Julie's Quilt Project 2018: March

March's quilt was designed, stitched, quilted, and finished at the Boston Modern Quilt Guild Retreat (which I shared a bit about yesterday)! 

I came with only the following two goals in my mind:

• I wanted to try some new things.
• I wanted to see what kind of a Modern Quilt I could make in my own style.

My original plan was to make a bunch of small modern quilts -- about 12x12 inches.

I was concerned that I'd get my colors mixed up because the greens and blues were pretty close, so I swatched everything and labeled them.

I conceived of the first quilt as a nine-patch and so it was:

When it all came together, I liked it, but my piecing was so terrible...

...that I decided to have another try at constructing the quilt.  And then I decided to have another try at designing the quilt.  And then I had 3 of them.

At this point, I decided that they looked less like three mini-quilts and more like three blocks meant to go together into one small quilt.  So, I made a fourth block:

I thought about adding borders (the fabric on either side of the piece in the background below):

But ultimately, I determined that the quilt would look more modern if was just the 4 blocks.  So, I stitched it all together, quilted it and here it is:

As you can see, quilting camouflages a multitude of sins!






For the binding, I did a facing, following this online tutorial.  I love the clean look of the edges and the back is beautiful!

What I like about this quilt:

• I tried so many new things: designing my own pieced quilt, paper piecing, straight line quilting, and facing.  Yay for me for being brave and trying things!
• I really enjoyed the straight line quilting. It was much more creative than I thought it would be.  There were decisions about distance, thread color, direction -- lots to play with!
• I adore the color shift in the design.  The whole light to dark optical illusion with the triangle and orange bar is way cool!
• I looooooove the color palette.  I was working with what I had on hand, but I feel really good about my choices.
• Facing, facing, facing.  I can't imagine why I would ever use a traditional binding again. I love the clean look of the facing.  It's gorgeous and let's the quilt design breathe!

What I would change about this quilt:

• My first time doing straight line quilting and I need to figure out how you knot the thread at the end and beginning of each line without backstitching.  Hmmm...I feel a google search coming on!
• I need to learn more about paper piecing!  I was kind of figuring out how to paper piece as I was designing a paper piecing pattern and so most of my points don't match, which is the whole point of paper piecing.  
• While this is 100% my own design from start-to-finish, I'm not sure if feels like me?  Perhaps I have to open up my definition of what feels like me?  Or perhaps I have to find a way to add a little personal flair to modern quilting.  Modern quilting has such a minimalist aesthetic that it can be difficult to insert your own personality.
• One of the quilters at the retreat suggested arranging the blocks so that they weren't in two rows.  I felt nervous about that choice, so I didn't make it.  I'd like to try doing that on another quilt in the future!

Well, that should wrap up the quilt posts for a little while -- at least until I get April's quilt done!

Thanks for stopping by!