Doll Quilt Swap

I have signed up for a doll quilt swap on Flickr. Go here if you want to see some of the beautiful small quilts that people have made and swapped in the past.

No, I don't play with dolls, nor do I have a girl child to supply with doll quilts. Neither do most of the people who do these quilts. Doll quilts are small, can be finished much more easily and quickly than bed sized quilts and offer their makers chances to try out new techniques on a small scale. They also look great as wall art!

I have made a couple of practice quilts to get ready for the swap. Here they are.

The first is the leftover block from the pieces of eight quilt. Since taking this photo I have completed this block with a binding that is the same as the backing fabric.

The last two photos show a disappearing 9 patch quilt. It is about 23 inches square. These three different fabrics are all blocks cut from vintage sheets. I got these on Etsy from a lady that sells an assortment of fatquarters, 6 inch and 12 inch pre-cut blocks from vintage sheets. I got some wonderful squares, ready to sew with.

I quilted the three layer sandwich with red, white and blue thread in wonky diagonal lines. The center photo shows what it looked like after quilting, but before trimming and binding. I have to say that one of the attractions of doing the doll quilts is that they are easy to maneuver under the machine when you are quilting.

Pieces of Eight

I am calling this quilt "Pieces of Eight." It is a Chinese Coin Quilt with the "coins" grouped in eights. Then I added 5 inch borders all the way around. The name is inspired by my current infatuation with Pirates (I mean the pirates of old--not nasty machine gun toting pirates of today.)

I used the quilt as you go method for this quilt to see if I could do a better job with the machine quilting with less bulk under the harp of the sewing machine. Using a high contrast pink thread for the quilting allowed me to see how my stippling design was turning out. I experimented with different types of swirls and whorls. The eight pieces in the center of each block were done separately to help them stand out in the design.

So, usually the quilt as you go method calls for you to sew the quilted blocks together with the seam revealed to the backing. Then the seams on the back are trimmed and covered to hide them. However, I chose to have the seams revealed to the front because I like the smooth feel of a backing with no extra bumps or seams. I will have my work cut out for me to conceal the seams from the front without botching the design of the quilt. Right now I am trying to decide if I should use more of the white on white fabric that surrounds each group of eight coins or if I should use some hot pink for both the center seams and the binding. I am leaning toward the hot pink.

The backing for this quilt is a vintage sheet from a thrift store. I chose it both for its incredible softness and also for its busy design. Busy designs are more forgiving when being cut up and pieced back together.

Here's the math: I used a Tula Pink Nest Jelly Roll and cut 2 five inch pieces off each of the 40 strips. That made 80 2.5 x 5 inch rectangles. When I pieced 8 of them together that made 10 blocks. As you can see from the pictures, this lap sized quilt only uses 9 completed blocks.

What happened to the tenth block, you ask? It will be finished by itself and probably sent off to a swap partner in a small quilt swap on SwapBot.

More on this project when it is finished!

Thrift Store Quilt Top

Yesterday after getting 2 new tires on my car, I went by the Salvation Army Thrift Store looking for deals on precious treasures. I found a box of fabric scraps for $1.00. Among the scraps were some Schumacher decorator fabric samples. After some consideration, I thought I could cut the samples in half to make squares that I would piece into a quilt top.

This pattern I made reminds me of the Chinese Coin pattern. To construct it I sewed the squares of printed fabric right sides together, down two sides. Then I cut the squares in half and pressed them open. Now I had the same amount of squares I started out with, but half of each square was a different print. I divided the pile of squares into thirds and sewed them together into 3 long strips.

Between each long pieced strip I inserted chambray blue fabric cut from a cotton thrift store sheet. Then I added strips to the top and bottom of the same fabric. It looks wonderful! I have no idea what fabric I am going to use to back it. I have a couple of choices. More on this quilt when it is finished.