Sherbet Pips Strips - Bloggers' Quilt Festival!!

hi! welcome to everyone who's popped over from Amy's Bloggers' Quilt Festival!


new guests and regular visitors might like to check out my brand new "about me" page, over there on the right. it's kinda long, so feel free to skim. i tend to babble.


the short version is - hi, i'm amy dame. i've done almost every type of craft imaginable, except knit, but through it all, there's been sewing. about a year and a half ago i got back into quilting hardcore, thanks to the MQG. i'm on the exec for Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild, and i'm a member of the Fraser Valley Modern Quilt Guild, and the quilting bug doesn't seem to be waning! i also do hand and machine embroidery, make clothing, and occasionally do more art focused pieces. i've been blogging here for a bit more than 4 years, and i'm terribly embarassed by the quality of the photos in my older posts. remember when we thought those were good?!

thank goodness digital cameras have improved!


unfortunately, technology doesn't always guarantee good help.


(what a wimp, it wasn't raining that hard!)


i kind of wanted to use my Foxy Improv quilt for the Bloggers' Quilt Festival, but really, i JUST posted it! i know that's okay, but i figured something that i hadn't shown yet would be more interesting for regular visitors.


so Sherbet Pips it is!


this is a simple quilt, but i wanted it to be. this summer i felt like i'd been working on too many stressful, deadline based projects. (the largest one being my quilt for the art show, obviously). i'd purchased quarter yard cuts of a bunch of Sherbet Pips prints for no other plan than to make something for myself. (i'm sure most of you can emphasize!) i never used to make quilts that were all the same fabric line, but i fell in love with how cute this line was, and i just couldn't resist!


i knew i wanted to make a strip quilt. i originally plotted it out in photoshop and it was a very fancy strip quilt.



impressive, but damn, i so didn't have the energy for all that. by this point, i wanted EASY!

so i redesigned it.



i thought about adding solids, but none of the Konas actually matched very well, so i stuck with white. this is actually the first quilt i've made with this much white. it's commonly used in modern quilting - that's exactly why i've avoided it! (i have a tendancy to be perverse)



i love the quilting on this quilt. i did enough straight line quilting to remove the basting pins, and then i went back in and did the curved, swervy lines. i like the contrasts.



i used Aurifil 50wt for the quilting because i didn't really want the white thread to stand out on the prints and it worked perfectly.



someone in my guild told me later that my quilting on this had inspired her when she couldn't decide how to quilt something, and it was so awesome to hear. it wasn't super fancy quilting, but it was perfect for her project. we need to tell people when they inspire us more often!



i saved one of my quarter yard cuts for the binding, and i'm so glad i did. the scarf print gave a fabulous stripey effect.


before i made the back i plotted out another strip quilt pattern, for a baby quilt this time, and set these strips aside. then i pieced the back using what remained of my scraps, a large section of one print (i accidentally ordered two quarter yard cuts of the same fabric - the perils on online shopping!), a teensy bit of white and a large piece of red flannelette from my stash.



ignore the fact that my sister is attempting to use the quilt as an umbrella, though not quite as obviously as in the photo at the top. focus instead on my AWESOME BOLER that's finally home!! it's still a disaster inside, but it's fabulous anyways! cleaning it out and fixing it up is my winter project.



i love the way flannelette quilts up, it's so yummy.


i made one of my usual machine embroidered labels for the quilt. pretty simple, just the title of the Quilt, my name, location, date; and the snail.



i've never had a label go this wonky before. hmm. of course, i didn't realize it until AFTER i'd quilted it all.it doesn't look that bad in the photo, it's really only noticable on the left side, but it's definitely wonkier in real life.



a bit of a close up. i scanned a piece of one of the fabrics and digitized an embroidery design based on one of the tiny little snails. isn't it cute? that's also the first time i've tried one of the fill stitch patterns that are in my digitizing software (the design sewn into the snail shell), it was fun. i included a portion of selvedge in the label, since the entire quilt is one fabric line.




i hope you're enjoying the Bloggers' Quilt Festival! make sure you go over and check out some of the hundreds of amazing quilts being shown, and maybe you'll find yourself a few new blogs to fall in love with!

{edit to add}
i'm also linking up to Maniac Monday over at Sew Happy Geek, just for the hell of it!