Rose Petals

Thanks to everyone for your kind comments about the Rose quilt that I blogged about yesterday: http://textiletraveler.blogspot.com/2011/08/roses-not-on-my-table.html

A couple of people asked this: how do you get the curved/wavy outside edges on the roses? Unfortunately, I didn’t take pics of the process as I went, so I’ve reconstructed the steps in (very primitive) drawings to try to illustrate the process. It’s harder to explain how I did it than to actually do it, btw.

As I mentioned in the previous post, I used a typical crazy-quilt type block. I started in the center with the pink or red fabric for the rose, then kept moving out until I switched to green and completed the block. At that point, I had a 5-sided “rose” that I wasn’t crazy about because the edges were straight:



To add a wavy edge to the rose, do the following:

1) With the block right side up, lay a piece of “rose-colored” fabric right-side-down against the block, along one edge of the rose
2) Stitch the fabric down to the block along the straight edge of the rose
3) Flip the stitched-down fabric back and press



4) Trim the stitched-down fabric so that’s wavy.
5) Sew the next piece of rose-colored fabric down along the next edge, flip, and press
6) Continue to add pieces to each of the 5 sides of the rose

7) Once all the rose-colored pieces have been stitched down, pressed open, and trimmed, sew the edges down to the block with matching thread. I used a zig-zag stitch.

I hope that helps! There’s probably a simpler way to do this, but this method worked for me :-)

Roses (Not) on My Table

A while back there was a discussion on the Quiltart list about using scraps to make quilts. I’m a compulsive scrap saver, and sometimes when I’m too nervous to cut into that gorgeous fabric I bought, or when I’m not really sure what kind of quilt I want to make, it’s easier for me to start playing around with stitching scraps together.
These blocks were made in crazy-quilt fashion. I initially moved right from the red & pink of the roses into the green, but the flowers looked too blocky. I ended up stitching another layer of pink or red to the edge of each flower, then flipping it open, trimming it into a curvy shape, and stitching down the edges. I like the softer, curvy edge of the flowers better than the original “crazy-quilt” block.



I quilted each block as I went, then put them together using Fiona’s Quilt as You Go (QAYG) tutorial. I love putting quilts together this way, because I don’t have to wrestle a large one under the needle of my small machine, but I’m still having some problems with the stitching. My walking foot a,nd feed dogs don’t really “grip” the multiple layers of fabric well and move them through the machine at an even rate, so any of the stitching that shows can look very uneven. I had a lot of this bad stitching showing on the back, and unfortunately it was white thread against a pink background, so I ended up painting the thread to match the fabric. You can still see the stitching, but you have to look more closely now :-)





Not bad for a bunch of scraps, dont’cha think?

Quilt As You Go

I seem to have a never-ending supply of scraps. This comes in handy when I’m reluctant to cut into my gorgeous “new” fabrics (although yes, I am fully aware that my kids would sell my gorgeous fabrics in a garage sale for nothing were I to head for the Big Quilting Studio in the Sky).
Anyway, I kept stitching the scraps together, then joining them with other fabric, until I had 12 of these 18” squares:


Around the same time, I ran across this “quilt as you go” tutorial, so I decided that would be perfect for my blocks. I do get tired of wrestling big quilts under the needle of my machine to quilt them.
This time, I quilted these blocks individually, then attached them together according to the tutorial. It was easier than I thought it would be, and I love the result.


Next up on the agenda: finishing up some old WIPs and UFOs, and working on some surface design techniques. But the next pieced quilt I make WILL use some of those gorgeous “new” fabrics!