• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Melanie Testa

  • home
  • Bio+
    • about
    • Breast Cancer Advocacy
    • Contact
  • Portfolio
    • Quilts
    • Mixed Media
    • Florabunda! by RJR Fabrics
    • Meadowlark by Windham
    • Soy Wax Resist
  • In Print
    • my book – Playful Fabric Printing
    • my book – Dreaming From the Journal Page
    • my book – Inspired to Quilt
    • my DVD – Print, Collage, Quilt
    • published in
  • blog
  • Store

Learning to quilt again

MultiPatchwork

 I have finally gotten to the point where I am using the cloth I have been printing all year long. I am very excited about this for several reasons. The most surprising of which is, I forgot how very much I like piecing and quilting. For years I have been ‘art quilting’, using thickened dye to create one of a kind wall art in a figurative style, as I wrote about in Inspired to Quilt . Over the years, I stopped making surface designed cloth for the fun of it, while looking at my storage bins and wondering for what or why I should keep them. Now, I look at those bins and I see potential. I want to tear through these bins and make throw quilts. I want a stack of throws, folded, stacked, pretty and ready for use! 

The photos you see here are the back of a quilt. I like two sided quilts and I think the backs should be as fun as the fronts, although I think backs should also be quick and easy.MellyQuiltsBernina

Because I have been focusing on multicolor printing this year, I have a criteria for what I would like to accomplish while piecing and quilting my cloth. I want the cloth and my designs to really show themselves off, it takes commitment and time to print cloth and I want my quilts to really show my cloth off to its best advantage. I am exploring different quilt blocks and settings to do this. Right now I think it is a good idea for me to work with bigger blocks of a simple nature, like 6″ half square triangles, 1000 Pyramids. I bet as I cut, piece and quilt the throws I am working on now that I will begin to see my way through the quilt block forrest a little better.

I am oh-so-happy to say, today I am heading over to Victoria Findlay-Wolfe‘s house for a day long class in 15 Minutes of Play . This book has been following me around for weeks, if not months. Victoria uses a technique she calls Made-Cloth, where she sews cloth together improvisationally, and figures out how to use it later. For my part, this is useful in that, because I have printed all of my own cloth, I want to use every last bit of it. Many of my multicolor printed cloth pieces are quite small, so I have been making Made-Cloth with it, but I am sticking with the same prints and colors, rather than using many prints in one Made-Cloth piece. Brilliant.

I will post and let you know about what I have learned in Victoria’s class. I look forward to meeting quilters, I can’t wait to see the synapse connections I make. I love learning.IMG_2583I uploaded this image because I like the hash marks. I also really like graffiti and poster art, so there! Enjoy.

 

October 1, 2013 By Melanie Tagged With: Graffiti, Inspired To Quilt, Multicolor Printing, NYC, Piecing, Quilting, Victoria Findlay-Wolfe

Previous Post: « Relaxing
Next Post: Facing my fear »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Jody

    October 1, 2013 at 8:41 am

    Sounds like fun! Have a great time and I will be eagerly anticipating your photos of your results!

  2. Lisa

    October 1, 2013 at 8:59 am

    Have a great day! I know you are going to have a fantastic time piecing together and creating. Your printed fabrics are going to look even better all pieced into beautifulness. Can’t wait to see what you end up doing!

  3. Holly McLean

    October 1, 2013 at 9:27 am

    I look forward to seeing and hearing about your class and seeing your quilts. The fabrics are all so beautiful!

  4. cherie.craighead

    October 1, 2013 at 1:45 pm

    This has inspired me to start a throw quilt with the fabric I have in my stash along with my dmc floss,etc.I’m looking forward to working on this. Thank you for all the motivation you share on facebook

  5. Jeannie

    October 1, 2013 at 7:49 pm

    I hope you had a fabulous time today with Victoria and other like minded people. I always come home jazzed after being with those who create. Love the graffiti! (I always want to put two “t”s in graffiti.) I recently read an article online about using hash marks and stippling and I loved it. Have fun stitching!!!

  6. Christine

    October 6, 2013 at 10:15 am

    It was so awesome to see you quilt this past Saturday at the NYMODERN quilt meeting! It is an amazing quilt with all the hand printed beautiful fabrics!

Primary Sidebar

All things me:



InspiredtoQuiltSideBar

Tags

#QuiltwithLove Birds Blog Hop Breast cancer Breast Pockets cancer Craft Napa Dreaming From The Journal Page Embroidery Etsy Facebook Family Female Magazine Fitness Florabunda friends Gather your Sew-plies!! Give Away Hand Printed Hand Sewing Inspiration Instagram Journaling Meadowlark Melly Marks Multicolor Printing Multicolor Stamps NYC Peach Playful Fabric Printing Procion MX dye Quilt Quilting RJR Fabrics Sew-plies Sew Along Stamps Stencil Studio Supplies Teaching The 20 The Clever Guild Video Windham Fabrics

Footer

Copyright © 2021 ·Foodie Pro Theme · Genesis Framework by StudioPress · WordPress · Log in