Tag Archives: quilting

Free Motion Quilt Project – November

Posted on November 21, 2012 | 13 comments

The November Free Motion Quilt Challenge at SewCalGal is a tutorial from the very talented designer and teacher, Sarah Vedeler.

Sarah had us practicing spirals this month. She made it easy by establishing a grid on paper. The boundaries really helped me to establish a rhythm in drawing the spirals.

For my practice piece, I used hand-dyed fabric scraps, an almost empty spool of Coats & Clark for the top thread, and an assortment of almost empty bobbins with Aurifil 50 weight threads. I loosened my top tension a bit. And, yes, I use practice pieces to use up odd bits and pieces unless I have an end result in mind and I really need to know how the materials are going to play together.

I drew a grid on the fabric with a blue washout marker.

Close Up

The back:

For some practical application, I grabbed another piece of hand-dyed fabric (I wish I had the foresight to see that it would be a lousy choice for photography, as you will soon see.)

On this piece, I free-motion stitched a tree with 30 weight variegated cotton thread. I should have chosen a different color; then maybe the stitching would have shown better.

I’m calling it “The Ghost Tree” since you can’t see it. Sigh.

It will help if you click on the photos for a closer look.

The background is filled with free-motion swirls made from 100 weight polyester. No grid. Funny…after stitching all of those swirls on a grid, I had a hard time deliberately stitching swirls that are not evenly sized and spaced. I didn’t want the swirls the same in my background.

Showing Texture

The tree is not flat, but that’s hard to photograph too.

A look at the back:

13 Comments

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged fmq challenge, free motion quilt challenge, LCsCottage, quilting, Sarah Vedeler, sewcalgal

Friendship Star Quilt Block

Posted on November 16, 2012 | 2 comments

The Friendship Star variation included in Nancy Martin’s Perpetual Calendar is a bit different from the traditional and more well known version.

Friendship Star is drafted from an 8 x 8 grid.

Clicking on any of the photos will show a larger view.

Let’s begin by seeing what the Friendship Star quilt block looks like set side by side in a simple straight set with borders.

And how it looks with the blocks separated by sashing and cornerstones:

How about adding a very slight change in the coloring of the block, as well as using the Basic 4X and half square triangles blocks.

Alternate blocks give a secondary design element. Also, value can make a big difference. Light, medium and dark values emphasize certain aspects of a design.

Have a look at the Friendship Star blocks placed on point:

The above design alternates both colorations of the Friendship Star block. Where they intersect is where the red and white hourglass patches meet. Without using the alternate coloration, there would only be white squares.

You can see this easier with the sashing and cornerstones separating the blocks:

See the star formed by adding the large half-square triangle blocks?

The last example alternates the Friendship Star block with the Snowball block for a completely different look:

2 Comments

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged Basic 4X, Friendship Star quilt block, LCsCottage, patchwork, quilt design, quilting, snowball block

Four Knaves Quilt Block

Posted on November 9, 2012 | 2 comments

While working through a series of quilt blocks chosen from Nancy Martin’s Perpetual Calendar, I am exploring basic quilt design. Although graph paper and pencil works well to draft these blocks, Electric Quilt makes drafting and designing so easy to do.

This week, I’ve chosen to explore the Four Knaves quilt block.

Four Knaves is drafted from a 4 x 4 grid.

If you have BlockBase, it is number 1197.

I like to start by seeing what the Four Knaves quilt block looks like set side by side in a simple straight set with borders.

Then I’ll try sashing and cornerstones:

I like to introduce alternate blocks, in this case the Basic 4X block:

Alternate blocks will sometimes give a secondary design element. I rotated some of the Basic 4X blocks, and I can see a star surrounding the center block in the above quilt design. If I look at it another way, I can see the Four Knaves resting on a light background, or a square in a square effect.

This is where value comes into play. It will make a big difference where the light, medium and dark values are placed as they can emphasize the aspects of the design that I choose to show off. I’d play with value and color more before I’d sew up this design.

Next, I’d like to see the Four Knaves blocks placed on point: