Christmas Squares & Turning the Corner

Here's my latest design.

It seems like I've been working on this all year long. I've been planning having it done every weekend since Thanksgiving but things kept getting in the way.

The main design is four squares. Each one has a slightly different border and a slightly different center.

I decided I needed an outer border around the squares. Typically, I'll figure out how long the border needs to be and break it up into sections. For example, a border of 70 stitches will have 10 repeats of a 7 stitch design or 7 repeats of a 10 stitch design.

In this case, I wasn't in a math mood. So, I played around with a design on graph paper until I had a repeat that I liked. I centered it over the design and repeated it past the edges on two sides. Where the designs met I simply erased stitches and added others until I came up with something I liked. This time, the plan worked out well. I like how the chain turns the corner.

This is the bottom left square and is my favorite. In the inner border, there is one green stitch in all the outer squares. It is the same green, but depending on how much white is next to it the green look different.

I stitched the design on a piece of Hopscotch Aida Cloth that I picked up at a white elephant sale. I like the way the blue border frames the red and green of the main design. The package the Hopscotch came in looked dated, but it is still available on line. However, I saw a rainbow of colors, but not the same blue I have.

This pattern is available for sale at patternsonline.

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It's about time - the big reveal

My bright quilt was finished in June but I wanted to wait until both were done before sharing the pictures. Quilting the blue quilt didn't take long but finishing the binding sure did. I did procrastinate a bit as it was too warm to have a huge quilt on my lap for most of the summer. After this, I'll probably do all the binding on my sewing machine (and stick to smaller quilts). Notice the cut-out corners? That was a challenge. I found instructions here and it looked easy enough but I wished I had practiced some. After a lot of finessing I finally got good miters but I could have done much better. The cut-out corners allow the quilt to hang nicely over the edges of the mattress and it's a perfect match for a full sized mattress. But, the top edge isn't even close to the pillows. I wonder how the quilt fit on the bed it was made for. Here, at last, is the original quilt that I was copying. I just noticed - all of the baskets are

The last 2 blocks and the tops are done!

I needed 2 more blocks to finish the gray version of the quilt. I ended up making simple 9 patch/half square triangle blocks. One is the yellow block in the lower left. Here it is closer up. When I made the half square triangles I had the red fabric going the wrong way so you are seeing the backside of the fabric. So the red in the triangles is a little lighter than the red in the center. It wasn't worth redoing. The other corner has a blue block and I managed to get the front of all the fabrics showing. So, here's what it looks like almost complete. And here's the blue version of the quilt. I've got the backing and the batting for the gray quilt (the backing is in the washer now) and I'm working on the thread to use for quilting and how to quilt it. They are too big for me to free-motion quilt. I don't have the space. As it is, quilting with the walking foot will be a challenge. These tops deserve so

Basted

A few weeks ago I was at the Local Quilt store basting my bright sampler. It's been ready to go for a while. I've been working on a baby quilt and it's now done. It's been a while since I've quilted so I'm glad I had a quilt to warm up on. Next I need to pull a folding table out of the garage and re-arrange my quilting space. This quilt will have a lot more drag than the baby quilt. I've also been looking at pictures of similar quilts looking for quilting pattern inspiration. I'm thinking of taking the easy way out and u se wavy lines like this quilt . I should start quilting next weekend!

Erica's Stitches

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