What You Can Achieve In An Hour Or So When You Get Cracking

I missed the final two Transparency Quilt classes because of my trip to England so yesterday I got out my fabrics, the book and notes and tried to remember everything we'd talked about in class two weeks ago!

The idea had been to try the fabrics in different combinations and layouts to see what worked best to get the 3D transparency effect but I've decided to just get stuck in.  I know I'm going for the Share and Share Alike Quilt by Ringle & Kerr and, thanks to Tatty dog, I know I'm making a runner to cover the holes in my sofa.  This makes my decision easy - an 8 block runner in neutrals and gold and given that I've ended up with a colourway that is identical to the example in the book I think I'm pretty much guaranteed success (is that cheating?!).

So I got cracking and here's the results:

Various stages of making blocks

Here's two blocks with sashing - can you spot the 'transparency' effect?

Maybe you can see it more easily at an angle?

Looking at these photos there appears to be a mark on the quilt but I know that there isn't - checked out the camera lens and it needed a good clean - hopefully future photos will be more accurate!

I only bought enough fabric for my initial trials so 2 blocks was as far as I could go.  Need to buy more fabric now to make another 6 blocks, border, backing and binding.  Let's hope the sofa can hold out that long - I'll keep you posted!

Other Transparency Quilt related posts:
Transparency Quilts

Transparency Quilts

Went today to my first class of a 3 session course called 'Transparency Quilts' at my LQS, Manhattan (my favourite place to be).  The instructor is John Kubiniec, quilter and quilt pattern designer for Windham Fabrics and we're working from the book 'Transparency Quilts' by Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr.

To create a transparency you combine three different fabrics to give the impression that when two are overlayed the third is the colour change where you see them through each other.  Lots of class discussion about colour terminology: Hue (colour); Value (tone-dark & tint-light); and Saturation (brightness & intensity).  We spoke about the colourwheel and why, when creating a transparency, the obvious colour mixing combinations (blue+yellow=green) don't always work. We discussed the use of solids vs prints - really interesting stuff but then the trickiest bit - venturing out from the classroom into the shop to put what we'd learnt into practice purchasing fabrics to test out the theory.

Here's my purchases:

Caught chewing the sofa!

I'm thinking I'll make a small quilted throw for one of my sofas (basically to cover up the hole that my 9 month old dog has torn in the seat cushion - she's actually torn 2 of 4 sofa seat cushions and yet we still love her, what is it with humans and dogs?!  Oh, while I'm typing this I've just looked over and she's pulling a bit more of the cover apart and in typical Chrissie style I find myself running to take a photo so I can share it with you all rather than trying to save the sofa!!!

'Share and Share Alike' quilt by Ringle & Kerr

 


Back to my quilt plans, I've decided to work with solids while I get the hang of this transparency thing, the 3 top neutral fabrics are my chosen colours to create the transparent blocks while the gold, off white and aqua fabrics are possible sashing colours (the aqua's in case I change my mind about the sofa and decide I want it for the bedroom).

This is the quilt pattern I'm going to make.  It's Ringle & Kerr's 'Share and Share Alike' pattern from their book 'Transparency Quilts'.  Looking at it now I realise that my own colour choices are pretty much identical to theirs so hopefully that pretty much guarantees it'll work.