The Nigel Slater Project, Blocks 3 & 4

Yes, so, back in the quilting arena...cousin Kris and I completed our blocks for our Nigel Slater project. Here are the two spring blocks. The challenge fabrics are the "moo, moo, moo" fabric on the white ground, and a chevron multi-colored fabric that both of us disguised by using in tiny amounts.

Tobi's spring garden block:

Kris's spring recipe block:

And here are the two summer blocks...challenge fabrics are the african batik and the christmas cranberry print.

Tobi's summer berry pie:

Kris's summer berry pie: 

Here are the final 8 blocks, 2 per season, laid out on my design wall. One of these days, I'll decide how to finish these and do the final assembly. 

The Nigel Slater Project, Winter Block

Sometimes the muse just strikes. The Winter Block for our cousinly Nigel Slater project isn't due to be traded until the first of March. I'd been playing with design ideas in my head ever since finishing the Autumn Block, but I'd been stymied by the challenge fabrics selected by the Andrews husbands for this next quarter.  Scottie Dogs and…glow-in-the-dark Space Bats. Really???

Suddenly my design ideas needed to make a right turn. And then, last week we woke up to this, a perfect day for French Onion Soup. 

The moon on the crest of the new fallen snow, and a big bag of onions, loaf of fresh french bread and red table cloth spawned a new design. These are all improvisational blocks…quirky log cabins, wonky drunkard's paths, and some skewed strip piecings and here it is..

French Onion Soup and Fresh Bread on a Cold Winter's Night:

And the other one in the pair:

And now…on to spring design ideas!

The Nigel Slater Project

Last summer, I had a chance to spend some time with Kris, who you will remember from the Great Cousinly Quilt Project way back in 2009.  We discovered that we both had a full set of Nigel Slater's food writing and cookbooks, and both of us were enjoying exploring various culinary adventures. Before we knew it, the creative juices were flowing, and The Nigel Slater Project was born. 

Here's how the project works:

• Using Nigel Slater's cookbooks for inspiration, we each create a 12 X 18 quilt block. 
• We can only use fabric.
• We need to create two copies of the same block.
• Our husbands each select one fabric to be used in both of our blocks.
• We have three months to create the blocks.
• At the end of each quarter, we send one of our copies to each other, along with the husband fabric choice for the next block. 
• At the end of the year, we'll each have the same set of 8 blocks…which we can then piece into a finished quilt. 

Last weekend, we travelled to Vermont to see Kris, Christopher and delightful little Cole. Amidst the gingerbread houses, legos, hikes in the woods, and studio show and tell sessions, Kris and I exchanged our first blocks! After 3 months of work, it was so much fun to see what each other had created and it was awesome to see how great the blocks look together! 

Nigel Slater's "The Kitchen Diaries"

Pumpkin Tomato Lahksa - it was a yummy recipe for a cold, rainy autumn day!

Pumpkin Laksa!

The fabric palette for the first block.

Piecing in progress:

Tobi's finished autumn blocks:

Kris's finished autumn block: Cathedral Windows hand piecing!!!

 Autumn blocks together, with the husband challenge fabrics for this autumn block. 

Christopher's swirly fabric on bottom center.

Bruce's purple batik on bottom right.

What will next quarter bring??

Another baby, another quilt...

Remember the Great Cousinly Quilt Project from 2009? Cousin Kris and I collaborated on a quilt for Cousins Steve and Esther, with Kris piecing one side, me piecing the other side, and swapping fabrics back and forth along the way. The quilt turned out great, and baby Kira
enjoys her quilt today.

Fast forward to 2011. Cousins Kris and Christopher, were expecting their first baby! So, Esther and I decided that another collaboration was in order!

When Esther suggested that she could do some batik animals, I had no idea what to expect. Lo and behold, on one winter day, this arrived in the mail from Esther:

Have you ever seen anything more amazing? Each on adorable and unique! And my stash held an unusual stack of matching fabrics, including some of the remnants from Kira's quilt, made 2 years earlier!

The searsucker batiks were a unique find several years ago. In my normal fashion, i bought only fat squares of each. I wish, in retrospect, that I had purchased at least half yard cuts of these. They are really unusual, and I've not seen them anywhere else. I can't even remember where they came from.

But here's where they are now. Check out Esther's turtle, surrounded by searsucker batiks!

I apologize in advance for this next picture. This quilt was finished while my good camera and laptop were not in communication. This is the best picture I have, however...

The quilt was finished in time to be sent to baby Cole Emerson, who surprized us all by arriving 6 weeks early! Hopefully, Cole's photographic biographer will provide some high quality photos of baby Cole on the second installment of the Great Cousinly Quilt Project.

Rumor has it that another quilt may soon be required...

Kira and her Quilt

Kira gets acquainted with her new quilt - dressed to match!

Welcome Kira Helen!

As I was posting the last entry on July 11, Kira Helen was arriving in the world! Here are a few photos of the quilt, with the binding on, and both sides showing. Hopefully, there will eventually be pictures of Kira *with* her quilt. :)

The Great Cousinly Quilt Adventure

When last we left our two intrepid cousinly quilters, they were feverishly piecing quilt blocks in hopes of finishing said quilt in time for the arrival of baby Andrews. Today, we pick up our tale...

The blocks are pieced, the sides are assembled, and the quilt is quilted!

Here is Kris's side, all blues and greens and perfect triangle points. Please note the high-tech quilt stand (Bruce).

And here is Tobi's side, all yellows and oranges and limes, and not a right angle to be found.

Kris's blocks with quilting:

Tobi's blocks with quilting:

Next up - the binding, and hand finishing, and we're done!

Advanced Improvisation with Denyse Schmidt

Yesterday, I spent the day in the Bridgeport, CT studios of Denyse Schmidt where she and her assistant Richard taught their new course in Advanced Improvisation. Part retrospective of Denyse's quilting evolution, part design concepts, this was a low-key, hands-on, personal exploration of design. There were two participants besides myself, so the teacher-student ratio was exceptional, and the high point of the 5 hour session was having both Denyse and Richard pulling fabric and ping-ponging ideas with me at the design wall.

Here's where the day started:

Sketching potential design ideas:

First-pass fabric choices, pulled by Richard, with greens added by Denyse:

Bringing in the berry colors:

Ending up with a rugby-striped theme and the pieced blocks in stripes:

Denyse in action with another student's blocks:

Denyse and Richard have a similar asethetic, but different approaches and they play well off each other. It was an interesting and engaging day, and I finished the day in a completely different place from where I started, and landed in an unexpected place, with an unexpected palette, and an unexpected layout. And, pretty much, that was the point.

The Great Cousinly Quilt Project

On Bruce's side of our family, there are 6 cousins. All but one are boys. Bruce was the first of the cousins to tie the knot (to me, obviously), making me the first "Mrs. Andrews" of this generation. The second "Mrs. Andrews" is Kris who is married to Chris. Kris is a professional embroiderer and quilter, and is one of the artists working on the Plimouth Plantation project of recreating a 17th century embroidered jacket. It's quite an interesting project. The third "Mrs. Andrews" is Esther who is married to Steven. Steve and Esther are expecting their first child, who will also be the first baby born into the Andrews family in about 30 years.

Kris and I have been looking for a project to work on together - and we've decided to do a baby quilt for Steve & Esther. Kris will make one side, I'll make the other, while swapping fabrics so that some of each ends up on both sides of the quilt. Here's how things are progressing so far:

Kris's perfect star with my Denyse-Schmidt-esque quasi-log cabin piecing.

Concept blocks with fabric palette.

Blocks in progress.

Blocks on the wall.

More to come...the baby is due in July.

UFOs

It is unusual for me to start a project and not finish it. In the first place, I live in a little house with no storage space. In the second place, I usually get so excited about whatever the project is that I just have to finish it - even if I have to stay up all night. (That strategy sent me to the emergency room once with a needle through my finger from the sewing machine - but you get the idea - I was excited to get it done...)

At the moment, however, I find myself with some UFOs (Unfinished Objects...). Here's the first.

Summer House Wallpaper
This palette and these fabrics are a far cry from my usual jubilant explosions of color. But each and every of these fabrics reminds me of the layers of faded flowery wallpaper in the 200 year old house in Maine where my family vacationed during my childhood summers. The blocks are cut, and as you can see, up on the design wall. All that's left is the sewing.

This is my favorite fabric of the bunch - look at the kitchen things on the bottom block.

I'll likely stipple this quilt to give it an older feeling, and right now, I'm seeing it backed and bound with a solid pale sage fabric - but who knows how many times I'll change my mind between now and then.

Orange Jacket
My sister has the original orange jacket. I liked it so much I cut enough blocks for two but I haven't had time to assemble mine yet.

The Wool Quilt

This is what happens when you mistakenly felt your favorite sweater without meaning to. The centers of each of these blocks started life as a sweater. A handknit-by-me-with-expensive-yarn sweater. And boy, was I cranky when it came out of the dryer.

However, at about the same time, I acquired a box of solid wool fabrics. And my fabric stash had a ton of plaid flannels. So this is what happened when it all came together. Except it isn't done - this is only half of this quilt. When I get this top pieced, I'm going to have to hire someone to quilt it for me because no joke, it will weigh about 8 pounds. It's really, really, really heavy. And once we put it on the bed we will 1. never get out from under it and 2. always know where the cat is.

Improvisational Quilting

A number of years ago, I took a quilting class with Denyse Schmidt. You can read all about Denyse and her fiber career on her website - she's a talented designer and she's managed to assemble an awesome quilting business. She teaches classes in what she calls improvisational quilting. You take a big old bag of scraps, reach into it without looking, and use whatever you pull out of it.

It's an interesting approach, and after taking her class, I played around with the concept and did some strip quilts using this technique. This one is my favorite - and although this photo is poorly lit, I fell in love with the color Cheddar because of it. We have this quilt displayed in our living room today.

This year, Denyse is teaching a course in Advanced Improvisational Quilting. Again, you can read all about it on her site, but in the meantime, I'm working on my pre-class homework. We have to come prepared with a set of improvised blocks - so here's what's currently in the works.

Obviously, I'm all about the reds.