So this weekend I started and finished TWO quilts!! This sounds impressive until I mention that one was 18″ x 24″ and the other a mere 4.75″ square. It’s okay, I’ll take it!
I wanted to share the 4.75″ square one first, which was part of the mini mini quilt swap (#miniminiquiltswap on instagram). I haven’t been a part of any swaps in a while because it got a bit overwhelming for me, but this is something I can get behind. I even like that there’s no secrecy about the partner, which I thought I’d miss. But it’s great to be able to choose who you swap with and also talk openly about the design ideas.
I first read about the swap on Yvonne @ Quilting Jetgirl‘s blog, and she asked if anyone was interested in swapping with her. Yvonne is one of the most thoughtful and inspirational quilters I know, so I jumped on board. She said she was open to whatever, but gave me the theme of “light” to work around.
I’ve been toying with an idea for a quilt that represents the summer nights here on the east coast. There’s a lot of texture and sound to the evenings with the cicadas, crickets, frogs, birds, and the light from the fireflies. I figured this would be a good time to experiment with what I wanted to do but didn’t know how to accomplish, so I pulled a bunch of scraps to work from.
I used my memory of the pattern for the Bloomin’ quilt as you go panel and quickly found out that such a small canvas was not actually going to work for the idea I wanted to try out. But I was still pretty sold on the bloomin’ idea so I just went ahead and did a standard version of it.
I was making good progress, but when I stopped to look what I had made so far, I realized there was a problem. One of my first fabric choices used a print that took way too much attention, and the yellow that I’d wanted to be the main focus was getting quite lost.
I did at least make sure that’s what was really bugging me before restarting. Yep, covering that one fabric made a world of difference, but no way I was going to pick all those pieces off back to that one. Thank goodness it was such a small canvas, restarting was a lot less painful.
While I’d been working on the original piece, Out of nowhere, I suddenly got the idea to thread sketch a lamppost on top of it, and the idea would. not. go. away. So when I started the second, I was more careful to place the yellow center…and to use fabrics that wouldn’t take attention away from it. When it was done, I really loved the way it looked and was having a hard time bringing myself to thread sketch on top of it. What if it looked terrible?? It’s really hard to remove thread sketching and I didn’t /really/ want to make a third version.
Thankfully I had not thrown away my first one, so I tried it out. I didn’t like the detailing I had done on the lamppost but I was sold on the thread sketching in general, so I decided to go for it. I made some adjustments and am generally pleased with how it turned out.
For the binding I looked for something that would be dark but pick up on the teal/turquoise bits in the lit areas. The Alison Glass print was perfect, and I did a smaller binding (somewhere between 1/8th and 1/4″) to fit better with the mini size.
I named this “Light in the Storm” because it was created during some stormy weather (we were waiting for the hurricane that never came) and also because of the mini that Yvonne sent me. It was definitely the highlight of a pretty bad week. I’ll have to share it on its own post because this is already a silly long post for such a small quilt. 🙂
Overall, I really love the way it turned out! All weekend I kept showing Eli “look, I /made/ this!” Have you ever had one of those moments with something you’ve made? Where you kind of wonder where exactly it came from?
So two thumbs up for small quilts and experimentation! I feel like my brain just unlocked a whole new playground area that it wants to goof off in. Hopefully I’ll have a chance to give it some time to do so soon!
Details
Title: Light in the Storm
Dimensions: 4.75″ x 4.75″
Fabric: Scraps kindly provided by Karen @ CapitolaQuilter
Binding: Sunprint Ink in Blue by Alison Glass
Thread: Aurifil #2115 (lemon)
Number of variations already planned: at least 5
38 thoughts on “Finish: Light in the Storm”
what a work of art! I love it! I need one for my wall of small LOL
I didn’t know you had a wall of small! I’d be happy to make something in this vein for you if you want to swap. 🙂 Lemme know and we can swap deets!
Beautiful little gem !!
Thank you! It’s been fun to work small and try out different ideas. 🙂
two thumbs up for small and experimentation for sure – love how it turned out
Thanks Karen! <3 I was in retreat mode this weekend with y'all and played around with a bunch of other small things. Wish I could have been there in person!
Great little quilt! Brilliant idea to add the lamppost!!
Thanks Kitty! Funny how sometimes these ideas come out of nowhere and won’t leave. 🙂
A fun little piece–quite an advantage of mini-minis, that it is easier to redo than rip. It did make a major difference. Thanks for sharing your process–helpful design thoughts.
I’m glad you enjoyed reading the design details! I always learn something when I sew it seems. 🙂 And you’re totally right about ripping vs redoing at that size. I’m so used to re-doing being a huge time investment that it took a bit for my brain to come round to the idea, but of course it was super fast to get right back where I was once I sat down and did it.
Love this mini mini. The light pole especially.
Thank you Melissa! 😀 I have no idea where the impetus to add the light pole came from, but I’m really glad I did!
It looks fantastic! And I have moments like that with pretty much everything I make – I can’t believe that 1) it exists or 2) that I had anything to do with it existing. 🙂
Yes!! That’s exactly how I feel about a lot of the things I make! “Where did this come from and what do you mean I was involved?!?”
Love that feeling. 🙂 Just wish I could get over the doubts that come on the front side of making things. HAhaha
Gorgeous!!
Thank you so much! 😀
I got the second one?!? Wow, Anne, I even love your first one (the dark portion falls to the side like a shadow once you added the tread sketching – seriously cool placement, really!). I love the mini so much, thank you. And, by the way, what we miss the most about the east coast are the lightning bugs and translucent evening. Beautiful description and I hope you get a chance to play with that idea soon. 🙂
After the amazing mini you sent me, I wasn’t going to send you something I wasn’t happy with!! ^_^ Translucent evening is a great word for it! It’s so different and the sound texture is incredible. It’s already lessening a bit with the fall and I’m sad that it will probably go away in the winter.
And lightning bugs are just magic as far as I’m concerned.
I saw this on instagram and thought it was from the lion, the witch, and the wardrobe! I love the story of this one though! Gorgeous
I love that call out! I actually would love to do a series inspired by the children’s books that I grew up with and that would definitely be one of them. I tried starting that this weekend and ended up with a mess, which I’ll probably share on the blog this week. HAhaha It can’t all be pretty I guess!
‘Art by accident’. Well balanced, great job!
Hahaha “art by accident,” I love it! I think that’s how most of my art happens now that I think about it… 😀
I LOVE IT! and the thread sketching adds so much to it. Great work!
Thank you, Sandy! 😀 I was so worried I’d ruin it with the thread sketching, and now that it’s done I realize it is so incomplete without it. I’m so glad I went for it!
This is beautiful. I would never have the patience but I’m so glad you do. 🙂
Thanks so much, Pat! Funny enough, the small stuff requires very little patience as it only takes an hour or two to make one of these things. And since it’s quilt as you go, I don’t even have to worry about quilting it when it’s done!
Knowing all the details of this one makes it even more amazing! The lighter colors around the light is brilliant! It’s been super fun making these mini mini’s…too much fun! Thank you for sharing your process on this…very fun to see!
Thank you! 😀 You know how much I like to play with color ombre, so this was a great deal of fun for me. 🙂 I’m definitely having fun using the mini minis as a place to experiment! Although now I sorta want to make some for myself but I know they will never come out as well. Hahahaha
LOVE this. All of it. The block, the process, the post… everything 🙂 xo
Thanks Julie!! I oddly don’t know a lot of self-described artists on a somewhat personal level (I’m going to blame imposter syndrome here because I feel like such a fakey fake artist fake) so whenever I feel like I’m doing something arty, I often think of you and your process that you’ve shared. ^_^ So your happy opinion means a lot to me!!
I’d like all my experiments to look this amazing.
(The lamppost is pure genius ; suddenly the quilt tells a story.)
Thank you so much for the kind comment!! For what it’s worth, I spent this weekend doing other experiments and they are …. not good. HAhahahaha I wish all my experiments turned out well, too!
I love your comment that the lamppost makes it tell a story. 😀 That makes me so happy!
I absolutely love it! It is just awesome! Even though the combo of yellow and blue is my least fav.
Thank you, Vera! Which is your favorite combo? I mean, other than rainbow. 🙂
i love the sketch stitching – gives that something extra and it makes me smile!
Thank you! I always enjoy doing the thread sketching when I do it, although it isn’t always successful. HAhaha It’s just tough to get into the mindset to do it because I draw with pencil, not ink and thread sketching is like using ink. There is no erasing!
LOVE IT! Must try this…have to look through my stash. I doubt I can handle something that small though.
The smallness actually works pretty well in this case because the QAYG improv technique doesn’t require a lot of precision. Of course I have since seen in the photo a corner of a fabric that didn’t get covered so there’s a raw edge showing. Oops. So SOME precision. 😉 But going smaller with this really didn’t make it tougher. I have another one I’ll share maybe later today which was definitely a LOT harder because it was smaller. 🙂