Quilting By Design

Quilting is a relaxing hobby, a professional avocation and occasionally a cotton-based addiction.
It’s an enourmous amount of work and talent. It’s great to display these at shows.
It’s infuriating to see an unauthorized copy of your hard work and design sensibilty at a show.

Now, for the record, this has never happened to me.
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Finally, the part we all hate, binding a quilt. For the reversable place mats, the binding has to look good on both sides of the mat. That’s pretty easy if we chose related fabrics in the first place.
I usually round my placemat corners, then gently fit a bias binding around it. I round the corners by first trimming the mat in to a rectangle, since in quilting I’ve usually distorted it a bit. Then, using a template such as a CD , a saucer or a mug, I cut a curve at each corner. (more…)

When last we left our intrepid heroine… Okay, when last we left our harried seamstress, she was busy putting some holiday gifts together.
I am finishing some place mats and I wanted to list the guidelines I follow, so well, so other’s don’t make my mistakes.

I usually buy 1 1/2 yards of fabric each of a front and back . I cut these into 6 22 by 18 rectangles, and sandwich a thin fiberfill batting between.This gives me a generous place mat, big enough to hold plate utensils, table ware and napkin. (more…)

Having made the individual blocks, it was time to think of sashing and backing as well as the quilting itself.
I had a rich cranberry fabric that seemed strong enough to stand up to the black fabric as well as act as border and sashing fabric on the quilt face.
I made the simplest and fastest sashing I knew. Each block is surrounded by the cranberry fabric and the entire top by a wider border of that fabric. (more…)

So I had fabric, a rough indication of the size of the individual blocks and a plan.
The first issue was wheather the fans would be monochomatic or alternate colors. I settled on monochromatic , with half the fans having 3 dark and 2 light blandes and the other half 2 dark and 3 light. This would prevent the quilt from being too static in color and form but no be chaotic as mixed green and rose fans would be. (more…)

This started out as a simple quilt.Don’t they all? Since this was for my mother, I wanted to make a more traditional , sturdy, dare I say utility quilt that could withstand reapeated washings and dogs.
I found a beige and a black grounded version of the same focus fabric on sale.It features country style angelic cats wearing old rose and green dresses. At first I thougth I’d make something with lots of fussy cut little squares that included the cats. The trouble was, the individual elements are so crowded and so large that I would have too many decapitated cats in each square!
Hexes did not work either.
In addition, since this sale fabric was several years old, I had trouble finding calicos that had the same hue, value and shade. Everything I could find was too saturated and or too grayed.
My first impulse, to use the black fabric as the focus fabric had to be ditched.
Lesson One Never be afraid to ditch an idea
Lesson Two When falling in love with a fabric, purchase some related fabrics within the same year. Colors do shift hue, intensity and value as styles change

color shift, grandmother’s fan, quilting colors, quilts, patchwork

My mother is in her early eighties and does not surf the net, so I’m safe discussing her Christmas gift.
Pictured here, this is a double sided 60 inch square quilt meant to be used as a couch covering rather than a bed covering. She watches TV at night and needs something to cover her feet , but not so large that it falls to the floor. This size seemed perfect.

patchwork quilting, Grandmother’s Fan, square quilts, quilt tutorial