My First Quilt / Beauties Pageant 214

Leanne Parsons, over at Devoted Quilter, launched a blog series where she interviews quilters about the first quilt they made. I was honored to be asked to participate! 

My story of how I came to modern quilting (through the Denyse Schmidt door!) is detailed on her site today. Check it out here, and then read the story of Leanne’s own first quilt, plus that of Laura Piland (Slice of Pi Quilts).

I wish you all a fabulous weekend, friends. Spring is in full swing here in New England, and it’s getting harder to stay inside and sew. May you end the week with a little fun inside and outside. : )

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Putting Free Fabric to Good Use / Beauties Pageant 213

I entered a guild meeting one month last year to find the tables covered in free fabric. A fellow guildmate was destashing boxes and boxes from her collection, and she thought it would be fun to let the guild take what it wanted.

I felt as if I were 10 years old again and walking into Christmas morning! My guildmates and I dug through the piles, discovering treasures and encouraging each other to take more and more fabric. I left with an armful of yardage, including Joel Dewberry’s Heirloom line in a beautiful citrusy palette. (Heirloom is long out of print, but I found it on Etsy, FeelGood Fibers, and Lark Cottons.)

When it came time to sew these prints into a quilt, I quickly homed in on Irish Twist, my take on a traditional Irish chain quilt. Most of the Heirloom I had was in half-yards, but I also had two larger cuts, and between the quilt top and back, I thought I could bust through almost all of it.

Irish Twist is a whole-composition design, and the larger sizes are made by cutting the pieces bigger, not by adding more blocks. This means I needed a plan for fabric placement before I started sewing, and I chose a fun way to audition the prints ...

The design requires cutting two sizes of squares. Before cutting all the fabric, I cut enough of the smaller size squares and laid them out on point to mimic what the quilt top would look like.

There is a coloring page in the pattern, but I’m not much of a coloring page girl. And this method is more effective, I think. Plus, because I cut the squares in the size I’ll use for the quilt top, I’m not wasting anything, just putting those squares to good use before I sew them up!

I made a few tweaks, cut out the remaining fabric, and started sewing. This project is at the longarmer right now. I expect to get it back soon and can’t wait to show you the finished quilt and pieced back! 

I am a fan of variations on Irish chain quilts. If you’ve encountered an interesting version, let me know!

And by the way, I am a member of the New Hampshire Modern Quilt Guild. We’re a super welcoming crowd, love fun monthly programming, and retreat together twice a year. If you’re in southern New Hampshire (or, like me, northern Massachusetts), come visit us!

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Another Plaid-ish Quilt / Beauties Pageant 212

I am always on the lookout for scrap-busting quilt patterns, and perhaps the best one I’ve found is Erica Jackman’s Plaid-ish design. This pattern, free on her website, is brilliant both in its simplicity and in the amount of fabric it uses. Plaid-ish requires no background fabric—just scraps sorted into light, mid, and dark values—and finishes at 64 inches by 82 inches.

The challenge to tackling a Plaid-ish quilt starts with determining a palette. (Erica has a less-structured approach to pulling fabric for this design. Check out her corresponding highlight on Instagram to learn more.) Because the largest cut piece in Plaid-ish is a 5-inch square and because Kate Spain is a master of color, I opened up a charm pack of her long-out-of-print Sunnyside as the basis for my quilt.

I took a stack of light and mid tones from Sunnyside and built from there. No orange was deep enough to be considered a dark value, but I uncovered plenty of purples, teals, and grays from my scraps and stash that fit the bill.

I did this initial fabric pull about a year ago and then set it aside, mainly because I had other priorities and wasn’t in a rush to finish the project. Plus, I couldn’t find enough of my chosen palette to make this large throw, and sometimes just waiting, and working through other quilts, creates more usable scraps. 

When I picked up this project again last month, I still didn’t have enough of the colors I needed. The solution was not to run to the fabric store and buy more—I simply enlarged the palette! And if you look closely at the picture at the top of the post, you’ll see my additions. They’re all mid and dark tones of raspberry that infuse the quilt top with a vibrant color other than orange. I think the quilt is better with them in it.

You can snag your own copy of Plaid-ish on Erica’s site (Kitchen Table Quilting) here. If you have other recommendations for patterns that similarly bust through fabric without relying on a background fabric, please share them in the comments below. Heaven knows I have the scraps and stash to use up! : )

P.S. This is my second Plaid-ish! Check out my original version here.

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Pageant Highlight Reel / Beauties Pageant 211

There’s nothing like the promise of a new project to get me through my current one. And since returning from QuiltCon, I’ve been chipping away at my WIPs, making such good progress that I’m considering what may be next.

I’ve long wanted to make a Pen and Paper Patterns quilt. (Right now, I’m eyeing Sparrow, Pineberry, and Book Nook. A new one—Hello Spring—releases later this month!) But past Beauties Pageants are influencing my to-make list, too ...

Anne-Marie, at Stories from the Sewing Room, recently finished her Chalk quilt. The two-color design, created by Cheryl Brickey, is one I was already familiar with. Seeing Anne-Marie’s completed project, with its made-for-this-project backing fabric, however, has me eyeing the larger cuts in my stash that I need to use up. If you have 4.25 yards of a solid on hand, this pattern may be up your alley, too!

A storm at sea quilt doesn’t appear on my quilty bucket list, but when I saw Karen’s Court Jester, a project that combines this traditional motif with a scrappy approach, I had to reconsider my position. I’ve seen other quilters rely on color gradations to achieve movement with storm at sea projects. The variations of color and value in Karen’s scrappy version (including those borders!) up the ante, making her creation something special. Head to Karen’s Quilts Etc. to see more of this project.

What from previous Beauties Pageants has your creative juices flowing? Let us know in the comments below!

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The pageant rules are simple:

• Post your finish in the linky tool. (No links to your own giveaway or linky, please!)
• Point your readers back here with a text link or use the button above.
• Visit and comment on other participants’ finishes.

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Click here to enter