January | 2018 | NW Quilted Cat

Greetings friends!

Last March, I started work on the Elephant Abstractions quilt by Violet Craft during a spring break quilt retreat with my sister. I finished it in August, just in time to display at the NW Quilting Expo in Portland.

The original pattern is quite large and, having made the full-size Giraffe Abstractions, I decided to make the elephant at 50% size. Since this is a foundation paper-pieced pattern, it is easy to scale it by reducing the templates when copying them.

I purchased all my fabrics at the Stitchin Post the summer before in a frenzy of purchasing in the week leading up to the annual quilt show! The background is an Alison Glass Handcrafted Grove in Neon batik fabric and the elephant fabrics are a combination of Moda Grunge, Michael Miller Painter’s Canvas, and some solids.

For the quilting, I did some pretty dense custom free-motion quilting on the elephant body. I used more geometric shapes on the ears and different curvy shapes on the head, body, and tusks. I added pearl hot fix crystals in the center of the eyes. For the background, I wanted the quilting to make it seem like the elephant is running out from the jungle towards the viewer.

Here’s a look at the finished quilt:

Elephant Abstractions Quilt

Here are some close-up pics of the quilting:

I’m very pleased with how this small quilt turned out, and I’m excited to do another one of Violet’s abstraction patterns soon! Maybe even her new one, the Wolf!

Happy quilting!

~Jennifer

Happy 2018 everyone!

My goal this year is to blog at least once each week. Although I post on Instagram regularly (@nwquiltedcat), my blog posts let me go into greater details on my quilts!

For this post, I want to show you a foundation paper-pieced quilt that I designed for the small quilt category for QuiltCon 2018 in Pasadena. Unfortunately, the QuiltCon selection committee did not choose my quilt for display. I do hope to enter it into a local show later this year.

This quilt is called Renewal, and I designed as a personal reflection of my feelings for the Eagle Creek Fire in the Columbia River Gorge in the summer of 2017. This fire was human-caused and devastated the area. My family has been hiking, camping, and fishing in the area for 4 generations so this fire really hit home.

However, wildfires also promote renewal and healing in the forest. It is a natural process and cycle that keeps forests in balance. Hence, my quilt is Renewal!

Look for the quilted shadow animals. These shadows represent the animals that lost their lives in the fire, but also represent animals returning to the forest as it regrows.