This pretty floral quilt in blue and yellow was made by Linda. She asked for low density quilting, and we picked “Ginger Flower” for her quilt, a floral swirly pattern that picks up the five-petal flowers of the outer border fabric.
Nancy made this pretty butterfly quilt using floral fabrics in soft colours. She stitched around the shapes using a machine blanket stitch and switched from matching thread to contrasting threads after a while to make the quilt more interesting. The quilting design is called “Wild Wind”.
Darcie made this cozy flannel quilt in blue as a gift for her son. The quilting pattern “Diagonal Plaid Bias Cut” is my new favourite design for quilts with squares, and it looks fabulous on Darcie’s quilt.
More than a year ago my friend Doris gave me a box of berry fabrics, saying she had made several quilts using these fabrics and was tired of them now. She thought maybe I would have a use for them. Well, it was a box of free fabric… what was I supposed to do, right? I took it home, and when I opened it I saw that there were even a few blocks inside. I don’t remember how many, maybe six or seven. I decided to make more blocks and turn this into a donation quilt for our guild. I didn’t have a plan, and that is not the way I usually work. I need a plan and a backup plan and possibly even a backup backup plan. Just making blocks not knowing where I was going was hard work for me, and that’s why it took so long to finish this quilt. That and a lack of time, of course.
I finished the top before Christmas and managed to quilt it over the holidays. Although I usually like to custom quilt all my own projects, I decided to use a pantograph this time and picked “Strawberry Fields”. I figured I might as well add more berries to the mix. And the quilt is so busy that any custom quilting would have been lost anyway. Then other things took priority, and I finally managed to put on the binding this week, yay. Now I just have to sew on the label, and it will be ready to be donated at the March meeting.
Jean made this quilt in autumn colours from a batik jelly roll. We thought that a pattern with leaves would be a good quilting design for her project, and going with the fall theme, she chose “Acorns and Oak Leaves”.
Shirley made this Split Nine Patch quilt using Christmas fabrics as a group project with her friends. The quilting design she chose is called “Lapis”.
“Dancing Umbrella” is a design by Edyta Sitar of Laundry Basket Quilts, and this version was made by Karen. I just love the rainbow of colours. We considered all kinds of clouds, rain and umbrella designs for quilting but nothing seemed right until I came across this swirly pattern called “Wild Wind”. It really makes the umbrellas look like the wind is blowing them all over the quilt.
I had to drop everything else and make time for this cute project, a quilt I need as a baby shower gift. Baby showers are like Christmas, they sneak up on you, and suddenly they are looming just around the corner, and you haven’t finished your project yet. I miscalculated because of a cultural difference. Baby showers are not a thing in Germany, and no one would ever think of giving a gift before the baby was actually born. I always had late March in my head as the due date, and when I received the invitation to the baby shower for next week, a whole month was suddenly taken out of my mental timeline, and that is an eternity in quilting. Anyway, I got my act together, I had the design and fabrics ready, and I spent the holiday weekend making the quilt top and quilting it. Here is a little preview, this little guy makes me laugh every time I see him. The quilt is done and just needs the binding, but I still have one more weekend before the shower, so it should be finished right on time. There will be a pattern for this but I haven’t even started writing it yet. I also have to make a sample quilt that won’t be given away. I had planned on making the blocks all at the same time but of course that plan went out the window as well.
This fun scrappy project was pieced by Gail. What a neat idea to just make the nine patch blocks rectangular – simple but very effective. I also like how the black/grey strips between the blocks go from dark to light. We wondered if the quilt was too busy for anything other than meandering but it turned out that the modern design “Bauhaus” worked really well with the rectangular blocks.
For the sixth year in a row, Marian of Seams To Be Sew is hosting her Row Along, starting in September. This year’s theme is “It’s A Garden Party”. I already have a design in my heard, “just” need to draw it out. I am sure we can expect to see lots of pretty rows in September and October. As always, if you just want to participate by hopping from blog to blog and collecting the free patterns, there is nothing you need to do right now other than mark your calendars for the event. But if you are interested in joining with a row design, head over to Marian’s site to sign up here.
