Good Vibrations

 

I had this fabric in my stash of 1-metre/yard fabrics for use in a 3-yard quilt. I chose it as appropriate for a man's quilt, and started working on it, using the Heartland quilt pattern from Fabric Cafe. I like the strong, bold and slightly funky combination.  

I didn't want to use flowers or feathers for the quilt design for this bold quilt. And, as I have mentioned previously, I'm trying to use pantographs that I haven't used before. This one is Tiger Stripes, a design from Willow Leaf Studio, which has not been reproduced by Urban Elementz. It's not one of my simpler pantographs, and denser than I would normally use with a minky-backed quilt (the minky is black, not grey as it appears in this picture). But it turned out fine. A nice strong design for a masculine quilt.  

Flower Boxes

 

Someone shared a quilt idea on Facebook, where you cut squares of striped fabric and then cut the squares diagonally and then stitch the triangles together in such a way as to get a totally new look. I thought that was a great idea and saved it for later. 
I decided to try this technique for one of the five quilts. I had some of the striped fabric that I used in the border and sashing of I'll Fly Away left over. But the technique from the Facebook post required that I cut precisely to include only one pattern repeat across the stripes. It looked awesome, but that would limit the size of the final blocks and require a degree of precision that I didn't have time to invest in. So I decided to see if Jenny Doan of Missouri Star Quilt Company had anything to offer on YouTube for this technique. And sure enough, I found what I needed. 

Thanks Jenny and MSQC!
And I changed my mind about my fabric choices, and instead chose a floral stripe I had in my stash. I had originally purchased it to make a triangle frenzy table runner, but then decided it wouldn't really work well for that pattern. I had enough fabric to make a bigger quilt than what Jenny made in the video, which is what I wanted. I even have a couple of blocks left over. I pulled some navy solid fabric from my stash and had enough for the border, but not enough for the binding. And not enough in any other colour that might work. And there was nothing in my local quilt shop that would work either. So I took the quilt top into the next closest quilt shop and she helped me find the striped fabric that picked up some of the colours in the quilt top. It worked well. 

I used the Country Garden pantograph, which I really don't find all that pretty. I won't be in a hurry to use it again. It's not from Urban Elementz, by the way. It's one that I bought used, and I don't know if it's even available any more. 
I wanted to deliver this quilt to the recipient in person, as I haven't seen her in a few years. She lives in another community about 45 minutes drive away. But between my daughter's work schedule, when I'm responsible for my grandson, and trying to get ready for vacation, including finishing a king-sized quilt, I just haven't had the opportunity. So, I resorted to Canada Post.