Etsy

It has been a good day. I am still in PDF mode and trying to get my patterns translated into a form suitable for my Etsy shop. I have been working on the pattern for the Blue John block which I shared with you last year. 

I have now uploaded it to Etsy 

It is exciting to be able to share my designs, and I have plans for lots more over the next few weeks.

Hope you enjoy seeing my progress

Bev

Blue John Block #5

These are the Blue John Blocks I have sent to quilting friends around the world as part of a friendship block swap. They were a surprise for my fellow swappers so I couldn't put them on my blog until I was sure they had arrived. 

It was arranged by Nancy Leston in Canada and involved 24 quilters. We each had to make a block with a finished size of 12.5 inches square (for a 12" block). 

Participating in this swap has really helped me to develop the design as a paper pieced pattern and is now the basis for a design and paper piecing workshop.

Hope you have enjoyed some of the combinations I made. It is a really dynamic block and I am very pleased with how it has worked out. This is only the beginning of the Blue John Block family and I will share the development of my special block with you. (Please note that I retain the copyright on this block and the Blue John Block family)

Bev

Blue John Blocks #4

Happy New Year to you all and wish you all a creative 2014

Now that all the Blue John blocks have arrived at their destinations round the world I feel that I can continue to share the development of this special block design.

 I wanted to make a quilt which would go across the bottom of a double bed  as foot warmer. Out of the blocks I had started to explore from the photograph 

 I liked the 7 Piece block pattern the best. I also decided that I wanted each of the 7 pieces of the block to be of different tonal values.

I also thought  that each block should be different so that it would have the appearance of a tile floor.

However making a whole quilt in this way did not give me enough contrast in movement across the quilt.

So I decided to add in stripes and squares to the design, this added more interest to the design.

Having the squares and stripes cut out  of coloured papers allowed me to play around with the composition of the quilt, until I found a design that I was happy with.  

This pattern was too much like a tiled floor and I opted for a more asymmetrical design.

Once the design choice was finalised, and the fabric dyed, I then had to think about the quilting pattern.

Bev

Blue John Blocks #3

Development of the 7 piece block 

Having explored the 6 piece block I then turned to the 7 Piece block. As I said in the earlier posts I was thinking of marble floors and tile patterns.

Taking the tracing of the picture and simplifying the block and adding in tonal values gave some striking block designs. 

As each block has 4 sides different larger blocks can be created.
I haven't mirrored the image yet and have only used 2 or three different tonal values. 

Putting two of the larger blocks together, it is starting to look like tiles.

I really like this block but it didn't work in this form for the quilt so back to the drawing board.

Bev

Blue John Block #2

Colour choices and dyeing

Going back to my source picture I cut out small squares of different colours which I then tried to reproduce using water colours. This was the preparation for dyeing fabrics for the Blue John quilt.

Using tray dyeing and procion dyes from Art Van Go on polycotton  I created some wonderfully textured fabrics.

This is the grey, blue and purple palette, and the warmer yellow, orange and browns

I had in mind  terrazzo floor tiles and marble for this quilt so didn't want uniform colours

More design ideas using the 6 piece block. Not quite what I am looking for yet.

Bev

  

Blue John Blocks #1.

Whilst I was away on holiday a friend started an International Block Swap group. I have been lucky to be involved with this project and so I gave myself the week off the computer last week, to concentrate on a block I  developed during my City & Guilds. When studying for something like a City & Guilds you end up with masses of design work which never seems to be developed. I decided to go back and revisit some of my work which I will now share with you, over the next few posts.

My starting point was a favourite cave photo.

I love the colours and textures as well as the strong lines in this picture. To create the block I traced then picture and then isolated some areas with interesting lines. The three squares on the tracing.

I then simplified the shapes and looked at tonal values for each area.

Already I can see blocks appearing.

These are some blocks made with the 6 piece block pattern 

Hope you enjoy the start of this project

Bev