Bloggers' Quilt Festival!

Today I'm linking up to the Bloggers' Quilt festival, hosted by Amy of Amy's Creative Side.  If you've found your way over here from there, Hi!  Nice to see you!

I've chosen the Improv Chevrons Quilt that I finished up in April.

Amy asks entrants to "Share one quilt, and its story."  I love this idea, because most of my quilt posts focus on the details about the quilt, it's size, the fabrics used, and not so much on the motivation or process behind them! Let's get storytelling!

A while back, I pinned this pillow from Anthropologie, after ogling it in a store.  I ogle lots of things in that place. 

I had made some very precise chevrons before, but the ones on the pillow felt liberated and fun!  I love how the chevron rows "point" in different directions, and that there is a big variety of both color value and strip width.  I'd still like to experiment more with this idea!  I set out to replicate them with some improvised chevron blocks.

You can see more about how I made them here.  I picked a somewhat limited and deliberate palette, since I usually lean more towards scrappy projects.  Here, I used Curry, Cerise, Snow, Teal, and Gray.  Dreamy. I managed to make it through four big improv blocks before calling it quits, and set them up with some white and cerise sashing.  It became: 

It measures about 40x40 inches in the end, so its a small throw or great baby quilt.  Since I've already written a bit about its construction, fabric quilting, backing, binding, etc., I thought I'd give you a glimpse into what happened next!

To take photos of my finished quilts, I use my trusty Canon G12's auto setting.  Yep, auto.  I'd like to learn more about manual photo settings, but I'm usually really impatient to just get some decent shots.  Luckily the G12 takes lovely auto pictures! 

To get photos of entire quilts, I usually enlist a trusty assistant to hold it up for me, or I use two pants-hanger thingys (the hangers with the clips?) hung on a white wall from the crown molding. A clothes-drying rack is quite nice for a "folded and hung" shot. 

I try to take advantage of the the limited natural light that fliters in (somehow) to my Manhattan apartment.  In the photo above, the window is about 2 inches away from the right side!  

I used to think that I needed to wait to take pictures for the 20 minutes when sunlight streams right into my place, but overcast days actually give me the most even lighting, while those lovely warm sunbeams wash out part of my photos and leave the rest in shadows.  

I try to get an up-close shot that shows the quilting, 

and one that gives you a good idea of what the back looks like.  

I tweak things like exposure and saturation in iPhoto, eyeballing it until things just look nice. Then, all there's left to do is write it up, and post it here!  

Sometimes I'll have a recipient in mind when I'm making something, but more often I pursue ideas that interest me, like these chevrons.  In many ways I feel like I'm still trying to find "my" quilting style, and what an exciting process it is! 

Thanks for stopping by, and make sure to check out all the amazing quilts in the festival!