The Liberated Quilt Designer

Well, I wasn’t expecting this! I went looking in my stash for a quilt I’d made years ago. I couldn’t remember what it looked like. And when I pulled it out and brought it upstairs and started unfolding… well, not one but TWO quilts fell out!

This one I expected. And then there was a second:

When did I make this one? Anybody know? I don't remember it one bit! This pattern makes up so quickly that I guess it never really sank in. But don't these two look good together? I could see them each on a twin bed in the same room! And no, they were not made to match. That's purely accidental!

I made this one from blocks Melody gave me:

And then this one is on my wall right now:

Don't these two look like they go together? I could also see these on two twins in the same bedroom! And no, these weren't made to match either. But they work.

The other thing I noticed is that all of them are about the same sizes and shapes. They are roughly sixty something square and three of them need borders yet. I’ve said before that I love a square quilt for a bed and the queen sized one that is on my bed right now is square and I love it! (I’ll get around to showing photos of that one someday.) So I’m thinking that in MY house, twin beds are going to have square quilts on them.

Thing is, I made this froggy quilt which is kind of cute. But that blasted quilt really started to get on my nerves when I laid it out on the floor and doggedly tried to force myself to add enough to make it fit a twin bed in the traditional way. I really developed an attitude about that one and honestly when I look at it I still see a square quilt with cheap filler at top and bottom. So… I am coming to the conclusion that I like square quilts. (So shoot me!) And with this wealth in the house, our children are not in danger of freezing their tootsies. So why am I fighting with myself over this? I like bed quilts square. It’s hardly revolutionary. I seriously doubt the quilt Gestapo is going to be knocking on my door anytime soon with a warrant demanding that I conform! So I think I shall liberate “PEACE, joY and hoppiness” from its rectangular fate. The very idea makes me smile.

I doubt I've ever been so happy about the idea of going to find my seam ripper! :)

Yes, so much of my life I've tried to fit a square peg in a round hole. I know that I've been led to accept the design I was created with rather than trying to be someone I'm not, for which I am eternally grateful. That is one of those life lessons that sounds very simple but is nothing of the sort!
So now this is ME telling the world that bed quilts in MY house are simply going to be square! And honestly, this makes all this work MUCH more fun!

So now I can get on with the important stuff, like which quilt goes on which bed? And what color do I paint those bedroom walls?!

Another Star

I’m in the process of creating a tutorial for piecing a five point star. So of course I had to make another one. Who knows, this might be the first of many.

King Sized Quilt Top Project

Last week my Mother-in-law and I made a quilt top in two days. It was an easy pattern, large pieces and it went together without giving us any trouble whatsoever. I designed the pattern using an existing block pattern. I wanted to do the traditional Amish diagonal set inside block. It could have been rather difficult but it came together as easy as could be and I was grateful for that. I chose the colors over a year ago when I visited the last time. And the fabric has set in storage this whole time. I made sure to purchase extra at the time because we knew that some of the fabrics were being discontinued. I am certain that there is plenty left over of everything except the white.

We talked about making a quilt for the Mennonite Relief Sale annual auction. Women (that’s an assumption on my part – certainly some men get in on the fun of quilting) from all over the Mennonite (and other) church make quilts to be sold and some fetch quite high prices. We talked at length about what features people really seem to like and the two main things were 1) contrast and 2) lots of quilting and less emphasis on the actual piecing. And we are both big fans of the work of Mennonite Central Committee – their focus is Relief, Development and Peace. See their website for more information: http://mcc.org/ So with these things in mind we started work on this project.

We had already chosen to use the pinwheel as the block. Our next major decision was which blocks would go in the center, we chose the ones with more black and white and I'm happy with this choice.



It is our tradition for me to design and cut the quilt, Sheril to sew, and whoever is available to help - irons. With three people working at these tasks, it doesn't take long to go from fabric to quilt top. As long as the designer/cutter (me) gets her part right. And if I don't get my part right then we end up ripping out seams which is pretty annoying.

Here we laid out the blocks to get a feel for how it was going to work. Thank goodness they have a large living room with carpet because we end up being on the floor alot.

I cut out the triangles for the center diamond while Sheril sewed a border on the central diamond of blocks.



Then we were ready to sew the triangles to the central diamond.

After that Sheril sewed on the next row of blocks while I cut out fabric for the next border.

Sheril sewed on the final border then, and when I walked back in the room there it was with that black and white border on it and I've got to tell ya, that was a sweet moment. It was exactly the right border to bring it all together and I was really ticked pink with it at that point.



Since it's a King sized quilt, it's hard to get it all in the picture when trying to photograph it - even standing on a chair. So here are a few shots of the details.

So this stage of the quilt is complete. Next it will be carefully marked where all the quilting should go. That's tedious but fun. Then it will go to the women of Sheril's church who will lay it out very carefully in a frame. They will start with a backing fabric, followed by a layer of polyester quilt backing. This top will be stretched out over this and fastened carefully. The women of the church will gather round to hand quilt each part of this quilt, rolling the quilt up as they go. When the quilting is finished, it will come off the frame and be bound with a black binding. I'm really looking forward to seeing it after it has gone through all that. There are many hours of labor that go into a project like this. I'm sure everyone who is involved hopes that it fetches a really high price at auction. Because it's all for an excellent cause.