Night and Day Quilt Finally Finished

I finished the binding on my Night and Day quilt over the labor day weekend. I had intended to double quilt this project using turquoise and purple Aurifil thread.  After spending two days machine quilting I decided that I was happy using only turquoise.  Who knows, maybe someday I'll change my mind and add the extra quilting...

The day after I finished the quilting, I attended a local quilt guild meeting.  The demo for the night was fine machine quilting.  Our teacher mentioned that you should never cross over existing stitching when quilting.  I just chuckled to myself because I had spent the weekend breaking the rules.

Thanks for hosting this challenge Tonya.  I have really enjoyed working on this quilt and seeing all the other creative ideas everyone brought to this challenge.

Day Dreams

 Last weekend I completed side two of of my Day and Night Quilt.  The words have been pieced for five months but life got in the way and my sewing machine had to wait.  I am so pleased to finally have the second side finished. 

Next weekend I will start machine quilting this twin sized quilt. Hopefully side A and side B will line up easily when I baste them together.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

This has been a fun project to work on. I love having a chance to let my imagination run wild. 

Warm wishes from snowy Wisconsin!  Chris Daly

Night Dreams

Side one of my Day and Night Dreams Quilt is finished. I tried to use darker colors like blue black, navy and deep violet in this quilt top but my brain just couldn't work those colors in. I love bright, clear colors and gave in to a selection of my favorite color pallets. My idea for this quilt came from my passion for color. I love to dye fabrics and find it very hard to sleep on nights when my dye lots are batching. I just can't wait to see the results. I often use more dye solution than is needed so I can get faster results.

This pattern was inspired by the Bricks in Bars quilt made by Ada Gingerich of Arthur, Illinois. The inspiration quilt is featured on page 114, Plate 62 in the Amish Abstractions book published by Pomegranate for the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

Wishing you sweet dreams from Wisconsin! Chris

On the Edge

debbi dw here - nothing like a deadline to get me going! I shifted from my planned Global Change (which I will do someday) when I got too close to the deadline to tackle the circles in my other plan. In this layout I have a twist on chinese coins/bars and bricks The coins in this one are on edge, and the stacks are on the edge of the quilt too. I hope to do something fun with the quilting in the big empty space. My words will go on the back and will be "On the Edge" - tricky to put the letters on the back so I could finish, hum? One of my favorite things about this top was running out of the green for the borders and using a similar shade pieced in - just like I've seen in Amish quilts! Tried to show in the photo below (sorry - the lighting at 11:30 isn't great!):

All Quilted

I've had my small Bars top done for some time, and now the simple quilting is finished too. I washed the quilt, because this deep dark Kona indigo simply grabbed every little fuzzy in the air-and I like the washed appearance. Wish I had made this a bit larger for a small lap quilt (I am a rather small person!).
The best part of this Get Together has been seeing how everyone has interpreted their choice of pattern, the colors they have used, the words they have chosen for their quilts--and reading the great stories that go along with each quilt. I definitely want to work more with solids. Thanks, Tonya!

Making Progress

I've just put the first border on my sort-of liberated Bricks in Bars quilt; the outer border will be the dark indigo used for the bars. I say "sort-of" because I strayed further from the original quilt than I intended. My quilt is basically a chinese coin design, whereas the original has a very different feel to it.
I think I'll put my initials in the border, centered or in the lower corner, though I'm still considering words. In my home (as opposed to on the computer), the colors in the quilt are more muted--that's what I wanted to play around with in this quilt.

My first Blog Post

That was the first time I put a photo in a blog post-so apologies for the tiny, faraway photo. And for some reason the link to the Bricks in Bars Amish quilt isn't actually a link. I'll get better at this.
Kathleen

Started Bricks in Bars

I've stitched some bricks together in a limited palette using fabrics I already had. I think the bars will be a deep dark navy, though for now I've put the bricks on top of a navy print that I have on hand. I'll also try black for the bars, as Clare suggested to me. I originally had bricks made of 2 marbled fabrics-I took those out, and I'm going to also take out the light navy mottled. (The colors always look much clearer and brighter in photos than on the design wall in my studio).
The original Bricks in Bars (http://www.pbase.com/brownsf/image/85044737) has a wonderful life to it and a uniformity in the bricks that I really like. My version is missing that, and it is now becoming a Coins quilt. I've been in a "navy mood" which is why I started out with these fabrics; I think I'll continue to play with this-and maybe add more colors.