Jane's Floating Triangles + Charlotte QUILT SHOW This Weekend!

Good morning, my quilty-loves!  Since many of you may be experiencing Modern Quilts Withdrawal Syndrome now that QuiltCon has wrapped up, I thought I'd share Jane's Floating Triangles quilt with you to make that modern quilting magic last a little longer.  Also, I just finished it a few days ago and I am so excited about how it turned out.

Jane's 43 x 55 Floating Triangles with Spiral 3A Quilting

I stitched Donna Kleinke's Spiral 3A design on Jane's quilt, a design we selected to play up the feeling that the pieced triangles are swirling around in constant motion.  I am always on the lookout for digital quilting designs like this one that are unusual and that can create a custom quilted look when paired with the right quilt top.  I am just delighted with how this turned out for Jane.  

Quilters Dream Bamboo/Silk/Cotton blend batting was used for this quilt (this post contains affiliate links).  I chose lightweight So Fine thread in Blizzard to ensure that areas of overstitching remain inconspicuous and to maintain the uninterrupted color of Jane's saturated Grunge fabrics (skinny threads tend to take on the color of the fabric, so the bright white So Fine thread appears to be orange, yellow or pink where it crosses over colored fabrics.  Thicker white thread would create more visibly white lines of stitching across those fabrics).

Spiral 3A Design Stitched in So Fine Thread, Color Blizzard

Of course, there are often reasons why a super cool design like this one isn't already being stitched on a thousand quilts that are saturating your Instagram feed!  The most popular quilting designs used by professional long arm quilters are the so-called "bread and butter" designs that stitch out quickly and are versatile enough to look good on many different quilt tops.  This design is slow stitching and finicky due to the crisp corners (speeding up the machine's stitching speed will round off the sharp corners in a  design) and because of how the stitching lines need to connect with previously stitched lines to create the design.  This ain't nobody's Bread and Butter design, but it's totally worth it when the design is such a perfect complement to the quilt top.

Whenever I suggest a really unusual quilting design to a client, I know I'm asking them to take a big leap of faith.  It's so much easier for people to envision how a particular quilting design will look on their quilt if they have seen pictures of it quilted on some other people's quilts first, and I didn't have any pictures of the Spiral 3A design stitched out to show Jane.  All I could show her was the line drawing above.  These line drawings always look super "busy" because of the high contrast.  The line drawing is kind of like what this design would look like stitched in a heavyweight teal thread against a white background.  When stitched in lightweight white thread across a white background, the lines disappear and you just see the fabulous texture of all those swirling, spinning triangles!  

Jane's 43 x 55 Floating Triangles Quilt with Spiral 3A Quilting

Note that I loaded Jane's quilt sideways on my frame to orient the rows of the edge-to-edge design vertically.  That is one of the reasons I will never, ever give up my 13 foot frame.  Jane's quilt top only measured 43" x 55" so most long arm frames would accommodate this one loaded sideways, but even if the longest sides of the quilt top measured 110" I still have the option to load that quilt sideways on a 13' frame.  There are some designs that only look good on a quilt if it's stitched upright (think of designs with wording or flowers that would look weird "growing" sideways), but with a geometric design like this one, I always consider both vertical and horizontal design orientation and then load the quilt whichever direction will create the most dynamic result for that particular quilt.  If you look back at that line drawing, you'll notice that the horizontal rows are much more apparent in that upright orientation.  By stitching the design sideways on Jane's quilt, the design has a less rigid diagonal layout that moves your eye around the quilt better.  I love having that added flexibility to load a quilt sideways instead of being constrained by the limitations of which way the quilt will fit on a smaller frame.

Jane used the Modern Shoofly block pattern in Teresa Mairal Barreu's book Turnabout Patchwork: Simple Quilts with a Twist for this quilt, and you can find that book here on Amazon.  I also found a pretty kit for making the Triangle Tango quilt out of batik fabrics on Etsy here.  A smaller version of this quilt would be a fantastic baby shower gift, don't you think?

Jane's Floating Triangles Top Prior to Quilting

👀 Will I See YOU at the Quilt Show This Weekend?

The Charlotte Quilter's Guild is hosting our Carolina Lily Quilt Show this weekend, for the first time since before the pandemic.  The show runs this Friday and Saturday, March 3rd and 4th from 9 AM to 4 PM, at the Union County Agricultural Center in Monroe.

There are over 200 quilts in this year's judged show (including 6 of my own personal quilts and several that I've quilted for local clients who are guild members), and there are some seriously talented and innovative quilters in this guild with styles all over the spectrum from ultra traditional to bleeding-edge modern.  I personally cannot wait to see what our membership was busy creating during lockdown.  In addition to all of those gorgeous quilts on display, there will be a vendor mall where you can shop for fabric, patterns, notions, threads, and even test drive new machines.  Do you have a beloved vintage Featherweight machine that hasn't had a spa visit in awhile?  Bring it to the show -- Featherweight Poppy will be there servicing machines to ensure your vintage beauty purrs and stitches just as beautifully as she did the day she left the Singer factory!  And if you don't own a vintage Featherweight but have always wanted one, he will probably have some for sale at the show, too.  Be sure to stop by and say hello to my own awesome Bernina dealer, Creative Sewing & Vacuum, as well as one of my favorite local thread manufacturers YLI (where I get those awesome 40 Tex variegated cotton machine quilting threads).  YLI and Creative Sewing & Vacuum are both Sponsoring Vendors of this year's show, along with Carolina Cotton Company, Innova dealer Carolina Quilt Studio, Just Threads, Lewis & Irene, Quilters Treasure, and Quilts Like Crazy, and we have lots of other vendors in addition to the show sponsors.  Finally, the Guild Boutique at the show will be selling gently used books, patterns, and tools as well as an assortment of handmade gift items.  I'll be doing some shopping in the boutique for sure.

If you're local to Charlotte, be sure to tune in to WBTV this Friday morning because Cheryl Brayboy will be doing live interviews from the quilt show during the QC Morning lifestyle segments, giving you a glimpse of why you should clear your schedule, hop in your car, and come out to the quilt show in person.  I hope to see you there!

I'm linking up today's post with my favorite linky parties, listed on the left sidebar of my blog.  Happy quilting, everyone!