4 quilts from the book

Without planning to, it seems I've made four quilts inspired by a book! 

Like many, a favourite book of mine is Roderick Kiracofe's #unconventionalandunexpected. While I find improv challenging, I never fail to be surprised by these extraordinary quilts made by US quilters during the last half of the 20th century. The quirky, improvisational, and sometimes not perfectly made quilts are such a visual delight!

My latest project is my 'overlapping octagons' which was a fun string quilt to make. I actually pieced this scrappy top back in 2019 as part of a little challenge for adhoc improvquilts, and it has taken 4 years to evolve into a (nearly)finished quilt, but I’m okay with that. 

I used a variety of prints and had a go at having 'red' as my new neutral. Contrast is everything, right? 

Leeanne from quiltmekiwi quilted it for me in 'Baptist Fan' panto, a gentle nod to the era of the original quilt found in the book. Linking up with Kelly for NTT here.

- inspiration quilt on the right

And more recently I made this 'cross' quilt. I went scrappy with these blocks, using just what I had on hand. I narrowed down my colour story though, with the fabrics that I pulled out, working with a range of pinks-plum, teal, blues, sage, orange, and yellow-golds. 

I had it finished off with edge-to-edge quilting in a 'ripples' panto, it shows up on the back too which I like very much! 

- inspiration quilt on the right

I've made two other quilts inspired by the vintage pics in my beautiful book, here's just a few stitches from the past ...

First up, my version of a 'flying geese' quilt. Of course, I needed to tweak things a bit, to get the soft vintage 'look' I was after. I played with the values to get a little more contrast happening between the rows. And I added in a few solids too. I also wanted to draw out my basic colour a bit more, all the blues in different shades, so I made up a few extra blocks to help. I love this overall busy "printsonprintsonprints". 

I started this way way back, must get it finished sometime!

- inspiration quilt on the right

And then here's my 'nine patch action' quilt which some of you may remember from a couple of years ago. Super happy with this mix of four/nine/sixteen patches! 

There's quite a mishmash of favourite fabrics in this quilt top too, including Liberty, solids, ginghams & AMH. I found the trick to making a fun {but not visually overwhelming} scrap quilt like this, was to definitely have a few simple 'rules'. So, I included a few longer strings of the same {or nearly same} blocks. I also added some solid fabrics, which help to give a bit of a break from all the busyness. And, adding those larger 4patches helped create some scale contrast.

I had it machine quilted by Leeanne from quilt me kiwi {great teamwork!} in an edge-to-edge panto, called 'breezy'. On the back I used two Amy Butler sateen florals, which made for a very soft & very cuddly drape to the quilt. Choosing the binding was a tad tricky, in the end I settled on 'trefoil' a recent Kaffe addition to my stash. It seemed to pick up lots of those little bits of colour dancing all around the quilt.
Finished quilt measures 60" x 70". (My daughter recently tried to whisk this quilt out-the-door for Hospice, but I'm not ready to part with it yet!)

- inspiration quilt on the right

The quilts in the book are really original! Many have made me stop, take a closer look, and ask myself "what's going on there?". I certainly don't want to make an accurate copy of any of them, but it is fun to think about the original makers' choices and - as there are no instructions - try out interpretations that also reflect my own personal quilting way. 

And how about you? 

I'd love to hear if you have been tempted to try & make a quilt from this book too? 

Have a good weekend, Linda