Holiday Pines Quilt

... as a Quilter

It's tempting to just slap a gray border on this improvisational quilt and call it ready to quilt.  But wait ... I think it's better to take elements from the center of the quilt and place them in the borders. So, it will take a little more time now to complete.

I started out by making pine tree blocks ...

... in holiday colors. 

Then I laid the blocks out in a pleasing arrangement and added sashing with smaller pine trees inserted randomly.

I trimmed here and there as I went so I could sew a straight line.

Life ...

Boys will be boys.

Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times

Fiber Tuesday with Mel

A Glimpse Through the Lattice -- Cattails

A Glimpse Through the Lattice -- Cattails

Thanks to Amy's Creative Side for hosting another fine Quilt Festival.  

The process began by drawing a grid on the brown and gold background fabric. I fused “Heat and Bond” to the back of the printed fabric.

Then I cut squares from the printed fabric and fused them to the background.

Cutting and fusing only a few pieces at a time helped me keep the patches in order.

Quilted +/- 1/8”

Thinking of this quilt that I made back in 2014 …

 

… I positioned some sample chairs on the floor.

But then I decided to try a bouquet of cattails. Using paper I cut out a vase, reeds, and the cattail heads and auditioned placement.

 

 

 

Then I cut the cattail bouquet from dark brown fabric and

arranged it on the quilted background.

A Glimpse Through the Lattice – Cattails  

Cattails on the edge of a pond summon memories of simpler times, lazy summer days and the song of frogs croaking in chorus among the reeds. Birds alight atop the sturdy cattail stalks and herald the dawn. By bringing a bit of the country life indoors to create a cattail bouquet, one can catch a glimpse through the lattice of natural pleasures ad the cycle of life.

   

Size: 36” X 37”

Fabrics: Commercial Cottons

Techniques: Fused appliqué, heavily machine quilted

Finishing: Facing turned to back

This quilt will be in Little Rock, AR with The National Quilting Association’s (NQA) quilt show.


Linking to:

Beach Fence -- Fiber Art Quilt

At a recent MS SAQA “pod” meeting we challenged ourselves to use a capital “H” in a small quilt.

I saw lots of different “H’s” in this picture that I took last February in the Outer Banks of NC along the beach.

 

Zoomed in and cropped.

 

Beach Fence

8”X10”

$75.00

 

The back.

Techniques/Materials: commercial cottons, tulle, an assortment of thread including Superior’s King Tut and Fantascico, applique fused, heavily machine quilted, traditional binding hand stitched to the back, insert skewer under top triangles to hang.