Sunday, February 7, 2016

Graffiti Quilts - Not Planned and Planned

Two Graffiti quilts completed, but made from Shirtings from the twins Dad, Gramps and my shirt stash.  Doesn't everyone have a shirts stash?  The first one, the green one for Louis was inspired by Katy over at KatyQuilts with her Improv Quilt.  I tried the improv, it looks so liberating, so free, so fast an easy.  It brought be to a screeching halt.  When I have a plan, I can look at the plan and go.  I know what I need to do and get it done.  But this no plan stuff, oh boy I just don't know how to do it and do it without halting to a snails crawl.  So I got the green one done, it's a baby quilt not that big and I can just push through it.  I love the colors of this quilt.  I wasn't confident in the graffiti quilting so I chose a thread color to match the backing.    The grid on the shirting material is freehand grids, not measured, organic, ya that's the word I want!! More on the graffiti quilting at the end.  Glide thread, cotton sateen backing, hobbs 80/20 batting.  All make for a pretty nice drape of the quilt.
Unplanned
Unplanned Back 
The second one I needed a bit more of a plan.  EQ7 to the rescue.  I went with triangles, they look great, modern and a consistent patch, I used the accuquilt triangle die, even easier!  Then I just randomly decided in each row where the blue would end, threw in a couple of blue triangles like they were falling off, and it looks pretty unplanned right?  I think this took me even longer than the unplanned quilt above.  But it's done and I think it was worth the effort.  I just quilted the horizontal lines on this not the vertical, in the shirting material,  I got lazy.  I used a light blue thread on top went with 60wt  bottom line rather than glide, getting a bit more adventurous, but not overly confident, shirting material on the back and hobbs 80/20.  I like this combination a lot better, nice softer drape. More about the graffit quilting next.
Planned
Planned


The quilting, oh my this was way out of my comfort zone.  I had Karlee Porters Graffiti Quilting book, six of my doodles and my ipad with the internet close by.  It's really had to just change up the quilting pattern as you go and do what *feels* right.  Well shoot, feathers feel right all the time but I know I can't do feathers all the time.  I would almost literally do one collection of "things", take a look almost all are in either groupings of three or five, stop, check the book, check my doodles, check the internet and figure out what needed to  be quilted next.  It was definitely a learning experience and really stretched the way I had to look at quilting.  Oh and an added bonus, I actually did some ribbon candy quilitng, I was so happy, it even looked pretty decent a few time. Here's some detailed pics on the quilting.  I definitely recommend giving it a try.  I tried, and now I'm going back to my comfort zone and feather something ridiculously!









There were a couple of questions about dense quilting and softness.  Good questions. First, nothing is ever as soft and cozy as hand quilting, absolutely nothing.  I really want to do a blog post on this with examples, one of these days....There are other things that contribute to the stiffness or softness of the quilt.  I think you need to consider softness with air pockets and with drape.  If you associate softness with air pockets, then no dense quilting will never be as soft as less dense quilting. If you associate drape with softness then there are things that you can do to have a very soft drape.  Use a thin thread, the more dense your quilting the thinner the thread. There is a difference between the 50wt  thread  and the 60 wt thread with dense quilting.   Batting, use cotton batting if you want a soft drape, poly if you want a stiff quilt (which you will want if you plan to hang - one layer of cotton, one of poly and your quilt will lay very flat with dense quilting).  I think backing makes a difference too.  Minky is very pliabe, shirting material and cotton sateen all help keep that drape nice and soft.    I really do want to do a blog post with pictures and attempt to show the drape of different combinations of batting and dense quilting.  No it's not as soft and airy as less dense quilting, but drape, which does not have to be stiff and can be quite pliable very dense quilting.

Don't forget to stop by the linky parties, so much inspiration out there.

27 comments:

  1. I can see where you would have trouble with improv - piecing and quilting. And do you ever do simple quilting? But oh, your quilting makes me melt.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Your graffiti quilting rocks!! Loved looking at all the details. I am keen to try, perhaps one of my customers will let me loose! I look forward to your informative post about quilting softness, or lack of it. P.S I would have a tough time not to just quilt feathers too!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Wow! Once again you have hit a home run! What fun quilts! It's like an "I spy" in your quilting stitches.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Many good points about density and uses of different batting. I'm going to have to try this graffiti quilting as it looks fun!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Wow!!!!! Amazing. I love the tops, but the quilting ..... So beautiful. I must try it too!!

    ReplyDelete
  6. I really love your quilting. I'm a little scared to try graffiti quilting but it looks like a wonderful way to expand your motif inventory. I have a few go to quilting designs and would love to bust out of the comfort zone. Thanks so much for sharing.

    ReplyDelete
  7. So proud of you Sue, your ribbon candy looks great! Hope to see more of it in your future!! Love the graffiti-so fun to see all the different elements.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Your 'graffiti' is absolutely lovely! These were terrific quilts to use it on - little spots of interest

    ReplyDelete
  9. I love the texture you've achieved here. The contrast of the lines with the graffiti quilting in the top quilt works really nicely. It's such eye candy to see all the elements you've incorporated in the bottom one. I'd appreciate if you'd be willing to share this post (and if you write a post about softness, that too) at my new linky party: http://quiltingmod.blogspot.com/2016/02/lessons-learned-linky-2.html

    ReplyDelete
  10. I'm glad you stepped out of your comfort zone and tried both improv and grafitti quilting. I like the process of improv because I find it really freeing. All fmq is stepping out of my comfort zone. I would love to read the posts you are proprosing as it is great to learn from your experience.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Yay, these both look awesome!! Great improv designs in lovely colors. I think the triangles are my favorite, but so hard to chose!

    ReplyDelete
  12. I would love to read that future post on drape and softness. I have my go to batting and it would be great to see how a shift might make for a very different feel than I might imagine. Lovely graffiti!

    ReplyDelete
  13. I just posted about my recent "improv" experience, making a wonky bird block. Ha! I'm just like you and with no plan at all, I come to a screeching halt. I'm going to work at it, but man improv is hard (for me, at least)!

    ReplyDelete
  14. That quilting is fantastic. Both of those quilts are beautiful.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Great scrappy piecing but the quilting is marvellous! Bravo! Thanks for linking up to #scraptastictuesday

    ReplyDelete
  16. Your quilting is lovely. It`s great to try new things and be outside of our comfort zone - especially when eventually it will become part of your regular quilting!

    ReplyDelete
  17. Great quilts, I really like the triangle one!

    ReplyDelete
  18. The quilting on both is just stunning.

    ReplyDelete
  19. I could spend hours looking at all your quilts, so inspiring.

    Smiles from
    Kate

    ReplyDelete
  20. Both are amazing quilts, and caught my eye off the Scraptastic linky. My fave is the triangle one. I tried Graffiti quilting just from looking at Karlee's stuff and Kathleen's online, not as easy as it appears! You did a fabulous job. You sound like me with your waxing poetic about feathers! :-)

    ReplyDelete
  21. These are both just gorgeous! Your quilting is always amazing. Good info on the thread. I mostly use Glide for everything, but I need to invest in some finer threads also.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Whoa! "Pretty decent"!? Pretty AMAZING, I'd say! I have the Graffiti Quilting book on my Amazon wish list. After seeing this post I'm headed over there shortly to buy it! I have the hardest time switching up FMQ patterns, and figuring out how to transition from one to the other. This will definitely stretch me, but I am looking forward to trying this out! Beautiful work!

    ReplyDelete
  23. Wow I need to get that book and start quilting if that is what it is like. These are great! beyond great

    ReplyDelete
  24. I have a tough time with improv quilting too. A plan just makes things so much easier :) I do love your quilts, though, especially the blue triangle one. Thanks for linking to TGIFF!

    ReplyDelete
  25. Drooling over the quilting! You rock!!!
    Esther
    esthersipatchandquilt at yahoo com
    ipatchandquilt dot wordpress dot com

    ReplyDelete

I would love to hear from you, comments and questions welcome!