabric Tuesdays :)  And with a backdrop like Greece she always get great pictures.  Make sure to see Teje's shop, her finishes and some great tutorials too!

Hello my Dear Friends! I have a great day at home! Even lots of works are waiting still it’s so nice  not to go anywhere! Long time I was waiting to show you my latest quilt, but it was a secret so it had to wait till the little baby was born.

My dear friend is now grandmother for a sweet baby boy and when I returned from Finland with beautiful fabrics, I began this quilt. Still I had to wait if it’s a girl or a boy. For the girl I would have made orange binding and for the boy this green.

Because we didn’t know if it’s going to be a girl or a boy, I chose colours to be nice for both. I new that mom likes orange and green and they had used yellow for the baby-room. I saw that I do need more yellow fabrics for my stash!

I have seen so many beautiful quilts with different kind of star patterns and I really love these wonky stars! I had made few just to try these happy fabrics and then I realized they would be nice for this quilt. I have had in my  ‘to do list’ a quilt with this kind of squares so here they are now.

When I made these stars, I cut first stripes and then squares from them. There was some stripes left, so first time I used a little  colour also for the backing …

Now I understand better how you enjoy making the backing also like an other quilt. I only wish my fabric stash could be big enough for that! By the way, did you know that you can click photos to see them bigger.

Quilting by hand is one of the best parts! And again I was able to use different colours – even more fun! I have always loved stitching – every where – in bags, shoes, cloths any where!

Now the new born baby boy, my dear friends first grand child, has this quilt and all the family were happy and liked ‘Baby Stars’! And … I have a custom order for an other baby quilt … for a girl! I think I shall make it similar with this but perhaps not stars …

I think I could use few butterflies for the girly quilt! I have been also very lucky to sell the blue baby quilt ‘Ripples’ and two pillows from my etsy shop, ‘Jumping Dog’ and the ‘Pic Nic’ pillow! Thank you so much for the wonderful buyers!

Lucky Lucky Lucky me … again I have win! I won a jewellery from Emma’s give away! Emma is very talented artist and writes a beautiful blog ‘silverpebble’!She has etsy shop full of the most cute and beautiful creations! Thank you so much Emma! Emma was also featured in the latest ‘Country Living’ – the magazine we all enjoy so much!

Also I like to say big thank you for Maureen, who is one my favourite bloggers! She makes so unique,happy and colourful crafts! Her blog is ‘Maureen Cracknell Handmade’ and I won fabrics from her give away! Thank you Maureen! Only thing is that I won them just when I was shopping fabrics in Finland and still they haven’t arrived here … I’m so affraid that they have got lost! But I hope the best and perhaps they still come because Nero got also once his Christmas present from Ronja (from Finland) after 2 months!

Summer is the most busy time here in Crete! It’s the hot holiday season and fortunately we have lots of lots of tourists even the economical situation is difficult for us who live here. Some people say that they are affraid to come here, but everything is like it used to be. There are no difficulties for tourists, everything is working like always and Crete and Greece is one of the best holiday places! Beautiful beaches, friendly people, the most delicious food, lovely nature, warm (hot) weather and so much sunshine!

So you can guess that I am also very busy and unfortunately can’t see you so often. I don’t want to say that I shall take a brake from blogging, because I miss you a lot. So I do my best and now and then I hop here … or I think it’s better I’ll ask Nero to do that! He has again ‘adventure’ – now he has an infection between two toes. I think something has scratch there and then it got worse. No we have ‘therapy’ moment every morning and evening. Washing, betadine, bactroban, clean white cloth, clean sock, some tape to hold them, lots of ‘nami nami’ (Nero’s sweets) and antibiot. He is such a good boy when I have to take care of him, but in the vet he tries to eat his vet!

I leave you with Nelli’s surprised face, because this really describes my latest weeks!So many things has happened … oh I miss my slow boring (why I said boring, it’s never boring here with 3 dogs and a cat and so much sewing) winter life!

Could you guess from this link, who was eating from Nero’s plate last Sunday afternoon?! Yach!!!

Thank you so much for being the most wonderful friends and readers! I wish you the best ever summer and happy holidays! I shall visit you often … perhaps too tired to comment every time … but I’m there some where …

TEJE