Laura Hartrich 1/8/16 Laura Hartrich 1/8/16

Shot Cotton baby quilt

Susan got a wedding quilt and I decided to also make her a baby quilt! Why does Susan get two quilts when many people in my life have yet to receive one from me? I don't know. Maybe I miss her, or feel guilty about not visiting her more? Most likely her big life events just happened to fall at a time when I had an open quilting schedule.

Front of quilt.  Measures 49"x35" — Front of quilt. Measures 49"x35"

Again, I wanted to make something simple for her, in line with her taste for all things clean and minimal. I started with big stripes in soft tones. Then a friend at Chicago Modern Quilt Guild told me about making a quilt using shot cottons and wool batting, and how the quilt was so soft and had such a nice hand. Typically I don't give a lot of thought to the hand of softness of the quilts I make, but in this instance it seemed like making a baby quilt extra soft would be a great idea. I had a gorgeous stack of shot cottons that I had purchased at a great price on Craftsy. I loved this stack so much that I decided to use it as it was, not changing the order of the colors at all. I paired the colors up as they came off the stack, cut them into pies and crusts, and sewed them into drunkards path blocks. I decided to add borders, and the phrase "Hello, world" to the bottom of the quilt. I wanted to make examples of the letters I had sketched out for a pattern (Simple Shapes Alphabet, hopefully coming out soon), and I thought it was a cute expression to welcome a new person into the world. I did not know at the time that this is a famous reference to computer programming. Even though I did watch Halt and Catch Fire. But I digress. By now I had come to think of the original front as the back, and this more colorful patchwork as the front. Of course Susan can use it in whatever way she prefers.

I sent this to Nikki Maroon for some very simple, open quilting. After it was bound I added a label made from a piece of vintage embroidered linen. I hope it's getting plenty of use by sweet baby Nico.

UPDATE: Nico is the most adorable butterball and he looks perfect in his stripes on his quilt. This picture made my heart leap.

Laura Hartrich 12/30/15 Laura Hartrich 12/30/15

Wedding Quilt for Susan and Alex

My friend Susan has been extremely dear and important to me since high school. She left the midwest for beautiful Portland, Oregon several years ago so I don't see her nearly often enough. She has always had impeccable taste, so when she got married, I wanted to give myself the challenge of making a quilt she could love and that would look great in her gorgeous Portland bungalow.

Susan had expressed admiration for the work of the Hopewell Studios. I took direct inspiration from their quilts, but tried to put myself in there too. I had a few goals for the making of this quilt. I wanted to shop strictly from my stash. I started out strong in this regard, but ended up buying some additional neutral solids. I also wanted to work ruler-free for this quilt. I almost accomplished that, but did need to do a bit of measuring to successfully piece the mitered corners. And I threw in a few orphan blocks that were originally constructed using rulers. Everything else was improv with no rulers!

Working out the composition on the design wall.

I began quilting this on my domestic Juki, with a mix of straight lines and curved lines. I wasn't thrilled with how the quilting looked, and I didn't enjoy shoving this big quilt through my machine. I decided to add some big hand quilting. I always love the look of big-stitch hand quilting, and sometimes use it to (hopefully) compensate for the shortcomings of my machine quilting skills.

As always, I would change a few things if I could, but overall I'm happy with how this quilt turned out. I know it's already getting a lot of good use in Portland. Susan said it was the perfect weight for summer, which makes me happy.

Laura Hartrich 7/8/15 Laura Hartrich 7/8/15

Exit on the Left

This year's guild challenge for International Quilt Festival was to take the traditional friendship star block and make it modern. I submitted a quilt and it was accepted to the show again, which was fun.

My idea was to take a large-scale print and cut it in a way that created a new look. I was inspired by this quilt I spotted on Pinterest. The image comes from the Australian fabric company Umbrella Prints. I loved how the large-scale print was chopped up and used in an unexpected way.

The large scale print I decided to use was the gorgeous Ghost Wing by Anna Maria Horner. I started with the mint fabric, and bought the dark grey for the back. Halfway through the process I realized I loved the dark fabric even more than the mint and decided to make it the front. I made the mint into a mirror image of the front, so the quilt is completely reversible.

Nikki Maroon quilted this for me and I adore what she did.

Laura Hartrich 5/12/15 Laura Hartrich 5/12/15

Modern Hexie Table Runner

During our vacation out West last summer, my aunt and uncle hosted us for a couple of days in their beautiful Colorado home. I wanted to thank them with a handmade gift. I decided on a table runner because it would be quick but also useful.

I wanted to try a technique made popular by Nicole of Modern Handcraft. Instead of sewing the hexies to each other, you tack them down with fabric-friendly glue, then sew lines through all the points, on the diagonal. It's a kind of cheater's applique that ends up looking amazing in its own right.

I made the hexies from a charm pack of a fabric line called Barcelona, so they all played together perfectly. Then I pieced the background with strips from my stash.

My aunt and uncle were very appreciative of their gift, and I will always be grateful to them for showing us their corner of the gorgeous state of Colorado.

Laura Hartrich 1/21/15 Laura Hartrich 1/21/15

Quilt for Our Bed

We needed a new quilt for our bed.

When we moved to our new apartment I splurged on a beautiful comforter from Anthropologie. I loved this comforter so much. Unfortunately, the fabric was tissue-paper thin, and then we got two cats. Within a few months, my poor, gorgeous bedspread was torn beyond repair. Very sadly I said goodbye to it. I kept a swatch of the fabric, though, so that I could match colors and use them as a starting point for a new quilt.

(the following are progress shots, taken as I put this huge quilt up on the design wall.)

Since I had some practice cutting curves on my Sunset Waves quilt, I felt brave enough to tackle a drunkard's path design. I admired so many variations: random, serpentine, minimal, Star-Wars inspired (apparently), deconstructed, and many more. In the end I honed in on the phenomenal 5:HTP Squared quilt by Jen Carlton-Bailly. I liked how the blocks in her quilt formed shapes that looked almost like letters, but weren't. (I later had the chance to ask her in a facebook conversation about the inspiration for her quilt. She said it was inspired by a mid-century modern wall decoration in her grandfather's house, if I recall correctly). This got me thinking about making actual letters from the blocks.

Since this was for our bed I wanted it to be sweet and loving. I settled on the words Nate and I say to each other every night before going to sleep. This is a big one! Measures approximately 108" square. Gorgeously quilted by Nikki Maroon. I also extensively pieced the back, as you can see in the picture above. If I had it to do over, I would change a few things, but overall I'm very happy with this design and proud of how it turned out.

I'm pleased to say that this quilt appears in the pages of Quilt Now, issue 7. And that it will also be hanging in the show at QuiltCon, if it doesn't get lost in the mail. Things are looking a little dicey at the moment so cross your finger for me, would you?

Edit: I'm thrilled to report that this quilt made it safely to QuiltCon and went on to win the People's Choice award. It was such an exciting day.

There is a pattern available for this quilt. Click here to purchase. Thank you!