I’ll admit I have mixed feelings about how I quilted this one. I tried some big-little loops in the yellow pieces but they don’t thrill me. The rest looks fine, but I had to break thread a bunch of times to make it work out in the pattern I wanted. I was kind of glad…
Month: August 2017
Bonus block: Inside Out
I had a lot of fun making this block and deciding how to orient the four log cabin units. Pat Sloan designed it and she shows three different layouts in the pattern (I think I used a fourth). When it came to quilting it, I wanted to use a design that contrasted with the angles…
Bright Sisters: Nine-Patch Units
There are 80 nine-patch units (3.5″ unfinished size) in the Bright Sisters quilt. I used a traditional strip-piecing method to create them: The strips (and most of the units and pieces photographed here) are lying on my beloved Magic Pressing Mat. It’s a compressed felt mat that sits on my ironing board and gives me…
Block 48 Whim
I decided to use an allover design to quilt Whim and went with an echoed paisley that I’m trying to improve. It’s one that Angela Walters does in a lot of her videos. I’m struggling a little with the teardrop shape, but I’m getting there! I like the way it looks on this block. I…
Bright Sisters: Cutting the first fabrics
The first cut into freshly washed and pressed fabric is both terrifying and thrilling. I get over the terror by focusing on how much I want to make the quilt top. This one took a lot of focus, even though I kept telling myself if I totally screwed it up, the solid fabrics I’m working…
Block 39 Balls in the Air
This one was tricky to piece with all the little tiny slices! I accidentally skipped a step at one point and had to pick out a seam and re-do it. But it came out all right in the end. I went with very simple quilting that pressed down the dark green spears to make them…
First place ribbon at the fair!
Today was the first chance I had to visit the Sonoma County Fair and see my quilt Jude’s Foxes on display — and there it was, with a blue first place ribbon attached! I am astonished, delighted, and thrilled. It’s the first quilt I’ve ever entered in a fair of any kind. I’m so honored…
Block 30 Simple Surprises
I really like the way this block turned out. I wanted to add some diagonals for movement, and then it looked right to bracket the two green squares with echoed lines to give the block some solidity. I did the red-brown quilting first and then finished up with the dark green triangles that divide each…
Block 11 Crocheted Thoughts
The original design for this block includes an embroidered motif that looks like a crocheted doily and crochet hook. Somehow I never got around to doing that part, so when all my other blocks were finished I decided to embroider the quilt title, my name, and the date instead. I quilted a leaf design in…
Free motion quilting practice!
This week I practiced two new-to-me free motion quilting designs: paisley feathers and meandering flowers. I was binge-watching quilting videos on YouTube one evening and found Angela Walters’ tutorials for the two designs (paisley feathers here, meandering flowers here) and thought I’d give them a try. I’ve practiced on several of Leah Day’s designs from…
Block 26 Dreaming of Dresdens
This is one of those blocks that I was sure I was ruining while I was quilting it, but when it was done I decided I like it after all. I quilted the zigzags in the background first and then did the arcs inside the Dresden petals and outlined the inner circle. I went around…
Block 66 Happy Thoughts
I had fun piecing this block and wanted to quilt it in a way that emphasized the motif in the middle that looks like it’s dancing. I quilted around the center square and then around edge of the brown shape, creating a diagonal line from the corners of the square to the edges so I…