Quilt Block Borders - Japanese Taupe Fabric

Around a hundred years ago Henry Ford said you could have one of his Model T cars in "Any color so long as it's black."

I may take his advise when it comes to putting borders on my modern house quilt blocks.  

They each have a lot of colors on them and I'm looking for a frame effect.

There will be an inventory process to look for black fabric pieces that are big enough to contribute to this project.  I love to collect lots of small cuts of different fabrics since most of my quilts have a scrap look to them.  I have too many interests in colors, shades, and patterns to make a quilt with only two fabrics.  I'm not sure I have the discipline to either. 

This strategy works well for applique, but is less than ideal when trying to find longer and or larger pieces for borders.

I'll keep you posted on how the hunt goes.I have a lot of black fabric somewhere.  

Either way it will likely be a slow process forward as life has been on the busy side these days.

Taupe Baby Quilt: More Photos

By popular demand....I'm adding a few more of my fav in progress photos of the baby quilt. 


Our little group of ladies had a huge blast working on it.


Enjoy!

piecing in progress

quilting in progress

 Blocking in progress

 

label close up

done and all ready for the new bundle of joy

Baby Quilt: Japanese Taupe Fabrics & English Paper Piecing

Oh how I have wanted to share some photos of the secret baby quilt project with you!

This quilt was started by our small quilt group much earlier this year for one of our members, So Sue, to celebrate the arrival of her new baby daughter.

I have photographed this quilt so many many times.  I want to go through some of the favorite photos and share perhaps more of them with you.

We finally gave the quilt to the bouncing baby, and I think she likes it.  Her mommy really does, so that's a good sign.

The majority of the quilt was hand pieced using the English Paper Piecing method, since we were using hexagons.  Small hearts fit well in the border, and those were done with hand applique.

More photos soon.

Japanese Quilt: Yoko Saito's Traditional Patchwork Lessons & Taupe Fabric

When I was flipping through the pages of Yoko Saito's Traditional Patchwork Lessons book, I ran into a super traditional flower basket quilt pattern.


This pattern has probably around for more than a hundred years, but when I saw it in the Japanese taupe fabrics I decided to go for it and make a small wall hanging.



I had some pre-cut squares from Pinwheels and put them together into 4 blocks.  Two very high contract blocks, one low contrast one, and another with different amounts of contrast but using mostly reds and pinks.

I'm happy with how it turned out and now I need to plan the quilting.


Thoughts and ideas on how to quilt this little wall quilt? 

Japanese Taupe Fabric: precut squares

Just a quick view of how I organized the taupe fabrics before making basket blocks out of them.

From left to right:

Lights
Mediums
Darks
Purple/Blue/Green
Red

They looked quite crazy before I sorted them but they look rather neat and tidy now.

Basket Quilt: Japanese Taupe Fabrics

Before PIQF rolls around again this fall, I wanted to do something really inspired with the small pre-cut quilt fabric squares from the Pinwheels booth.

Does this give me just cause to buy more in October?

Maybe.  Pinwheels is not on the list of vendors yet.  Oh dear.  I hope they go!  I might actually cry if they don't.

Either way, I am in process of whipping up a wall quilt with four basket blocks made out of Japanese Taupe fabrics.

So far, enjoying the process.  I was inspired by Yoko Saito's Traditional Patters Lesson book.  It's got a lot of the basic quilt blocks you see in antique quilts but all done in in the taupe colors.  Very attractive.

Quilt Border Debacle & Recovery Plan

When you put some borders around your quilt blocks, you usually think long and hard about what fabric to use, how thick to make them, and if the are 'just right' for the quilt.


In the case of my modern house quilt, I apparently did not observe my usual process.

The fabric I used seemed like a good idea at the time.  

Once I had lived with the completed quilt top for a while, I realized that I was not in love with the border fabric and that the value of it was overall too dark.

At that point, I started to get really intimate with the dreaded seam ripper.

I carefully remove every last piece of it from my beloved applique blocks and breathed a sigh of relief.

The blocks went back into being stored in a huge flat three ring binder and I have not touched them since.

Or until now.

I finally found a better border fabric.  It is polka dot.

I know, really...polka dot?  Wouldn't that be too busy?  Well...not really.

Lecien is a Japanese fabric company that makes many of the taupe fabrics that I like to use in my quilts.  They have a cool list of fabric shops by state in the U.S. that carry their line.

My rotary cutter and rulers are out.  I'm starting to cut new pieces of borders to re-sew them to the quilt.  This polka dot fabric (the lighter, bottom one in the photo above) is the one that I'll be using.

The darker polka dot fabric on top is something I may also play around with, but not sure it will make the cut for this subtle quilt.

Oh, and lastly I finally saw the 200 follow mark being broken for my blog.  To you dear new followers, you warm my heart so.  Thank You!!!  A huge virtual hug to you.

Modern Quilting

I am still here stitching away by hand with my needle and thread, and my Japanese Taupe Fabrics...creating modern house quilt blocks. 

This is the 10th block, and is inspired by what is called the Sax House in Oakland, California.  The home itself is designed to look just like a saxophone.  Can you see the instrument in the design?  I'm not done with the embroidery yet.  I think that will put the finishing touches on the block.

I never though that a popular blog like Quilt Inspiration would notice my work, but it turns out they did this week.

They just posted a little piece on my modern house quilt blocks which was very generous and kind of them.  You can see the article at this link.  The cool part is you can really see how the blocks were inspired from the photos I took of the real house.

I'm so honored!

Now, to come down from cloud 9 and get back to my stitching.

Japanese Taupe Fabric: where to get it

Above is a photo of my son's 3 yr old signature quilt block with well wishes from family and friends.  The '3' is appliqued down and the fabric is Daiwabo yarn dyed.  It's got a thick weave but I didn't have a super hard time working with it.

It's not easy to get Japanese Taupe fabric if you are marooned here in the US (or other countries, for that matter) as opposed to those lucky ones that actually live in Japan.

The  quilt shop that I teach at has a small but growing collection of Japanese taupes which is great, but if you don't live in Oakland, California....there is a fresh option out there online.

One World Fabrics is the new kid on the block with some very interesting Japanese taupe fabrics - both prints and yarn dyed. 

You can see their entire collection here - lots to choose from.  The owner, Steven, also has an interesting blog with a focus on Japanese quilting.

Steven is kind enough to read my blog, and has created a coupon code for readers of Quilt Otaku.  If you are like me, and cannot resist picking up just a couple more pieces of taupe fabric (or a boat load of them!) you can use the coupon code "otaku15" to get 15% off your first order between now and Dec 31, 2011.

If that isn't a green light to start holiday shopping for yourself, I don't know what is.

I haven't ordered yet, but I am thinking I may need to pick up a few things...I'm a HUGE sucker for the yarn dyed fabrics - especially love this one - and they really are hard to get your hands on.  One World's prices for these sorts of fabrics are also below what I've usually seen, so that is nice too.

Thanks for your cool offer Steven, and best of luck launching your new taupe-a-licious shop!

Japanese Taupe Fabrics - never too much of a good thing

I was looking through my stash of taupe fabrics in preparation for my next house quilt class later this month.

There were so many beautiful ones, it is hard to choose at times. Especially when working with the subtle shades of taupes I have found that seeing them in daylight is an important part of the process.

It isn't always easy for me to pick out the fabrics during the day since my creative work is mostly limited to after hours, but I was able to look while the sun was up today so that was nice.

In the afternoon I visited with my monthly quilt group, which was fun. It's always awesome to see my old friends and get inspiration from the projects they are working on.

The hostess let me see her fabric collection as she had newly organized it, and she stores her fabrics as flat as possible with really not that many folds in it.

Since I have a BUNCH of fat quarters, I end up folding them a lot and putting them into bins. Seeing how she organizes makes me wonder if I could find a way to store my fabrics with less folds in them so that they have less chance to have permanent damage due to the folds.

How are you storing your fabric these days? Am I the only one obsessed with stuff like 'no light' getting in, and 'no folds' causing permanent creases?

Have a cool tip for me to avoid crease lines? I'm all ears.

Oh, and for fun, I posted a "Do you like to hand quilt?" poll - cast your vote!

Japanese Taupe Applique and modern quilting

Tomorrow is our April class where we applique modern house blocks over at A Verb for Keeping Warm in Oakland.

This house is a beautiful one, and another in the BOM series that our class is working on. If you have the time and live locally, come and join us...this block will be a piece of cake.

I spent this week in Austin, Texas. If you haven't had the chance to visit there, I would highly recommend it. I could really see myself living there. It is quite hip.

One of my Texan girlfriends turned me on to these beaded wrap bracelets that are popular there. I broke down and bought one, and after realizing how expensive they are online I guess I should have bought 2 when I had the chance. Oh well...Chan Luu makes a bunch of them that are beautiful but on the pricey side.

Another beautiful link for you is over on "oh, hello friend" - check out this post on twinkle lights. So pretty. Not only would I love to do a photo study like this to take amazing pictures of them, but I would also like to think about how to get some of them up in my back yard!