Tag Archives: wmqg

Graffiti Quilting Workshop with Karlee Porter

This past weekend I was lucky to have a place in a 2 day workshop, hosted by the Wollongong Modern Quilt Guild, we welcomed artist and quilter Karlee Porter to Wollongong for the final leg of her Australian  tour. Karlee’s signature style is called Graffiti Quilting, an approach to free-motion quilting that builds up a design from layers of elements, some which have been inspired by street art, some using common quilting motifs in a modern way.

On the first morning Karlee took us through 20 or so designs and techniques which we practiced in our sketch books, and then started to combine.

Graffiti Quilting Sketches
Graffiti Quilting Sketches

Left: Sketching designs, my leaves are terrible but I’ll keep working on them. Right: We all started with the same centre elements (black) then had 5 minutes to add our own ideas to kick off a design.

After lunch we put those ideas onto fabric with no real plan and only gentle direction provided by Karlee. My free motion skills were a little rusty but I slowly found a rhythm. I’d do a little bit and then stop and think about the next element, trying to pick something to suit the space or contrast a geometric design with a soft and swirly one, the whole while referring back to my sketch book and the fun analogies about the different designs.

Graffiti Quilting Day 1 Sampler
Graffiti Quilting Day 1 Sample – Aurifil 28wt blue varigated thread on black solid fabric from Spotlight.
Graffiti Quilting Class
Everyone concentrating hard on their quilt samples

That evening we were joined by more WMQG members for a trunk show where Karlee spoke about her background and a selection of her quilts, explaining the progression of her work, the highs and lows of entering shows and different experiments along the way. I particularly enjoyed hearing about her collaborations with other artists, having their designs digitally printed on fabric which is then quilted. Of course, cheese and wine with guild members and our guests made for a really enjoyable evening.

On day two we spoke more about materials, threads, fabrics and battings that suit this style of quilting and what situations they suit best. Karlee also took us through different layout options and then suggestions on how certain elements go together. I chose to try quilting in rows with a common circular element up the middle.

Karlee Port & I with my sample quilt
Here’s my sample at the end of the day, couldn’t have done it without Karlee’s encouragement

For my sample piece I’ve used black solid from Spotlight with 2 layers of cotton batting. The thread is Aurifil 28wt in a magenta colour and then a soft medium pink, the next two colours will be a light grey and then finally white. I found I really liked the geometric elements, particularly the columns and my curves were definitely improving with practice.

Graffiti Quilting Detail - Centre
The bottom centre circle turned out better than I could have thought possible, with just a few circle guides and I sketched the leaves first because I find them so tricky to get the curve right.
Graffiti Quilting Detail - Geometric Columns
Love those columns, they can be a city skyline, a stereo equalizer or local rock formations.

All in all I had a great time and really learned a lot from Karlee, she’s fun and genuine with lots of tips and tricks for creating our own unique spin on Graffiti Quilting. I hope to practice more and put together some smaller pieces that can be used for pouch & bag panels, and will most definitely keep sketching and drawing, I found I really enjoyed that part! Here’s a start on something in my sketch book…

Graffiti Quilting - New Sketches
A fresh page & textas, I no longer feel paralysed trying to envision the entire design, just add a bit at a time and the whole becomes much greater than the some of it’s parts.

Australia’s 1st Modern Quilt Show

It’s finally here! Only one more sleep until we open the doors to Australia’s 1st Modern Quilt Show.

This year the Wollongong Modern Quilt Guild is presenting a Modern Quilt Show for the annual Berry Quilt Show. We’d love to see you there if you’re in travelling distance. Berry is a gorgeous little town with lots of fun shops, great cafes, and the markets will be help on Sunday just down the road. For more details visit the website.

We have some amazing quilts from Kathy Doughty, Sarah Fielke, Deborah Louie and some of my favourites from blog land Jess @  Elven Garden Quilts, Amy @ Badskirt and of course Molli Sparkles!

Australia's 1st Modern Quilt Show Flyer

Our committee has been working tirelessly to get everything ready. It’s our first ever show so we’re jumping in the deep end and there’s a lot to learn but considering we’ve only had a few months to pull everything together I think we’ve done a pretty good job. There’s a lot to learn and we have lots of ideas for improving things for next time.

I cannot wait to walk in and see all the hanging quilts tomorrow.

Riley Blake MQG Challenge – Quilt-As-You-Go Bag

It was a perfect match, a Modern Quilt Guild Basics Challenge sponsored by Riley Blake Designs to make anything quilted, with six fat-eighths to start us off, and a fabulous Craftsy class to make Quilt-As-You-Go Patchwork Bags that I could not wait to try. I’m so excited to share this bag so look out, lots of pretty pictures coming up!

Riley Blake Challenge - Quilt As You Go Bag

I’d been hoping for a chance to take the Quilt-As-You-Go Patchwork Bags Craftsy class with with Tara Rebman when it was announced that Riley Blake Designs would be sponsoring the 3rd annual MQG members fabric challenge, we heard about it at a Wollongong MQG sew day and I knew exactly what I was going to make. Light bulb moment!

Riley Blake Challenge - Quilt As You Go Bag

We received our fabrics towards the end of last year as 5.5″ x WOF strips from the range of Riley Blake basics. The fabrics I received were:

  • solid dark grey
  • light grey and white 1″ stripes
  • navy and white medium gingham
  • aqua tone on tone medium chevron
  • white on yellow small dots
  • orange pop

Riley Blake Challenge - Quilt As You Go Bag

I’ve supplemented these with some other Riley Blake fabrics from my stash and a few solids including:

  • yellow tone on tone small dot
  • orange tone on tone small dot
  • white on aqua dot
  • orange solid
  • yellow solid
  • sea green solid
  • navy solid for the bias binding
  • navy blue solid cotton duck cloth for the bag base

Riley Blake Challenge - Quilt As You Go Bag

I started off by cutting a few small and medium strips and squares of varying sizes from each fabric and began the quilt as you go process which uses a log cabin approach. Each round adds a new piece of fabric to cover the join of the previous two pieces and gets quilted down (as you go), towards the edges using pre-patched slabs rather than single fabric pieces. Stay tuned for an upcoming post reviewing the class and sharing some more details of the bag making.

Riley Blake Challenge - Quilt As You Go Bag

I used Aurifil 50wt threads for this project, a light grey/silver (2600) for piecing & quilting the main panels and navy (2745) for quilting on the base panel and attaching the bias binding. My quilting is roughly 1/4″ apart, though I did vary on purpose to give some subtle difference in textures and in some cases to suit the fabric.  My favourite part of the quilting is this navy gingham piece below.

Riley Blake Challenge - Quilt As You Go Bag

The bag is a pretty good size as you can see above with it on my shoulder. In opens up wide and has a handy flap with magnetic snap to keep it closed. I included both pocket options, a hidden zipper pocket on one side and a divided pocket on the other.

Riley Blake Challenge - Quilt As You Go Bag

I really love these challenges, this one in particular took me out of my comfort zone with colour but seeing all the fabrics combined I quite like the overall effect of the outside of the bag.  I wish I didn’t choose an orange solid for the lining, next to the navy binding all I see is football team colours. This is a perfect case where a subtle tone on tone chevron or dots would have been a better choice for such a large area. I already have some fat quarter packs of the Riley Blake small dots and tone on tone dots and I’m sure more of their basics will make their way into my stash, I just haven’t been able to source it locally yet so couldn’t get it in time to finish my bag.

Riley Blake Challenge - Quilt As You Go Bag

A huge thanks to Riley Blake Designs for sponsoring this challenge and providing the fabric for us to play with. Thank you also to the Modern Quilt Guild for organising these challenges for us and to our awesome leader Rachael of the Wollongong Modern Quilt Guild who does all the organising so we can participate.

Super Stars – A Finished Charity Quilt

Super Stars is my first quilt finish for 2014. It probably should have been my final finish for 2013 but just spilled over, oh well it’s finally done! It finishes at 60″ x 75″ using a 4×5 layout of 15″ blocks.

Super Stars - WMQG Charity Quilt

I used a 50w Aurifil thread (2021) to free motion quilt a pattern of loops and stars in the background and a wonky star in the middle of each of the pieced stars.

Super Stars - WMQG Charity Quilt - Quilting

This quilt was made as part of the Vintage Made Modern charity quilt challenge, issued by Rachael, the leader of our guild, to use up some of the huge stash of vintage fabrics we’d been gifted, as well as to help our favourite charities.

Some of the blocks were cut & pieced by fellow members of the Wollongong Modern Quilt Guild at our dedicated sew day in August (yep that’s me, piecing away on my Juki and pulling a ridiculous face). We managed to get all the blocks cut and pieced in the one day.

Super Stars - WMQG Charity Quilt

Over the next couple monthly sew days I got all the blocks put together into a top and then basted the quilt. The floral print on the back was the first fabric I picked and then I pulled the other fabrics from there. All except for the yellows are a white-on-colour small floral print.

This was my first time doing free motion quilting on anything larger than a fat quarter, it was also my first attempt at machine binding. I used a 2.5″ wide strip for my binding to give myself a little extra to catch on the back. It’s a good method, I just need a little more practice so I can then reduce the strip width back to my usual 2.25″.

Super Stars - WMQG Charity Quilt - Backing & Binding

I’m linking up this finish with Crazy Mom Quilts for Finish It Up Friday.

Christmas Presents

*blink* I totally missed that, where did the last couple months go?

During November I was mostly working hard and travelling all over the place including two cycling trips down to Bright, VIC which is the most beautiful place and highly recommended! December has been… interesting. I’ve had to put on my nurse cap after the other half broke his collarbone in a race on one of said cycling trips. The plus side of that has been that he’s home more (not always out riding) and I’ve naturally retreated to the safety of home and doing the things that bring comfort – like working on quilts and other sewn gifts for Christmas.

Most of these items were finished just in time to be gifted, so I didn’t get a chance to photograph them properly, but was able to get a few decent pics on my phone & up on Instagram. So here goes… Insta-Christmas!

It was the year of the zippered pouch, I think I’m up to 6 so far and had a great time choosing fabrics and matching threads from my Aurifil suitcase (best prize ever!). I love this tutorial by Make it Perfect for zippered pouches, and I finally mastered which way to fold the zipper for nice neat ends, woohoo!

Choosing Aurifil threads for Xmas gifts

Below is one of the finished zippered pouches. The front is a screen printed panel featuring the Eye of Horus, I printed a stack of these as part of a 2 day screen printing workshop with the delightful Saffron Craig back in October with the Wollongong Modern Quilt Guild.

Xmas zippered pouches with screen printed panels

A quick collage of some of the items I made for presents.

  • Top left & bottom right are three of the zippered pouches I made, these went to my three closest friends filled with goodies.
  • Top right is one of the cushions I made for my nieces. The side shown is part of a panel from the Magical Lands line from Saffron Craig from a couple years ago (not that I was hoarding it or anything). Both pillows have this on one side and the other side uses different prints from the same line, with each of the girls initials added using raw edge applique, to help prevent any fights about which cushion belongs to who. These finished at about 12″ square and have a hidden zippered in the bottom.
  • Bottom left is a log cabin pin cushion made with Liberty fabrics for the Wollongong MQG Kris Kringle swap. This finished at about 6″ square.

Xmas Gifts Collage - Zippered Pouches & Cushions

And finally, I may have gone a little overboard with washi tape, but how cute are those trees!

Xmas gift bags decorated with washi tape

Here’s hoping you had a wonderful holiday season with family and friends. So long 2013, bring on 2014 and all that lies in store.