Christmas Gifts 2010

Now that the suspense is over, I can unveil some of what I made and gave for Christmas this year.

First, here's my big brother Bob holding up a rag quilt. Now that I have the Accuquilt rag quilt die for my cutter, it's so simple to cut and make these quilts. And since they're quilt as you go, I don't have to send them out.


Here's Fred playing like he's sleeping under the one I made him for his recliner:


My sister-in-law Paula also got gifts made with the Accuquilt cutter - the triangle-in-square die cutter made it simple to cut the bits for these three pillows:


Mom got a red and white table runner. These arrowhead blocks were from Quiltmaker's last issue (scroll down to see some of the blocks in progress, in a previous post.) The blocks went together very quickly. Here they are on her coffee table with some candles on top:


And here is the whole runner, on my design wall:



In other news, I'm now a member of Quiltmaker's Scrap Squad for 2011! I never thought when I sent in my application that they'd accept me. But now I have my first assignment from them, I've already picked fabric from my stash for it, and I plan to start cutting tomorrow. Can't tell you much about the project we're doing yet, but I hope to use up a lot of the blue and khaki flannel left over from my two rag quilts above.

Inside Medallion

I was trying to tie it all together for a spring theme, and I think that'll do. ;)


I did the grass and stems using liberated quilting, Tonya Style, just like the letters and wonky houses I've made using her technique. I sewed green triangles to white triangles, then cut the resulting rectangles into wonky wedges. Then I sewed those wedges together, trying not to put any two blades of similar height grass close to each other, and alternating pale green with medium green. I trimmed the bottom and top flat and parallel, then machine appliqued the pinwheels onto the stems.

I ended up removing some of the background fabric on the pinwheels because the bottom fabric was white, and made the pinwheels look as if they were floating above the stems, not the effect I wanted. I also wanted them far enough away from the star blocks where they didn't touch.

This is currently 24 x 24, a nice small size for a wall hanging. Should I border it or leave it borderless? I have enough of the white background left where I could put a 1 inch white border on, then maybe bind it in scrappy strips?

Design debates

Here's my latest block of the month arrangement:



I'm not sure how I wlll put these three little pinwheels in the center yet. I could cut a 12½ square of background fabric and turn the edges under and applique them down, adding stems and some spikey leaves at the base... or I could cut some background triangles for the upper right and left corners, and try to piece them in, separating the pinwheels with little one-inch strips. Then I'd piece some blades for the bottom... I can't decide. Any advice?

3 inch Pinwheels

There's the link for the pdf pattern to paper piece the little pinwheels,if anyone wants any three inch blocks - wouldn't they make cute ornaments if you did them in green or red?