Wednesday, November 23, 2011

WIP Wednesday - Christmas Traditions, Basket

Partially Pieced! - Christmas Traditions
All 54 base-level blocks of it are pieced. Gasp. Pant, wheeze. It was my first attempt at paper piecing and I'm really pleased with the results.


I also assembled one "test" Star just to see how it looked; in the future I have 5 more red stars and 16 cream half-stars to make. (see what the finished quilt will be)



And then it's on to learning to applique for the embellishments.

Partially Quilted! - Basket of Joy

Originally I was going to shelve this one 'till May when my Brother-in-Law returned from a deployment in Iraq since his daughter is the recipient, but then we got good news: he might be coming home early! So I dug this out of the "waiting to be quilted" drawer of my stash (it was already basted) and frantically started quilting it:


In case you can't tell from the photo, it's going pretty quickly, and I am probably about halfway done. I am using a design from Eva Larkin's Free Motion Quilting Made easy for the blocks,


and I still need to figure out what I want to do for the triangles around the edges. Any suggestions would be welcome


I am hoping to have this quilted and ready to for binding by the end of Thanksgiving weekend.


No Progress:
Planning
- Stockings 3 4 5 

Awaiting Quilting
-Christmas I

Still Binding
-Charity Princesses

Completed, need to post
- Pillowcases
- Stockings 1 2
- Apron

And there you have it, my first-ever WIP Wednesday. Special thanks to Freshly Pieced for organizing it!

WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced

4 comments:

  1. Those stars look lovely! I would love to make a quilt with just those! And, what a fun design for your rail fence quilt! You could do a half flower, continuing with the flower motif, or, you could do an inward curve from corner to corner of the triangle, or pebble quilt them. I'm sure she'll love it! And congratulations on getting him back sooner!

    ReplyDelete
  2. that's great he might get home earlier! what I usually do with that design on point is to con't the design on the triangles. They are half blocks after all. Do it as a border and be sure to mark the center of the block on the quarter inch line. With your uneven figure 8 on those "corners" that are on the side on the quilt, just make a hump and continue on as it's just half of that motif.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Such great ideas from this post and its comments! I do like the WIP format. I too may adopt it. We do have WIP presentations at work but they are oh so boring compared to quilting ones ;•) I read with fascination the tips from the other free motion quilters above and realize how much I have to learn and the potential for growth. In my quilting thus far I have focused on piecing, clever techniques for cutting/stacking, the myriads of methods for making flying geese, color theory. So far what is severely lacking is the creative area for the quilting. I just send it out and live with the repetitive long arm computer results, often picking the thread color in a snap decision when I drop it off where, in contrast, I have pondered for days color choices and pattern medleys for the fabrics. My quilter does a lovely job but there is still that twinge within my soul that the quilt should be my creation through and through. I did take a class about a year ago so I could rent time on a long arm but have yet to try out what I have learned. These last two comments are an inspiration to me and convince me I need to dive into a whole new area of learning, both terminology and practice, and quilt some on my own. My Spiral Table Runner was just a start.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I don't have a clue what it means to paper piece. I love the look of the baskets of joy!

    ReplyDelete