I made good progress yesterday on my "mother-in-law" quilt. I'm using a pattern from Evelyn Sloppy's book "Sew One and You're Done" that may have been the one the mother-in-law had intended to use for her holiday wall quilt. After the intensity, fussiness and decision-riddled nature of my last project, I can see how this kind of quilt appeals to a large segment of the quilting community. The instructions are clear and well laid-out, the individual pieces large by any standard - huge compared to how I normally work - and most quilts are presented in just a few fabrics, so everything goes quite quickly. Six and a half inch patches and half-square triangle units sew up into giant nine-patches. Flying geese units are bigger than goslings.
I caught myself feeling bored, though, even as I appreciated not having to choose fabrics or figure out cutting strategies. Machine quilting enthusiasts might be excited by those big open spaces, chomping at the bit to fill them with swirls and feathers, but not me. How about some applique to make it more Christmasy? Another book Carol had sent along, Mimi Dietrich's "Baltimore Bouquets," had an easy holly wreath about the right size for the center square of the quilt. I could use parts of the wreath in some of those big triangles. Now it was getting interesting and fun as I put my own stamp on this simple quilt.
Thank goodness I had no intention of hand appliqueing these motifs on. The wreath block alone has 27 not quite 3/8" berries. With the addition of holly and berries in the surrounding triangles, there are 48 more. I'm very pleased with how this all looks now, and got it layered and pin-basted today. Let the quilting commence!
I caught myself feeling bored, though, even as I appreciated not having to choose fabrics or figure out cutting strategies. Machine quilting enthusiasts might be excited by those big open spaces, chomping at the bit to fill them with swirls and feathers, but not me. How about some applique to make it more Christmasy? Another book Carol had sent along, Mimi Dietrich's "Baltimore Bouquets," had an easy holly wreath about the right size for the center square of the quilt. I could use parts of the wreath in some of those big triangles. Now it was getting interesting and fun as I put my own stamp on this simple quilt.
Thank goodness I had no intention of hand appliqueing these motifs on. The wreath block alone has 27 not quite 3/8" berries. With the addition of holly and berries in the surrounding triangles, there are 48 more. I'm very pleased with how this all looks now, and got it layered and pin-basted today. Let the quilting commence!
1 comment:
Nice quilt! I really like the colors.
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