Quilt Market - The Quilts

Nordika Color Hex Quilt, a photo by Jeni Baker on Flickr.

Happy Wednesday! Today's post is the first of a few to share all of the projects made up in Nordika for my Quilt Market booth.  I decided to break the projects up by type, otherwise this would be a very long post! So, how about the quilts first?

As I mentioned on Monday, this Floral version of my Color Hex Quilt Pattern is the first thing I made with Nordika.  I knew I wanted a couple of very bold statement quilts to be the building point for the projects.  The nice thing about this pattern is it takes very little fabric but still packs a punch. It's pieced with half-hexagons, so no y-seams, yay!

Nordika Color Hex Quilt, a photo by Jeni Baker on Flickr.

On the original Color Hex quilt I did concentric circle quilting, which I really liked.  This time I did a giant spiral, which was much easier, once it got started! I used a lovely dark grey Aurifil 50wt thread, #2605!

Nordika Triangle Baby Quilt, a photo by Jeni Baker on Flickr.

Next, a fun baby quilt using equilateral triangles! I mixed in coordinating Pure Elements (I'll do a big coordinating solids/blenders post soon!), using those for the upright triangles and the prints for the downward triangles.  It turned out really fun, and so colorful!

Nordika Triangle Baby Quilt, a photo by Jeni Baker on Flickr.

Still can't get away from the loopy quilting, what can I say! Let's just call it a signature!

Nordika Wonky Crosses Quilt, a photo by Jeni Baker on Flickr.

This quilt really stretched me, creatively.  I love order and symmetry and this type of quilting means letting that go a bit.  This might actually be my first large "improv" quilt.  But, you can hardly call it that because it's actually rather calculated. I was inspired by the Add it Up Quilt from Quilting Modern by Jacquie Gehring and Katie Pedersen. It was such a pleasure to meet them both at Market!

I created the cross blocks and then squared them all up to 5".  Then rather than lay the quilt out and figure out how to piece the negative space, I simply cut up a ton of 5" squares from the white and randomly pieced each row.  Then laid the rows out and figured out a suitable layout. 

Nordika Wonky Crosses Quilt, a photo by Jeni Baker on Flickr.

So, if you're slightly afraid of piecing a quilt with lots of negative space (me!), this method was a bit easier for me, and did not take much weird quilt math! I'm so happy with the result and I'm glad I stepped outside of my comfort zone to make this quilt! I quilted it using a meandering loop design that I really ended up liking!

I backed it in the only black vintage sheet I've ever found!

Nordika Baby Quilt, a photo by Jeni Baker on Flickr.

Next up, a peek at one of my new patterns! Hopefully coming next month.  This is a baby version of the full quilt! This is a very quick stitch!

Nordika Baby Quilt, a photo by Jeni Baker on Flickr.

I used a new-to-me quilting design this time! I had always loved seeing quilts done with the Serpentine stitch but never knew how to do it on my machine.  I found this tutorial that walks you through programing it in as a custom stitch on the Janome Horizon and it worked great! I'll be using it a lot I think!

Nordika Arithmetic Quilt, a photo by Jeni Baker on Flickr.

These last two quilts were sewn up in a whirlwind! They were cut, sewn, quilted, and finished in a week and a half! I knew I'd be close on time, so I turned to two of my quick patterns! This first one is the Arithmetic Quilt Pattern! I made the throw size using 4.5" squares.  It was fun to see how well this came together, despite how busy it ends up being! It's such a stark contrast to the wonky cross quilt!

Nordika Arithmetic Quilt, a photo by Jeni Baker on Flickr.

Pretend I quilted it really fancy!  The quilting is the hardest part to do under short deadline for me.  I can only quilt for an hour and then I need to rest and ice my shoulder and wrist.  I'd love to get a quilting frame for my machine or a longarm one day, wouldn't that just be lovely? :)

Nordika Side Braid Quilt, a photo by Jeni Baker on Flickr.

Finally, the last quilt! This one came together quickly and first, then took a disastrous detour and finally in the end was finished just in time.  I used my Side Braid Quilt Pattern.  The top stitched up super quick, and I was so pleased!

The problems started from there.  I did not use enough pins while I was basting, and I knew I wasn't doing a good enough job but being pressed on time, did it anyways.  I paid for it when it came time to quilt, I had a giant line of puckers all down the back.  I ended up unpicking quilting for about 5 hours, and re-basting then re-quilting about half the quilt. 

Nordika Side Braid Quilt, a photo by Jeni Baker on Flickr.

I wasn't sure if it was going to be finished in time, but it was, thank goodness!

Phew! That's all the quilts! Tomorrow I'll share the pillows and other home-decor items!

Have a great day!