The Nov/Dec issue of Quilty magazine is on newsstands now, and I’m very excited to have two new quilt designs inside.
Ever since I started building the Jingle Bells Trunk Show to share with quilt guilds, I’ve been obsessed with making Christmas quilts. I’m constantly working on new ideas, and these two were a fit for Quilty. You may know that magazines work months in advance, so I actually pieced these in April and May for an early June deadline.
I haven’t often had the opportunity to travel, but when your daughter and her family move to the other side of the world, you do it. I’m visiting Holly, her husband Dustin, and my only grandchildren—two precious little boys aged 2 and 6.
It feels like there is quilt inspiration around every corner. In the airport, I spotted this cover on Wired magazine. I see a quilt, don’t you?!
Bonnie Hunter of Quiltville fame visited three guilds in Nebraska last week, and it was such fun to reconnect with her. Bonnie has had a long-term working relationship with Quiltmaker, where I worked for 11 years, and that’s how we first met. I hadn’t seen her since we both taught at a Quiltmaker event about 10 years ago. She’s as warm and outgoing and funny as ever.
Bonnie’s quilts always look great in photos, but when you see them in person they’re even better. Such energy! This is the original Wild and Goosey that took the quilting internet by storm, and it’s a gobsmacker. You have to see it to believe it.
Last week I co-hosted a quilt retreat with Wagner’s Quilts & Conversation in Arapahoe, Nebraska. Eighteen quilters joined us for three days of fun. The food was great and the company was amiable!
The owners of Wagner’s Quilts are Ruth and Gretchen, a mother-daughter team. They’re good at making an event feel special.
We worked on Petit Patchwork, shown above, a small quilt I designed just for this event with the idea of teaching several new skills as we progressed. We covered partial seaming, mitering, Dresden Plate, stitch-and-flip, Flying Geese, raw-edge fusible applique, and increasing your accuracy for small piecing projects. I also showed them how to create scalloped borders for this quilt or any future projects. It was a lot to cover, and I know that sometimes they felt as if they were drinking from a fire hose.
On the first afternoon, we made some 5-1/2″ Dresden Plates. The color choices for the kits were 1930s, brights and Civil War reproductions. We also spent time tweaking our seam allowances so the patchwork would come out to the correct size.
We spent a considerable amount of time on the little 4″ x 6″ bird blocks. They’re not really difficult but there are a lot of pieces to manage, and you must sew accurately so the parts all fit together nicely.
This is a block that gets easier with practice. Some of the quilters will probably make their birds again, and I’m sure it will go more smoothly the second time around.
This 4″ Spinwheel block turned out really cute! There’s something about small patchwork projects that is just so appealing.
We made a lot of progress over the course of three days. There were messes everywhere—always a good sign.
Some of the blocks had dark fabrics for the backgrounds, which gives the quilt dimension and keeps it from being too predictable.
The meals were catered locally, and they were delicious. Breakfast and lunch was included, and then we found dinner in the evenings on our own. It worked out really well. Wagner’s Quilts provided gift bags for everyone and a nice coupon to use at the shop, about three blocks from the community center where we sewed.
Everyone had plenty of space and the lighting was good. We didn’t trip a single breaker.
I enjoyed getting to know them better. More than half were returnees from last year’s retreat in the same community.
They put on a stellar show-and-tell on Friday afternoon. I’ll show you those quilts in the next post. I hope you can join me for a quilting retreat some time! Soon I’ll have details for the Stash Bandit Mountain Retreat in Colorado in March of 2019. Maybe you can come?!
For the past several years, I’ve signed up for the Teal Mini Swap. It’s a fundraiser hosted by my friend Beth Helfter of EvaPaige Quilt Designs to benefit the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund. Today’s little quilt was made by Lorrie Langdon from Greenville, Mississippi. Lorrie was my swap partner, so the quilt came to be mine. I just love it!
The hexagon sides are 2-1/2″, and it’s about 4-1/2″ from point to point. The quilt is 18″ x 18″. She used a nice variety of teals, navy blues and light fabrics.
The thing to notice is how much the fabrics differ. When the piecing is repetitive, the fabric needs to do the work of holding a viewer’s interest. There are small geometrics, larger graphic prints, florals and solids. They all harmonize beautifully.
Lorrie also used value to her advantage. There are very dark hexagons and very light hexagons, and quite a few in between. She’s letting the fabric do the work, and it’s working.
The quilting adds another level of interest to this piece. Lorrie took her cues from the patchwork, but she changed direction enough to keep things lively. The lines of quilting are about 1/4″ apart, which takes a while even on a small project.
The quilting is an element that helps bring the bigger picture together.
These shapes look complex, but they don’t have to be. Above I’ve drawn lines around each unit so you can see how it can be pieced. A 60º triangle is added to two opposite sides of a hexagon to make the unit. Then the units are joined into rows, and the rows are sewn together. You can create diagonal rows, above.
Or you can create horizontal rows as I outlined here. Pretty nifty.
Lori added a 1/2″ white border and a solid teal binding to finish things off. This is a very successful little quilt!
One Hundred Small Quilts is a trunk show available to quilt groups. I bring about 120 small quilts that I’ve made and collected over more than 30 years. We go through them in about an hour, and there is so much to see! I’d love to share them with your group. Get in touch today and Let’s Talk Quilts!
Several of my small Dresden Plate quilts have facing instead of binding. When I shared them during a recent program, people asked for instructions. I wrote “Let’s Face It” for Quiltmaker in years past, so I got their permission to post that article here. I hope you’ll give it a try. It’s a great skill to have in your toolbox.
Dresden Delight, designed and made by Diane Harris. This little quilt has a facing instead of a binding. Use my easy instructions below to give facing a try.
A useful alternative to binding a quilt is adding a facing. Binding adds a frame of sorts around the quilt’s edges. Facing comes in handy when you don’t want such a frame, and it’s fast and easy to do.
Follow these steps to add facing to any quilt. I used dark thread in some of the photographed samples for visibility. In reality, use matching thread.
Layer and quilt as you normally would. Trim all the layers of the quilt even and square up if needed.
Cut the facing strips 2½” wide; cut enough strips to go around your quilt’s perimeter. If necessary, join the strips end to end. The strip length is determined as follows: for the top and bottom strips, measure across the quilt width. Cut the top and bottom facing strips to this measurement minus ¼”. (Having the strips ¼” shorter than the quilt’s width will help pull the facing to the back and be unseen.)
On both strips, fold one long edge under ¼” and press. Place one strip right side down at each end of the quilt, matching the ends of the strips to the sides of the quilt as shown. Pin both strips at each end.
With the quilt on the bottom (nearest the machine bed), sew both of the strips to the quilt with a ¼” seam allowance, beginning at one short end and turning the corner with one diagonal stitch as shown below. Turn the second corner in the same way and end the line of stitching as it began.
Now lay facing strips right sides down on the quilt front sides. Trim the strips so the ends extend about ¾” past the folded edge of the top and bottom strips as shown below. Fold one long edge under ¼” on both strips and press. Sew the side facing strips to the quilt as shown with a ¼” seam allowance. Carefully trim the bulk from each corner.
To make the facing lie flat, sew a line of sharpstitching, also called edgestitching: first, fold the side facing strip up as shown below. Beginning about 2½” from the corner, sew through all the seam allowances and the facing very close to the seam, ending about the same distance from the next corner. Repeat for all the sides.
Turn the facing to the back of the quilt and gently push out the corners. Press the facing flat. Sew the facing to the quilt back by hand with a blind stitch.
As you can see, a quilt facing is similar to a garment facing, but it’s easier to do because there are no curves. I use this technique on many small quilts and it’s really a nice way to finish.
My thanks to Quiltmaker for giving permission to post “Let’s Face It.” When you see Quiltmaker on the newsstand, please pick it up! Visit quiltingcompany.com for lots of inspiration.
I got an exciting email recently. Mary McIntyre took my “Let’s Play Drezzup” class on Dresden Plate in May when I visited Lafayette, Indiana. She wrote, “Look what got Champ at the Tippecanoe County Fair, Lafayette, Indiana!”
Once the quilt came back to her, Mary and I talked on the phone. She had never made a Dresden Plate before the class. Her mother had made them but Mary didn’t care much for the old-time fabrics, and the thought of extensive handwork didn’t appeal to her either.
I had a great group of students for a “Let’s Play Drezzup” workshop in Indiana earlier this summer. And I had a new experience with the GPS on my iPhone when it got me totally lost and I was very late for the class I was teaching. I was mortified but the quilters were so nice about it and our day together was terrific after that.
You never know what kind of fabrics people will bring, but the surprises are often wonderful. This quilter had fabrics from her mother’s stash! Aren’t those vintage prints amazing?
At the very beginning of summer, I drove to Lafayette, Indiana to share a trunk show of scrap quilts and teach a class on Dresden Plate. It was delightful! One of the quilters in the class emailed with big news last week, and it reminded me to blog about the Common Threads Quilt Guild.
This cool old barn was in the same parking lot as their meeting place in Lafayette, at a spot called Jenk’s Rest. I love old cupolas and someday I’m going to have one in my yard.
I’d love for you to join me for a skill-building extravaganza during three days of quilting, laughter, great food, fun and relaxation! Here’s the little quilt we’ll be using to beef up our toolbox of quilting tricks.
Petit Patchwork, designed and made by Diane Harris
It’s about 36″ x 40″. The blocks are from 2″ to 8″. The techniques we’ll be learning include Dresden Plate, fusible applique, stitch-and-flip with accuracy, options for making HSTs, mitering, paper foundation piecing (optional), how to create scalloped borders for any size quilt, serpentine stitch quilting and binding curves and scallops. Doesn’t that sound like fun?!
It will be a busy three days. Wagner’s is planning delicious food in abundance, and you can treat yourself to a massage on site if you wish.
New quilting friends and uninterrupted sewing time at one of the most beautiful times of the year! We’ll take short walk-breaks, weather permitting. Arapahoe is a lovely little town, a perfect example of life in rural America.
Get ideas for improving your machine quilting. Learn my easy mock-hand binding by machine. Gather gusto for labeling your quilts with a finishing flourish! All included in the retreat price of $200, which includes meals, three days of instruction and a kit for the quilt in your choice of three color stories: primary (shown), 1930s and Civil War. Lodging is available separately, and you’ll be given details when you call Wagner’s to register at 308-962-8458.
See how friendly and fun they are? From the left are Sarah, Gretchen and Ruth. We’ll all make certain you have a wonderful time. Please join us! Call Wagner’s to register: 308-962-8458.
