Beach Puddles

The other quilt I got bound recently was this version of Candlelight by April Rosenthal. I made her kit version with the same fabrics from the cover quilt, and I love it. It's fun to put together with the traditional blocks. In the pattern, she emphasizes that value gradation is a key part of the quilt and making the design really pop. I thought it would be fun to play with color gradation instead and went with yellow to blue. I really like the colors and I think it worked out well but it didn't have the same impact as the value gradation. It's interesting how the changes made it pop differently. I treated yellow as the light and navy as the dark, which makes sense, but the warm yellow pops more than the cool blue so it's interested to see color theory in action. And the middle colors kind muddle together...I should have used the yellow for the stars so they popped more than the rolling stones blocks.

I omitted the border on it because I couldn't decide on what fabric to use, and it was a pretty narrow border anyway. So it's a tad smaller than the original, but I don't think it's too small by any means. Although, I do tend to prefer large quilts ;-). 

Here's my original Candlelight quilt, which I realized as I wrote this that I had never blogged about. 

Beach Puddles, quilted by Abby Latimer, completed July 2024

Original Candlelight, quilted by Abby Latimer, completed November 2020

San Francisco Quilt

Designing an original quilt is always satisfying, even if it's difficult. I love to find inspiration in travels, and often take pictures of inspiring patterns or designs. Often, nothing comes of them, but sometimes I make it work. This quilt pattern is one that marinated for a while before I figured it out, and then it marinated longer still as I tried to decide on a color way. I use Electric Quilt 8 software and I tried out all kinds of colors, including a more traditional quilty look with different colored blocks. In the end, I love the dramatic colors I went with and the focal blocks. I used Alison Glass Kaleidoscope solids and the texture is fantastic. 

The inspiration for this came from a long weekend in San Francisco. I wanted to name this quilt Sausalito because that sounds like a better name, but I couldn't bring myself to since I knew full well I hadn't seen it in Sausalito. We were walking around, and I can't remember what neighborhood, and I saw an amazing antique grate on the side of a house. It was fantastically intricate and interesting and instantly knew I wanted to make it into a quilt. But, it took a while. 

I finally made it during the pandemic and I just adore it. I backed it with navy winky and it lives in our theater room and it's just perfect.

Right now, it's currently on display at the Springville Art Museum for their annual quilt show. I love going to their quilt show every year. It's an eclectic mix of mostly traditional quilts with some modern and art quilts mixed in and it's not overwhelmingly large, so it's just enjoyable. I entered a couple quilts a few years ago and didn't realize that when you enter a quilt in a show, they give you feedback when you pick up your quilt. I did NOT love receiving the feedback. I'm not a show quilter, it's just fun to see your quilt hanging in a museum! I swore I would never do it again. 

But I guess my trauma has worn off, because I went ahead and entered again. I like entering original designs and I just decided I'm not going to read the feedback. I'll let my husband read it and tell me the good parts. :) 

Sugar Snow Quilt

I love quilt books. Who doesn't, right? I have a few I bought and was excited about, but haven't really used much yet...but there are a handful that I have used extensively. Vintage Quilt Revival by Lee Heinrich, Faith Jones, and Katie Clark Blakesley is one that gets a lot of mileage. I've made seven quilts from it now, I just love it. I'm kinda surprised it took me as long as it did to get around to my Sugar Snow quilt, as it is so striking and it's been on my list since I bought the book. I think I hesitated because I dislike making exact replicas of quilts generally, and I couldn't think of how to make it my own. In the end, I didn't change much from the original; She used a few prints in the blocks while I used only solids, and I changed one color, but largely it's very similar. I do like mine better, with the fun metallic essex linen I used. I am so thrilled with how it came out that I was even willing to hand bind the binding.

I haven't hand bound a large quilt binding in, well, ever? I'll hand bind minis, of course...but big quilts...no thank you. But this quilt got the special treatment. And I'm glad I took the time to do it; it looks so sharp.

Marion McClellan did the custom quilting for me and she did a fantastic job! I love how it turned out.

I got this quilt done relatively quickly, too! I ordered the fabric on black friday, and took the quilt top to Marion in mid-January, and I finished binding it in early March (the day before our governor shut down Utah for the Coronavirus. Ugh).

In any case, it's done and it's beautiful and it looks perfect in our new living room. :-)