Tuesday, March 18, 2014

On retreat 3 -- mindless sewing


The book that I have been working on for a long time is finally approaching the finish line, despite my efforts to prolong the process.  On what was supposed to be a final edit, I thought of something brilliant that just had to be included, and then had to make up a couple of sample blocks to illustrate it.  The blocks were so pretty that I decided to make some more and sew them into a quilt.

It took two afternoons to make the quilt and one more day to quilt it, but I saved the binding to do at my retreat.  A quick sew, and it was done!

I just love to finish quilts with bindings -- it's such an easy process, and so neat and clean.  Too bad I believe that quilts intended as art suffer from bindings (makes them look too much like traditional quilts) and as a result, I feel compelled to finish mine with facings.  They look fine, but I find the process a bit more tedious and time-consuming.

So it's a pleasure to make the occasional piece that can be finished with binding.

Here's the quilt.  The purpose of the exercise was to show how to sew a block with wonky, wedge-shaped blocks set on a diagonal and still have the fabric grain parallel to the sides of the block.  It's a clever sewing process, if I do say so myself, and particularly appropriate to plaids (which I had two big boxes of in my stash).




4 comments:

  1. I love the plaid quilt, and the way you put it together. The overall hot pink colors sing for me too!

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  2. O, I really hope I can buy your book here in the Netherlands.

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  3. Cool! Love the way the setting makes the plaids shimmer. Looking forward to your book.

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  4. Brilliant, I love the choice of fabrics ... and of course the intriguing use of wedges. Plaids seem to benefit from a little disruption. Inspirational! - I might have to check my own plaids-on-hand situation and put them to some use (it probably won't be wedges though).

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