In my post about the challenge quilt Snow Goose, I mentioned paper piecing. There are plenty of tutorials about it out there, but I thought I would show you how I do it.
Tag: quilting
Everything related to quilting – design, technique, organization, photos, etc.
In my discussion of color in this post, I showed a quilt that used two blocks to create the design. This quilt also uses two blocks, and creates an interesting secondary design.
This was from one of the earliest classes I took after I joined my local quilt guild. It was before I started putting labels on my quilt, but I am pretty sure it was made in 2003.
The two blocks used in the quilt are commonly called a square-in-a-square and an eight-pointed star. Blocks often have more than one name, depending on when an where they were published. This square-in-a-square has also been called an economy patch.
The eight-pointed star in this quilt has two different color layouts.
The one on the left is the center block. The one on the right is the four corners.
The instructor was encouraging us to use our color placement to make secondary designs. I was so new to quilting that I didn’t understand what that meant until I took this class.
By this time, I had started to understand that the quilting design added to the overall appearance, so I spent some time deciding how to quilt this one. The arc shape is the same size in the pale green circles as it is in the diagonal line going across the quilt from corner to corner. You can see it much better in this photo of the back of the quilt.
Quilts offer a lot of opportunity to play with color and color placement. When you change the color placement on a design, you can get very different looking results.
I have taken a fair number of quilting classes over the years. My favorite classes are those that stretch my skills and teach me new things.
In 2008, my guild had a teacher in named Sharyn Craig. Her class was teaching a couple of piecing skills – curved seams and y-seams. Piecing is the term for how you put the fabric together to make the quilts.
For the quilt show that was taking place during the 25th anniversary of my local quilt group, we were given some white fabric with a silvery sheen and told that the block had to be divisible into 25 squares. There was also a maximum size limit for the quilt.
Every other year, my local quilt guild has a show, and there is always a challenge project. It encourages people to create something special in a theme to share with the visitors. It often has restrictions as to size and other details.
For my parents 50th anniversary, I decided to make them a small quilt. Many of my quilts are wall hangings, instead of bed quilts. I like to create designs that are unique. This one was based off a photograph my parents had had taken while they were on vacation in Wyoming some years ago. They had used it as a Christmas card a few years later and I had my copy of that.
