Pickle Dish Planning

In my last post I talked about my plans for a Pickle Dish quilt and my concern about the proportions within the block. Now that I'm satisfied with the block pattern, I'm playing around with fabrics and colorings in EQ7. I originally thought I wanted mostly black & white prints with colors for only the eyelashes, but I haven't been happy with anything using that combo so far.

I know I want a small scale print for the background so the seams where the blocks intersect will disappear. After auditioning several options I found the perfect print, from the Menagerie collection by Rifle Paper Co. The background is actually a deep hunter green. (Thanks Jane & Jenny!)

Some more play in EQ7 and here's the plan I'm going with:

This will be a long term project, a challenging one. This is not an easy block to construct; it's actually harder than the snake block. Stay tuned, and I'll keep you posted on progress.

Linking up with Sew Fresh Quilts

Eye of the Beholder

Proportion

Ever since my friends and I have been working on the snake quilt* and Cherie taught me how to paper piece the arcs, I've been wanting to make a Pickle Dish quilt. So I played around and drafted a block.

Um, no, I don't think so.
For a 10" block, I started with 2-1/2" squares in the corners which makes the arcs 2-1/2" wide. There's too much "eye" in the center. I might as well just use a standard Double Wedding Ring pattern for an effect like this.

So I looked at pickle dish & similar quilts on Pinterest. Many use Kaffe Fasset's pattern, so I ordered the book.

And made another test block using their pattern.

I have the utmost respect for Kaffe Fasset and his pattern design team. But to my eyes, it looks like too much eyelash and a beady little eye, with big heavy 3-1/2" squares in the corners. In his pastel version with low contrast prints, featuring those prints in large corner squares makes sense. But I'm thinking of using black & white prints for my corners, high contrast, so such large corners feel overwhelming to me, especially for the small size of the eye.

So I tried again, and I drafted a version with 3" finished corners, halfway between my first attempt and the KF pattern. Knowing that some corner squaress will be light and some will be dark, I used light scraps for this test block's corners.

OK, I'm liking the proportion better. Personal taste. No disrespect toward the KF design team intended.

But are the light corners influencing my reaction? Let's look at it with dark corners.

Let's look at them all together on my design wall.

I'm satisfied with the 3rd version, medium eye and medium corner squares.

Next I'll play with colorings in EQ7. All these test blocks were made with scraps from my scrap bins. I'm thinking black & white prints with pops of color for the eyelashes. This ought to keep me busy for awhile....


*About that snake quilt - the blocks are done but we're still trying to coordinate our schedules so we can get together for another sew day to get the top finished.

Linking up with Small Quilts and Doll Quilts, Em's Scrapbag, Love Laugh Quilt

Original Log Cabin Triangles Finished

Whoo-hoo! No longer a UFO!

The blocks for this were made about a year and a half ago, and the top center was assembled at camp. But it was a not-very-useful size, 54" x 63" and I didn't have any more of the colors to make more blocks. So it sat in UFO status for awhile.

I finally found the perfect fabric for a border to make it larger, while I was in Florida in September.

Perfect! The addition of the borders brought the top up to 66" x 75" which is a better size for a throw. 

Some spiral quilting, around and around...

I used the same border fabric for the binding.

The back is a remnant of grey Wide Screen. It was too long and narrow so I pieced it to the right size along with a piece of another grey print to fill in the corner. 

Nice to be able to add this to the finished pile! And I get to cross it off the UFO list - Whoo-hoo!

If you're interested, the Log Cabin Triangle block pattern is available as a tutorial here. 

Link ups:  Confessions of a Fabric Addict,  Crazy Mom Quilts, My Quilt Infatuation

Happy Thanksgiving

Wishing you and your family a happy turkey day!

We'll be visiting my sister-in-law and her family. By popular request, we're once again bringing party mushrooms* and candied sweet potatoes and wine. The quilt above, Maple Leaf Star, was given to SIL for Christmas last year. Here's another seasonal quilt:

Hoping you'll be enjoying good food and great company -

Happy Thanksgiving!

*No, not that kind of party mushrooms. Recipe for sauteed mushrooms & pearl onions in America's Test Kitchen 2007 cookbook (no affiliation).

Spiraling Around

Last week I mentioned that I want to get my original Log Cabin Triangles quilt finished. It languished in UFO status for over a year until I finally found border fabric for it. I pin basted it last week.

I ran out of pins, but after getting more I finally got the basting finished and started quilting. I'm quilting it in a spiral starting at the center of the motif. 

Around and around and around...  Just keep going...  I do think this style of quilting suits this piecing layout, but it sure is tedious. Music helps!

I used Connecting Threads (no affiliation) 50 wt. cotton thread in a pale grey called Silver. It's nice for quilting but a little thick for piecing. I have a lot of trouble with thread breakage with some types of fine threads on this machine, but much less breakage with CT thread, so for continuous quilting like spiraling around, CT was my preferred choice. 

There are plenty of wobbles and bobbles but overall the quilting looks fine. 

Maybe I'll be able to get it trimmed and bound this week. 

Linking up with Small Quilts and Doll Quilts, Em's Scrapbag, Love Laugh Quilt

He Likes It

DH really likes his birthday quilt. As he was opening it he saw the back and said "I know where these fabrics came from!" I had to tell him that was the back, then he looked at the front. He really, really  likes it.

He says it's warm. It should be, with flannel front and back, and wool batting.

Murphy likes it too.

Linking up with Confessions of a Fabric Addict

Original LCT

About a year and a half ago I worked on this original block and quilt layout resulting in a small top which has remained a UFO. This block is called Log Cabin Triangles, or LCT for short.

The block design, in patriotic colors, became the QOV block for the 2016 block drives hosted by Alycia in Colorado, Dar of QOV-Eastern Missouri, and others. Click on the 2016 QOV block tab above for more on that and a link to the tutorial.

After I sewed the blocks together, I never did much with this top because it isn't a very usable size, 54" x 63".  The dark fabrics were random fat quarters and I used them all up and couldn't get any more. I thought of adding a third color, maybe teal, but by then I had used up most of the extra light "logs" and couldn't replace some of those fabrics either.

I have a trunk show coming up and I no longer have the QOV I made from this block design, so I want to finish up this quilt so I can talk about it. I've been searching for something to use as a border to make it larger, and while I was in Florida in September I found the perfect print.

This week I added the borders, bringing the size up to a more usable throw size, 66" x 75" (here shown sideways on my design wall).

Now I'm in the process of pin basting it. Ran out of pins, need to get more...

I will spiral quilt this the same as I did my QOV verson. But I learned from that one and this time I'm pinning closer together, and facing the pins so I can easily remove them as I spiral around. Here's what the QOV looked like with its spiral quilting:

My goal is to have the original LCT version quilted by the end of the month.


Linking up with Sew Fresh Quilts