How is it possible to sew an accurate quarter-inch seam allowance and still have patches and units that don’t match up as they should? It’s the quilter’s eternal question, her 99-bottles-of-beer-on-the-wall refrain.
It’s frustrating to measure, cut, sew and press carefully, only to have edges that disagree like Republicans and Democrats. What happens? What goes wrong? Let’s take it apart and see.
I love using many different fabrics of the same color to generate interest in a quilt. On a recent design, I created red and green pieced borders and I love the way they turned out. They finished off a scrappy quilt quite nicely.
People often ask me about combining fabrics and how I do it. So let’s talk about those greens.
I hope you’ve discovered the serpentine stitch on your sewing machine. I could not do without it.
The serpentine stitch makes a pretty, wavy line. You just sew straight and the machine does all the work. It’s the bomb. I use the serpentine stitch for machine quilting with a walking foot. It’s easy and it looks terrific.
Serpentine stitch
Last night I visited Colorado Springs Quilt Guild to present “Make Extraordinary Scrap Quilts.” It was so much fun! They’re lively and enthused and it shows. Even the business meeting was enjoyable. If you live nearby, consider paying them a visit.
Scarlet Spin by Diane Harris. Photo by Mellisa Karlin Mahoney. Used with permission.
I shared about 60 scrap quilts with a goal of helping people see what makes a scrap quilt work, or not. We talked about fabric styles, color and design in a way that quilters could understand and apply to their own projects.
Swoopers by Diane Harris. Photo by Mellisa Karlin Mahoney. Used with permission.
Here’s an example of something we talked about on my Swoopers quilt, above. It’s a very bright and scrappy quilt that features many Flying Geese in the center, and half-square triangles for one border.
Take a look at how I kept matching Flying Geese together. And the same is true for the triangles in the border. It’s very scrappy, but by keeping sets of matching Geese and HSTs together, I avoided too much chaos.
That’s just one small way to make your scrap quilts work a little better!
Deb Frazier shared her red and green scrap quilt: spectacular in its brave use of color.
Show and Tell at CSQG was really good. I captured several wonderful scrap quilts such as the red and green one above. This quilter was fearless—and it shows!
Mary Ellen Bridges displays her scrappy batik beauty during CSQG’s Show and Tell.
The batik quilt above with narrow black sashing was so pretty! I think most batiks work together pretty well. The black pulls everything together on this one.
I’d enjoy a visit to your quilt group to share my quilts! Please visit my pages on trunk shows and workshops to learn more.