Welcome to the second week of the blog hop! You can go back and read week one here. I am joining Kristin and Hollyanne for a 5 week journey in exploring the book by Christa Watson Piece and Quilt with Precuts . Be sure to get your copy here or Amazon carries the book as well. I am journaling about making my version of Gridwork from the book and I will show my progress each week. The quilt is on a journey, too, from Northern Michigan to a booth at the International Quilt Market and Show in Huston in November! I hope to have it all finished by the end of the hop! I am making my quilt from Christa’s fabric that will be available in November. It is called Modern Marks by Bernatex. Click on the link to see all of the collection. It is so gorgeous! Ask for it at your local quilt shop.
Gridwork is a 42 block quilt. I was on such a roll that I did get all 42 blocks done! I made as many combinations of the fabric that had high contrast. Remember last week I had made 2 of several blocks I made in the beginning ? I used them because I liked the contrast between the colors. For success in this quilt, and many others in the book, you must have high contrast to be able to see the pattern. I also tried to mix the “light” colors in the larger area of the block and the “darker” colors to achieve a balance. Then a little magic happened….
Time to rotate the blocks! I think that choosing where I want the blocks and how to rotate them is going to take me the longest time! I have 2 rows of blocks on the ironing board in the foreground because they wouldn’t all fit on the design wall. Tip: taking a picture before your final layout decisions can help you see if you need to move things around more. See all the concentration of the light blue, that has to be more evenly distributed before the final decision on the layout!
Modern Marks fabric plays well with others!! I decided to use the small 5 inch charm square with Christa’s delightful fabrics and then use a solid color, or solid reading fabric, for the outer block. Disclaimer: the upper left block has a charm square from another line that I used to test this block from my scrap bin. Just to be clear, lol!
So to make this quilt more your own, you could use solid colors for the outer area of the block. It looks great mixed with all Modern Marks block, as in this photo. Looks great with more solid reading fabrics as in the previous picture. So pretty!
Let’s talk about contrast a little bit shall we? I made a test block called Frequency, and each week I am showing test blocks from the book. I plan to make a sampler quilt with all the blocks from the book as a great memory of this blog hop. Frequency is a lovely quilt that Christa designed and here is her picture from her website.
Do you see the high contrast of fabrics that read light for the outer strips and dark for the inner strips in the block, based on the picture? Let me show you what happens when you pick colors that are not high contrast. When there is contrast in blocks you really need to see how the fabric reads overall. As you can see, this lovely fabric in my block has no contrast. And the effect is totally lost of Frequency.
Don’t worry I made this with a plan and I will get to my changes to this block later… maybe even after the blog hop but we will see how time management goes! Here is a test block I made with the proper contrast needed for a successful block!
Now to talk Free Motion Quilting!
I made this video clip to show you one of my all time favorite shapes: Curls. I have several variations that I have made over time but to start FMQ I learned this shape and practiced it until I had it mastered. Over and over. Like practicing scales on my violin, until I had it down. THEN and only then did I start variations. Shape first then fancy later! You can see how I made the all over pattern in the slow motion part of the video.
And I have a couple of pictures to show you how all over curls works on quilts.
Next week we will talk more FMQ and I have an idea to test to make another Gridwork variation!
Be sure to check out my Free pattern this week on how to make quilt postcards, Be sure to sign up for my newsletter so you can have free patterns, updates and events delivered right to your inbox! I also have a podcast, long arm quilt for others and have a YouTube channel. Click on the tabs above to explore !
Quilt on ,
Vicki
mycreativecorner3.com 