Plus Sign Baby Quilt

The binding is on and the quilt is finished!  This quilt is a modification of the Rick Rack Runner pattern from "Modern Plus Sign Quilts" by Cheryl Brickey and Paige Alexander.  I met Paige at QuiltCon in Nashville this past February.  Her day job involves working with numbers so I know where she gets her inspiration for the patterns in the book! 

I had a stash of 30's prints which were used in this quilt. I still have lots left...

If you look closely, you can see the vertical and horizontal lines of quilting.

The backing is a pink dot flannel fabric from my stash.  I added a few extra plus signs on the back because the flannel was not wide enough.

The binding is made from strips of each of the 30's prints in the quilt.  There are two plus signs of each fabric I used on the front of the quilt--perfect for a matching game.  I had to wait until my quilt holder was available to assist with pictures this morning.  There is no recipient in mind for this quilt.

Finn found a very comfortable spot to rest while keeping an eye on everyone on Thanksgiving weekend.

QuiltCon 2019. #3

I've been home from Nashville for over a week now and I still find myself thinking about and remembering all of the fun I had at QuiltCon.  When we arrived in Nashville, we went to the Tennessee State Museum to see this exhibit:
 

There were lots of other conference attendees enjoying the quilts as well.  One of the quilts on display was this basket quilt made by Samantha Pack.

Here is a close up of one of the baskets:

As you can see, this quilt was rather intensively hand quilted.  The local modern guilds used this quilt as inspiration for their Charity Quilt.

Every modern guild was invited to make a charity quilt using small pieces and a certain colour way.  The quilts were all on display at QuiltCon, in the hall outside the show and along the outer walls of the show as well.  The basket inspired quilt will be on display at the museum with the original quilt after QuiltCon.

Of course, the charity quilt that I noticed right away was inspired by a Frank Lloyd Wright window. It was made by the Kansas City Modern Quilt Guild. They called it "Transparency Parade".

The quilt below was made by the Greenville Modern Quilt Guild (Greenville, South Carolina).  It was called "Zoomville".

For quite a while, I have been following Paige Alexander's blog, "Quilted Blooms".  I have commented on her blog and she has commented on mine and we have had several conversations by email over several months.  Paige belongs to the Greenville MQG and she made the little pink building with the plus sign on it in the upper right quadrant of the quilt.  You may wonder how I know this...

 
Paige and I had been in touch before QuiltCon and exchanged phone numbers so that we could meet up during the show.  Here is Paige (almost) pointing at her contribution to the Charity Quilt.

Paige is the co-author of "Modern Plus Sign Quilts" and we arranged to meet at the end of her book signing time at the publisher's booth at the show.  After her signing duties were complete, she gave us a tour of the quilts that she had entered in the show.

Of course, Christine, Paige and I had to get our picture taken with her prize winning quilts. This Transparency Plus Sign quilt came in 2nd in the Michael Miller fabric challenge category.

Her second quilt in the show, "Double Crossed" came in first in the two colour quilt category.  What a thrill for Paige to win two ribbons at QuiltCon!

I learned that Paige's paid employment involves lots of numbers so the plus sign theme for her quilts and book is very appropriate!  I did not get a close up picture of the quilt above but there are tiny fussy cut plus signs at each intersection. What a fun detail! 

You can find the link to Paige's blog, "Quilted Blooms" in my sidebar. 

I have made a quilt from "Modern Plus Sign Quilts" and it is in line to be quilted.  I hope to finish it soon. 

There will be more posts from QuiltCon in the next week or so. 

       

Another Baby Quilt

At last weekend's sewing day, I started making plus sign blocks with 30's prints for a baby quilt.  The pattern for the blocks came from Cheryl Brickey and Paige Alexander's book, Modern Plus Sign Quilts. In the book, they made a table runner with their blocks but I decided to make a baby quilt. 

There are two blocks from each print--I thought it would be fun to play a matching game with the quilt when the baby gets a bit older.  (There is no baby in mind for this quilt--it is another one of those baby quilts in waiting.)  When I put the blocks up on the design wall, I was not entirely happy with the way they looked...so I decided to add some strips of white fabric between the rows...

Much better!

I may or may not add white strips to the sides of the quilt...What do you think?  If I add the strips to the side, the backing fabric I have may not be wide enough.  Maybe, I could add narrower strips to the side so the backing is still wide enough... the jury is still out on this decision. I will continue to ponder. 

Grand-dog Finn had his first encounter with snow this week.  He liked it!  My daughter said it was hard to get his picture as he was tearing around in the snow and did not want to stop to sit for her to snap a pic. 

I did some more outlining on FLW this week.  The outlining in this section makes all those blank spots look more intentional.

I will be linking up with Kathy and the other Slow Sunday Stitchers on Sunday morning.  I will be doing more outlining tomorrow...

Comfort Quilt Blocks

My husband was out at a meeting tonight so, after supper, I ventured down to my sewing room to play with fabric.  The Elgin Piecemakers' June meeting is next week and I wanted to make my teal and silver grey block ahead of time so that I am not in a rush at the last minute.  I decided to make my block with 16 HST's and here is the design I came up with on paper first and then with fabric.

The teal fabric has been in my stash for a long time and the grey is Essex linen. I like how there are flying geese going in two directions depending on which way you look at the block.

My husband was still not home, so I decided to make a second block for October.  The assigned colours are yellow, grey and white.  For this block, I pulled out a new book that was just recently added to my quilting library:  Modern Plus Sign Quilts by Cheryl Brickey and Paige Alexander.

 I have been following Paige's blog for a while now and she and I often comment on each other's projects.  While admiring the quilts in the book, I came across "Message in a Bottle", which was designed to be a baby quilt.

I decided to get out some graph paper and draft this quilt into a 12.5" block using the colours for October's Comfort quilt.  Here is my block. My plus sign is not quite as chunky as the one in the baby quilt. It seems appropriate that I did some math to make my plus sign block...

Paige and Cheryl are hosting a Modern Plus Sign Quilt along.  One of the quilt designs has already been revealed on Paige's blog here.  They will be announcing sponsors and prizes later this week and the fabric requirements and additional layouts will be revealed on July 7th.  The sewing fun begins on August 2nd.  My friend, Christine, and I will be joining in on the fun and hope that you will too.  It will be interesting to see all of the different fabric and colour choices coming to life as we quilt along with Paige and Cheryl.