Blogger's Quilt Festival: Flowers Over Falls

Hello!  If you're popping by from the Blogger's Quilt Festival, welcome!  If you're a regular visitor, you have seen this one before...

This year, I participated in my first online bee, called Simply Solids.  The rules were simple, too - only solids allowed!

My month was June I stretched my brain for a while and was struck by the idea of a waterfall. To give it some visual oomph, I also decided flowers should be headed over the falls as well.

I sent my bee mates two different blues, two orange squares, and a strip of stone, asking them to make an abstract improv block - free-style, 12.5"x16.5".  And did they deliver!!

I added an irregular sashing, and some borders - the layout of the quilt actually looks like this if you get close to it.

I wanted the water look to be unbroken so I made the binding shift in tone as it went around.

Then I quilted it in wavy, watery lines, broken a little in places by imaginary rocks behind the 'water.'  It's a little hard to believe just by looking at it but there are actually eleven different Kona solids and three different threads.  There is also the handiwork of eleven different people, other than myself, and I can't thank them enough for the beautiful blocks they made.

The back was built around one block I received that I absolutely loved (it's based on Fibonacci - how clever is that?) but it kept popping out when I tried in the front layout.  I did my best to emulate the design and make it macro on the back.

You can read more about this quilt and how it came to be in this post here. And if you are in Saskatoon this weekend, you can see it in person at SaskatoonQuilts!2013 out at Prairieland. :-)

Quilt: Flowers Over Falls

Size: approx. 66" x 80"

Finished: August 2013

Category: Group/Bee Quilts

Contributors:  Myself and the other awesome quilters of Aeneous Group - Simply Solids Modern Bee, plus one super lovely friend from UK

Thank you to Amy Ellis for hosting, all the sponsors who are so generous with their support, and all the other quilters are participating (and you for stopping by!)




Past Festival Entries:
Spring 2013 - Random Containment
Fall 2012 - Homespun
Spring 2012 - Myself as a Teacher

Finished: Flowers Over Falls - Simply Solids Bee Quilt

Yeah, I fell off the face of the earth again.  It's been a slice.  I'll spare you the details.

I have a few things I've been meaning to share and I'll get to them.  I truly want to catch up on all the things I've missed - and I have missed you all and your projects and your wit and your insights.  I have just been incredibly unplugged this summer, and I think that's a good thing. Back to teaching on Tuesday so I imagine my routines will start coming back slowly but surely. (And I owe more than a few emails....)

I HAVE managed to finish my Simply Solids Bee quilt.  June was my month and while one bee member dropped out, an awesome block friend from UK (Hi, Susan!) offered to make one for me.  SO cool!!

One must always have a tall person in the family - thanks, bro!

My concept for this quilt was the idea of flowers and twigs heading over a waterfall.  Each of my bee mates got two shades of blue, two squares of orange, a strip of tan (all Kona) and instructions to improv-piece an abstract block that measured 12.5 x 16.5". (See my post here for more details...)

And they did a beautiful job!!  I made the sashing strips and borders ( also improvised) from the scraps they sent back and spare yardage.

Then I sewed the top together - but in keeping with the improv/modern/abstract idea, I didn't use a traditional layout.  The layout actually looks like this:

All together, there are 7 blues (sky, aqua, baby blue, bahama blue, peacock, turquoise and teal), two oranges (mango and flame) and two neutrals (white and stone). There are only a few scraps of white. I tossed them in with the sky blue so that the sky blue looked blue and not white!

There was one block that I absolutely loved but try as I might, I couldn't make it work with the rest of the improv blocks.  It broke my heart until I figured I could showcase it on the back and actually build the back to echo that block.  The entire back is a reflection of that block and uses up all the leftover yardage.

It's quilted with watery lines in three shades of blue thread.

I matched the binding to the gradient I'd created with the blocks so that the quilt appears borderless.  And I'm really happy with how it turned out. To make it work, I used Flourishing Palms' french-style binding method with great success. (Thanks, Linda!)

This might be one of my favourite quilts of all time!  I'm chuffed to bits with how it turned out and I have my very talented bee mates to thank for it (though some of them wanted to kill me... Oops. :-).

Faux art-shot....  Does it look like water over rocks? hahahaha.

Flowers Over Falls is about 68x80" and contains the handiwork of the Aeneous Group of the Simply Solids Modern Bee and Susan of Canadian Abroad.

Thanks so much, you talented bunch, you!!  I'm glad I managed to get it finished for an upcoming show in October AND before my birthday today/yesterday (30th).

This is me at 35. And 35 feels lovely.