14 November 2011

Beth’s Excellent Adventure


I have been a long time fan of Melody Johnson and the Chicago School of Fusing. I subscribe to her blog and really enjoy her positive attitude and sense of humor. A few months ago, Melody discovered a Canadian quilter namedMarianne who made huge quilts in pieces and joined them together as she went along. Marianne called this process Quilt As You Go or simply QAYG.

Although I do not make quilts for beds, I found this process fascinating and amazingly versatile. The entire premise behind this process was to facilitate machine quilting without wrestling an entire giant quilt under the machine. Here comes the adventure…

Last month my brother Eric who some of you know as ERIC from the series was up here in Maine visiting and celebrating my fathers 90th birthday. He was able to see in person the entire ERIC series and even took one of them home (Clouded Mind). I decided to surprise him and make him a quilt for his queen-sized bed using the QAYG method.

First step in this process was deciding on what colors to use. I create my own fabrics for my art quilts but have literally thousands of dollars of commercial fabrics in my (former) stash. They now reside in huge plastic bins hidden out of my way. Surprisingly, most of these fabric were commercial batiks. I discussed colors with my brother then decided to use my own sense of color knowing him as I (think) I do. I decided on turquoises, lime and darker shades of green primarily sticking to greens on the yellow side and a turquoise/brown combo.


                                                               Fresh from the dryer

                                                               Ironed and ready to go

                                              Turquoise and turquoise/brown pieces

                                                         Greens - some with turquoise

Next I emailed Marianne and asked her if I could refer to her and her fabulous website and she was very encouraging about my project and agreed. Next I made a selection of the fabrics and grouped them, sent them through the washer and dryer and ironed all the pieces. Some were fat quarters but most were half yards and larger.

Tomorrow I will start the process I followed on the QAYG adventure. See you in the morning.


5 comments:

  1. Ooh! Looking forward to seeing what you make!

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  2. I've also been following Marianne's QAYG method and hope to try it soon. Your fabric choices are fabulous! I can't wait to see it come together.

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  3. Vicki, It was easy and you can't even imagine how great it looks!! I have some great hints coming up too many that come from the "Ask me how I know" category. Plus an insight into joining rows. The entire process will be done by Friday with the big reveal.

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  4. I have some old Quilt As You Go books that belonged to my mother (from the 80s, I think) but would love to see the process in detailed pictures because I really want to try it. Joining the rows seems very confusing to me from the book instructions. Will be checking back every day to see your instructions. Thanks.

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