This quilt is a variation on the two in Christmas Embroidery. but it’s much smaller at 12.5″ x 16″. Again, the designs came from San Francisco Stitch Co. The quilting is different, since the radiating lines on the other two would have been lost on such small blocks; I chose feathers, instead. Another difference is that, rather than the corded piping I usually add next to the binding, I used beaded piping. This technique came from Bethann Nemesh and is quite time consuming — though I think it’s well worth the effort. This quilt was finished in May, 2019.
It had been a very long time since I’d done a Drunkard’s Path quilt, but I do like the curves in this design. When I saw a new technique of doing them online, I couldn’t resist. I dug out some beautiful batiks I’d inherited from a local quilter who had passed away and used them to make Cecilia’s Circles. I named the quilt after the quilter who’d given me the fabrics. This was entirely machine pieced and machine quilted. For the quilting, I used a variegated purple/raspberry thread, drawing the curve of the spine of each feather onto the block and then doing the feathers themselves freehand. I didn’t think this particular quilt needed a border; I didn’t like the idea of the circles and partial circles being “contained” by any border. Here is the finished quilt, which measures 45″ x 45″, and which I completed in April, 2011.
The next two photos show a close-up of the quilting from the front and from the back of the quilt:
Blog posts: blocks, layout, finished
This is the first baby quilt I ever made, and it’s also the first free-motion quilting I did. That’s pretty appropriate, I guess, since the quilt was intended for our first grandchild!
The quilt is approximately a yard wide and a yard long. This corresponds with an old tradition of giving a new baby a yard of cloth. The project was the result of a class in machine quilting, and it won a blue ribbon at our local county fair in 1998. Here’s a closeup of part of it:
And now for a photo of the quilt in use! Our beautiful grandson was born on January 13, 1999, at 12:32 PM. He weighed 7 pounds, 2 ounces and was nineteen inches long. This picture was taken when Benjamin III (he was named for his daddy and his paternal grandfather) was just three days old! Isn’t he wonderful?
The thought of having to wash the large bed quilt I’d recently made was a bit daunting — having to do so frequently was even more so. Why would I have to do that? Why, because our adorable little Bisou loves to sleep at the foot of our bed, of course! 😉 The solution seemed pretty simple: make a bed runner for the foot of the bed. This could be washed much more easily than the entire quilt. I purchased a Moda layer cake grouping (about 40 10″ squares of coordinating fabrics) and found a simple pattern called “Slice of Cake” designed by Denise Sheehan. The leftover squares that weren’t needed for the quilt top became the backing. The bed runner was quick to make, and you can judge for yourself whether or not it’s serving its intended purpose:
The runner ended up being about 19.5″ x 91″, completely machine pieced and machine quilted, and I finished it in May, 2011. Below, you can see a detail of the feathered quilting I did.
Blog post
This piece came from a book from a friend in the UK, Pat Storey; her book is called Geometrical Quilts. I loved this pattern at first glance, and it was natural for me to use it as the basis for a challenge quilt for the local guild. We had to use the two black and white prints you see, and we could also use as many other blacks and whites as we liked, as well as one other color. The quilt also had to be embellished, which was a true challenge for me, as I don’t usually embellish mine.
The quilt was paper pieced (Pat’s instructions were extremely clear!) and machine quilted and beaded. The original pattern added triangles to four corners to make the quilt square, but I decided to leave mine hexagonal. It measures 23.5″ x 27.5″ and was finished in April, 2008.
Update: I was able to enter this quilt into our local show in 2011, and it won third place in its category! Here it is with its ribbon:
The San Francisco Stitch Company gave away the embroidery files for four really cute little animal blocks with an autumn theme, and I couldn’t resist making them. The border and corner files were more than reasonably priced, so I opted to use them instead of plain borders. The quilt is approximately 18.25″ x 18.25″ and was machine embroidered and machine quilted. I finished it in November, 2018.
Here are a couple of detail pictures of the quilting. First I did free-motion feathers around the animals in the blocks:
Next, I used ruler work to do the diagonal lines in the borders:
In April, 2019, our local guild had its annual quilt show, and Autumn Twist earned a first place ribbon!
Blog posts: blocks 1-2, block 3, block 4, borders, finished
In January, 2011, I took a wholecloth design class from Terri Doyle in Phoenix. There, I designed two quilts, but one must be redone for various reasons. The other, much smaller, one is this one. It’s about 17″ square. I quilted it with silk thread and wool batting (yummy stuff!) and finished it in February, 2011.
Here’s a detail of the quilting:
