I’ve scheduled another Sunday Sew-In for next week on Sept. 19 and I’d love to have you join me.
I hosted a Sunday Sew-In in June and it was an experiment but I enjoyed it and others seemed to enjoy it, so this time I have a better idea of how to do it.
I returned home on Monday night from a teaching trip, and just in time. News of the pandemic broke soon after and has only intensified in the days since. I’m thankful to be safely back home. I have no travel plans for a while.
Coronavirus particles. Colored transmission electron micrograph (TEM) of three coronavirus particles.
My daughter and I were reflecting on all the news last night. We concluded that only a handful of times in your life does something touch everyone in the country, or in this case, most everyone in the world. The last time I felt this way was 9-11. That was more horrific but this is unsettling and it’s not over yet.
Partial seams strike fear in the hearts of quilters but it needn’t be. Let me help you understand the idea with a Valentine quilt I finished this week.
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!
One of the sweetest quilts I ever came across is a Sunbonnet Sue baby quilt from the 30’s or 40’s. I’m not usually a fan of silly Sue, but this one was so charming that I couldn’t leave it behind.
I love the rectangular blocks. They’re more interesting than square blocks. And notice that Sue has a friend. Or maybe she’s a twin. There are two Sues on each block. I love the solid colors used for each little girl. They’re so cheerful.
One of the first programs I developed for quilt guilds is called One Hundred Small Quilts. I’m presenting these quilts in a series of short posts on Stash Bandit.
Luminous Lines by Diane Harris, 2009
Luminous Lines was created for an assignment in an advanced design class I took with Heather Thomas when I lived in Colorado. We were covering different elements of design, one of which is “line.”
Our assignment was to use line (and not much else) to create our design. I had these hand-dyed fabrics from Cherrywood which were all similar in value, so I used those for the background. I had ombré fabrics in similar colors with a splash of yellow, which I used for the appliqued bars.
I enjoyed playing with variegated thread for the quilting. My Bernina has a straight stitch that goes over itself a second time for a stronger line, which is what you see on the left above and on the right below.
For me, it’s often about experimenting to see what works. I do end up taking things out or taking them apart when they don’t work. But if I was never willing to play around to see what would happen, I’d never make any great discoveries.
I finished the edges with a facing instead of a binding. It’s pretty easy to do and it’s a good skill to have in your bag of tricks. I wrote instructions for facing a quilt when I worked for Quiltmaker. They’re useful and they’re free!
I’d love to bring One Hundred Small Quilts to your quilt group. Give me a call or shoot me an email.
I’m going to start sharing my quilts here in short posts. They’ll give you an idea of what my trunk shows are like, which is the thrust of my business, Stash Bandit: I’m a speaker and a teacher on the topic of quilt-making.
Nested Nicks by Diane Harris. Photo by Mellisa Karlin Mahoney. Used with permission.
When a quilt (or several) intrigues you, I hope you’ll visit my Trunk Shows page, or get in touch via Booking Inquiries. You can email me, too: diane@stashbandit.net. Let’s Talk Quilts!