Juicy Bits

237: Cascade blog tour

Today we kick of the blog tour for my fabric collection, Cascade.  It's going to be 8 days full of inspiring projects with a giveaway at every stop! If you haven't already looked, check out the Look Book to see most of the great projects.

I'm starting it here with three amazing quilts that I'm excited to share.

The first is called Zen Bubble.  I designed and made this quilt.  It's mostly hand applique, which you might know is generally not my thing.  I'm all about machine sewing.  But this design just needed to be done by hand. There is something about the softness of handwork that I felt was needed to compliment the simple design.

The design comes straight from one of the fabric prints, Bubble.  This will be the free pattern offered with the collection and will be available here around the time the fabric hits stores (February).

I quilted this on my longarm.  The background is randomly spaced straight lines with a top and bottom border.  Since the background fabric of the bubble is raindrops, I thought little rainbows was an appropriate fill. :)

Next up is Somewhere Under.  It's one of my patterns with Empty Bobbin Sewing Studio, done in Cascade fabrics.  My friend Neva from the Central Jersey MQG made and quilted this one. 

I love how pretty the colors all look together.  And I'm so happy I got to choose 4 solids to coordinate with the collection.  This light grey is going to get plenty of use in my quilting.

And look at the amazing raindrop quilting that Neva did...

And finally, my friend Robin (also from CJMQG) made a version of the Diamond Strands quilt from my book in the Glacier colorway.  The soft icy blues and greys look just as I pictured when I first imagined the collection.  And I think this pattern has a "cascade-y" feel (yes, I'm aware that's not a word) that goes perfect with the collection.

Robin did such a great job piecing it that the whole thing is crisp and pure.

I also quilted this one on my long arm.  It was fun to use the fabric as inspiration.  And in the solid diamonds I did a deco styled motif.

These three gorgeous quilts are just the tip of the iceberg.  Check out the following blogs to see what others have made and stop back here to see what else I share.

Monday October 13th - Jessica Levitt - Juicy Bits / Windham Fabrics

Tuesday October 14th - Julie Herman - Jaybird Quilts / Jenn Nevitt -knit ’n lit

Wednesday October 15th - Amanda Kattner - What the Bobbin / Andy Knowlton - a bright corner

Thursday October 16th - Marci Debataz - Marci Girl Designs / Jennifer Auh Chon - Sunny in Cal

Friday October 17th - Angela Walters - Quilting is my Therapy / Rachel Gander - Imagine Gnats

Saturday October 18th - Elizabeth Timmons - and pins / Andrea Taddicken - knitty bitties

Sunday October 19th - Erin Erickson - Dog Under my Desk / Jessica Skultety - Quilty Habit

 

Monday October 20th  - Caroline Press - Trillium Design / Karin Jordan - Leigh Laurel Studios

 

At each stop Windham has graciously agreed to give away a fat quarter bundle of Cascade fabrics, so don't miss your chance to win.

 

To enter in my giveaway please follow me on instagram (@jtlevitt) AND leave a comment here.  You can either tell me something you'd make with the prize or something you love about water (i.e. you love the sound of rolling waves, or the heavy feeling of morning mist in the air, or catching snowflakes or your tongue, or whatever...)

 

I will leave the contest open until 11:59 pm EST Oct. 22.

 

JT 

235: that time we had a quilt exhibit

A while back, my guild (Central Jersey Modern Quilt Guild) had an exhibit at a large quilt show called NJ Quilt Fest.  It was our chance to show off the modern quilting style to other quilters that might not be familiar with it. 

So we asked our members to submit quilts that reflected the modern aesthetic and I think we pulled together a pretty sweet little exhibit.  I apologize for the quality of the photos...

 The feedback we got was positive and I think we peaked a few quilters' interest.

 There were 21 quilts total in the exhibit. And they included our guild "banner" which is really just a large quilt.  This banner was a group effort with lots of members contributing blocks and a few piecing it together.  I sewed one block, the lettering part, and quilted the banner on my longarm and I love how it came out.  We now like to hang it at retreats etc to show our guild pride. :)

 

These are the rest of the quilts in the show:

 Trio - made and quilted by Jessica Levitt

 Set in Stone - made and quilted by Krishma Patel

 Jessica's Quilt - made and quilted by Robin Buscemi

 Modern Trees - made and quilted by Neva Asinari

 50 Central -made and quilted by Elaine Hagaman

 Sisket - made and quilted by Lori Saporito

 

 Retro Rubies - made an quilted by Neva Asinari-Post

 Arbutus Menziesii (Madrona Tree) - made and quilted by Robin Buscemi

 Windows to Madrona - made and quilted by Jessica Levitt

 Birds of a Feather - made and quilted by Jessica Skultety

 Cantilevers - made and quilted by Jessica Levitt

 URBAN - made and quilted by Tatiana Kennedy

 Slice and Dice - made and quilted by Neva Asinari-Post

 Plus 5 - made and quilted by Elain Hagaman

 Broken Logs - made and quilted by Krishma Patel

 Pumpkin Spice Latee (back) - made and quilted by Jessica Skultety

 Improv Pods - made by members of the CJMQG, quilted by Jessica Levitt

Swirling Medallion - made and quilted by Neva Asinari-Post

A Sunny Day in Portland, Oregon - made and quilted by Robin Buscemi

Pebble Road - made by Jessica Levitt, quilted by Angela Walters

 

A few of our members at the show...

And what was super-fun for me was that my sassy kiddos got to see my work hanging in a show.  

JT 

 

233: progressive quilts

I'm back from Quilt Market in Pittsburgh.  I'll do a recap with a giveaway soon, but first I wanted to tell you about the progressive quilts we made at MidAtlantic MOD.

This was my idea because I’ve watched some cool traveling quilts and really liked the idea, but wanted to do it in a more compressed time frame.  Basically they’re similar to a traveling quilt or round robin, except that each was put together during the weekend.  Those that signed up had some fabric sent to them with the “theme” and then had to make a block, section, or several blocks at home.  Then at the retreat it was passed around and each participant worked on adding their block and possibly more for at least an hour.  At the end of the weekend one participant would win it at random.  I worked on all three.

The first theme was Low Volume/Little Bits.  Low volume fabrics were sent (provided by Pennington Quiltworks) and the instructions were to add little pops of color in any design desired.  It was interesting to see how it transformed throughout the weekend.  

I LOVED the end quilt.  My contributions were the words and the asterisk blocks and some layout of course.  

Next we had the theme of Triangles.  For this one a color scheme was provided.  The various off-white Kona Cotton shades were sent as well as rust orange, cerise, gray, and navy fabrics. 

This one didn’t get completed but it came a long way.  There were several points it looked a total mess.  But in the end it came out rather cool.

My main contribution was the wonky triangles in the top right, but I also did quite a bit of work on the layout including seam-ripping at the 3am to move things around.

Finally, we had a theme of Stripes.  All of the fabric was Modern Solids by Alissa Haight Carlson provided by In the Beginning Fabrics.  You were only allowed to use the fabric provided and could make anything you thought was stripes.

This was my original block:

And the final quilt is gorgeous.  And I won it!  Woo hoo! Hopefully I can get it completed in time to submit it in the group category of Quilt Con.

The whole process of making them was great fun.  Discussing and changing things.  We even ripped things apart or cut each other’s blocks.  They’re so unique and I know no one could have come up with them on their own.

Check out #progressivequilts on Instagram for more pictures.

We'll definitely do it again next year, so any ideas you have for themes would be appreciated. :)

JT

232: out of order

By “out of order” I don’t mean broken, but rather not chronological.  Although I guess you could say this blog has been kinda “broken”.  Plenty has happened I could share here but for various reasons, most of which I won’t bore you with, I’ve neglected the blog.  And it just snowballs from there.  Once I haven’t posted in a while I actually get kinda scared.  That might not be the exact word for it, but basically I feel like I’m failing and then who wants to do something they’re failing at?  Not the best logic, I’m aware.  Anywho, I’m putting that aside and getting back at it.

Oh, and also, I blame Instagram.  It’s too dang easy with instant responses and no pressure to take perfect pictures and write witty text.  So if you actually care about what’s going on currently in my life, you should follow me.  Really.  Because I’d like a lot more followers. @jtlevitt

So, to start off telling you what I’ve been up to in a very “out of order” way, I have to tell you about Mid-Atlantic MOD.  Um, well, it rocked.  Seriously.

 It was indeed a ton of work for me and my co-planners, Andrew Joselyn and Katie Blakesley, but it was a huge success.  I had so much fun and was exhausted after the weekend was over.  This is me an Andrew in our matching hoodies (sadly, Katie couldn't come). 

If you didn’t already know, Mid-Atlantic MOD was (and almost definitely will be next year) a modern quilting retreat in Lancaster, PA.  We got the idea to plan a big, fun retreat in the Mid-Atlantic region so it would drivable for those of us that can’t go to Salt Lake City or Atlanta or wherever.  The 3 of us each is a part of our local MQG (Central Jersey MQG, DC MQG, and Philly MQG) and we drew members from those, as well as lots others.  These are most of the Central Jersey MQG that were in attendance.  Check out Jess's blog for another fun recap of the retreat.

Originally we didn’t want to plan activities, but mostly just have lots of social sewing time.  There was plenty of that in a huge ballroom where everyone got an entire 6ft table to themselves.

But we did add some awesome activities.  We had a cocktail mixer on friday night with food and gift certificates sponsored by some awesome shops:

Pink Chalk Fabrics

Intrepid Thread

Fat Quarter Shop

Fabricworm

Drygoods Design

Pennington Quiltworks

1 Choice for Quilting

We had a pajama party where we sewed pillowcases for charity, with fabric provided by Windham Fabrics.

We had a tote bag swap where we each made a tote with some Essex Linen provided by Robert Kaufman.  It was total pandemonium when we swapped.  Like Christmas morning, in part because we were wearing PJs.  There were lots of squeals. 

This is the Supertote I made that Sara got in the swap.

And I got this adorable tote complete with matching zipper pouches by Natalie.

There was fabric shopping in the area.  We even found some of my fabric.

And there were giveaways and swag by many amazing sponsors.

We also offered mini-workshops on various topics.  Check out the list here.  I taught 4 of them and had a lot of fun.

But my favorite activity of all was the progressive quilts.  I'm going to dedicate an entire post to those, so look for that in a few days.  I made these collapsible design walls that we used for the progressive quilts amoungst other things.  I'll do a tutorial on how to make them.  Theyre' made with the awesome Kaffe Fasset design wall fabric.

So there you have it: Mid-atlantic MOD.  Wherever you live, if lots of sewing, making new quilty friends, collaborating and just generally having a blast sounds good to you, you should come next year!  I’ll announce registration on here but keep an eye out on the blog as well.  We’ll try to make a email list you can sign up to for updates.  

JT

228: announcing mid-atlantic mod registration

 

Have you heard the exciting news?  Three Modern Quilt Guilds are getting together to organize an awesome quilting retreat next spring.  The Central Jersey MQG (me!) and DC MQG (Katie Blakesley) and Philadelphia MQG (Andrew Joslyn) have been cooking this up for well over a year now.

 

Here's the lowdown:

Mid-Atlantic Mod - a modern quilting retreat

April 3-6, 2014

Doubletree Resort, Lancaster, PA

www.midatlanticmod.blogspot.com

 

It's a long weekend of fun modern quilting activities including:

-plenty of social sewing time

-mini hands-on workshops

-swaps

-a fun group project

-charity sewing

-virtual and/or local shop hops

-and more 

It's going to be a great time to get together with like-minded modern quilters, get inspired, make new friends, meet some virtual friends in person, learn some new skills, and generally have a blast.  The idea behind this retreat was to make an exciting event like this available in driving distance from those of us on the East coast.  We currently working on developing lots of fun activities and getting amazing sponsors.

Registration for those outside our guild just opened up.  There is a limit of 60 attendees and it's already filling up fast.  The retreat cost is $115 for the weekend and doesn't included meals or hotel.  The hotel rate is $129/night for single or double and attendees are required to stay at the hotel or pay a surcharge.

To register fill out the form at the following link and instructions on how to pay will be sent to you:

 https://docs.google.com/forms/d/11kWcE_qjxXIr74m4kFIRSdl1abo9hdlK1CY6N6B4FGI/viewform 

Hope you can join us!  It's going to be LEGEND- wait for it -ARY.

Jess

222: Pixel Pop

Let's pretend that it hasn't been a month since QuiltCon, OK?

This quilt, called Pixel Pop, is the second quilt I had in the show.  It looks very random and it was put in the improv category, but in actuality, it was planned out.  Each rectangular block (yes, there are blocks but they may be hard to see) is unique.  

I made this pretty much in 1 week (which is super-fast for the easily distracted me).  It's a very fun way to highlight some of your favorite fabrics and uses up very little of them.

I quilted it with almost a simple straight line pattern, except I went around some random shapes about the size of the pops of color.  I felt it gives them a little bit of a falling into place feel.

The back is also pieced with some of the same fabrics in a minimaist asymmetrical design. 

And look even a a nice pieced label since it was going off to the show.

And you know what?  It didn't come back. I sold it! How fun. Though part of me wasn't expecting that so I didn't really say goodby to it.  No worries though, I have to make a very similar one because I will be doing a pattern for this also this spring. :)

I feel I should give a little low down on the QuiltCon experience.  How about just saying it was a blast all around?  I did enjoy the informative lectures and only took one 1/2 day class.  The show was inspiring to say the least.  The 80s party was epic.  Basically, if you can swing it and you're into modern quilting, go next time (2015) because it's so full of awesome people and fun energy.

JT

221: somewhere under

QuiltCon is this week.  If you don't know, it's the first quilters' conference put on by the Modern Quilt Guild.  A weekend of workshops, lectures, a juried quilt show, shopping, and partying like it's 1985.  Woo hoo!

I have two quilts in the show.  This one is titled Somewhere Under and I've been waiting to show it for a while now.  Not to be all braggy, but I'm in love with it.  :)  The combination of the slightly off-beat vivid colors and the simple, graphic design that's just a little askew for added quirkiness, really does it for me.

This is the second quilt I've done entirely of solids. (Actually I added a couple of prints to the back...shhh...)

The quilting is my graphic version of clouds.  Maybe I'll do a little tutorial on it if there's enough interest.

And it's kinda 2-sided with a large version of the block on the back.

When it came to binding I decided using anything but white would box it in too much, but I wanted some definition so I added a flange.  It's mostly green with a couple of little pieced spots.

I'm working on a pattern for this and you can expect to see something in the Spring.

JT

219: challenges

I have mixed feelings about challenges.  The type of challenge I'm refering to is the kind we issue our Modern Quilt Guild.  We try to do a challenge or a swap every month.  And really I mostly feel like "I don't have time for this crap". 

But, actually, I've found they can, as they are supposed to, get me to try something I wouldn't normally do.  And, I do finish stuff I would otherwise slack on because as a guild leader I feel I should set a good example, etc.

So, I may not do them all, but I've been participating in group stuff a lot more in the last year than ever before.

So for this month we had a challenge that was part of the larger Modern Quilt Guild as a whole.  The challenge was to use the fabric line Madrona Road by Violet Craft.  We were sent some free fabric (enough for about 5-6 fat eigths each) and we could only use fabrics from the line and solids.  There were really no other guildllines.

I, however, issued the additional direction of "details".  Whatever the members wanted to interpret that as was fine, but it must include a detail of some kind.

While pretty, I don't think I would have made a whole quilt out of the line.  I do really love the text print though.

I went for a very simple design.  My detail was the flanges that I added around each square.  

I really like the minimalist look.  But I don't quite know what to do with it.  I don't love it enought to hang it on a wall.  It's a bit small for a lap quilt.  It could almost work as a baby quilt but it's obviously boy except for the flower prints.  Hmm....

JT

218: getting and giving

My Modern Quilt Guild had a gift exchange this holiday season.  We made it in January so as to not add to anyone's handmade gift stress. :)

The idea was a swap of a smallish handmade gift.  We had members fill out a little survey about their style and favorite colors and fabric etc.  We chose names randomly so you knew who you were making it for but not who was making yours (you know... secret santa style).

In the end, one person dropped out but I had already given their name out so I made 2 and got 2 gifts because it was really my goof up.  Plus, more fun for me!

I actually got 2 members that I at least know a little bit so I had fun making the gifts to their tastes.

First, for Kristina I made small bag.  I forgot to mention that I had everyone bring the gifts wrapped and kept them secret so everyone could try to guess who they were fun as we each opened them.  We might skip the guessing part next year, because it was pretty tough.  Anyway, the bag I made for Kristina was from my book which should have been a dead giveaway. (Pardon the pix but I forgot to take any so I snapped some at the meeting.)

She said she loves color so I went for it.  The accents are navy so I feel like it's great to dress up a pair of jeans.

Next I had Robin, who was our sectretary this past year.  I know Robin loves all things Parisian and she asked for any kind of craft sewing so I went for a notebook cover.  I pretty much made up the pattern myself and it was a tight fit but it worked out great.  

And to go with it was some little holiday bunting that reads "joyeux noel" for next year's decorating.

In return I got 2 fab gifts.  Turned out Kristina also got me. :) She made this awesome zippered wallet with lots of pockets and even place for a pen.  Aren't the fabrics so cheerful?

And she made this bag for fabric weights and gave some penny weights she made.  She knows I do enjoy Hello Kitty.  I put the rest of my weights in it and it looks adorable on my shelf.

Then, the other Jess, as I affectionately call her, got my name.  Actually she did, then we had to re-pick because I messed up and she didn't, and then when I let everyone know one member dropped out and they should make something for me, that was who she had so she had me again.  She tells it better than me. 

Anyway, Jess knew I was hoping (OK expecting) an ipad for Xmas so she made me this awesome zippered pouch for it.  I love the scraps with the linen and how she quilted it with random lines.  Jess is my VP of the guild this year as well as maintaining our blog, so the Jesses rule!

It was so much fun, like another Christmas, that I'm sure we'll do it again next year.

JT