Well, as I mentioned, during all of the non-blogging, I have been doing some sewing. If you follow me on Instagram, you've seen some sneak pics of this quilt, but I finally finished the Flippin' Triangle baby quilt last week!
I've been looking for an excuse to try out the stitch and flip technique used in Quilting Modern, and after much debate, I decided to try it out in this little quilt to celebrate a friend's new baby girl. The diamonds are taken from the Blind Co-Pilot quilt in the book. That quilt uses several different stitch and flip shapes, but I decided to focus on the diamonds in a more traditional layout.
I used prints and solids in my current (and lingering) girly color combo obsession -- pinks, coral, and orange -- in a very scrappy style. Each diamond was laid out in a very improv manner. My original plan was to add a full border to each diamond wish sashing to separate the blocks, but after laying them out, I decided I liked the look of the bigger border around the set of diamonds. After consulting IG, I added an additional linen border to increase the size of the quilt and separate the scrappy border from the scrappy binding.
The pieced backing uses a bit of the linen, two prints from the front, and one coordinating print. I quilted it with white thread in a radiating diamond shape. I quilted the lines about 2.5" apart to keep the quilt nice and soft for the baby. As always, I attached the binding by machine.
Ah, look at those mitered corners!
I definitely had my reservations as this quilt was coming together. I'm never very confident when I do improv, and I was pretty sure I was going to hate the quilt with each block I made, but as it came together and the borders were added, I did a total 180 and really love the final product. I hope the little one and her mommy do, too.
I can't believe it's been over a month since my last post! Things have been busy around here, and believe it or not, I actually have been sewing, but I guess I just couldn't muster the energy to write about it. I'm going to blame it on the heat.... Anyway, a few weeks ago, Amy over at 13 Spools wrote a great post confessing her 10 Quilty Little Secrets. It's now become a bit of a thing, so I thought I'd throw my hat into the ring, too. Here you go...
(1) I use good old Coats and Clark for almost all of my thread (definitely for piecing and usually for quilting).
(2) I use steam in my iron, and I don't press, I iron.
(3) With very few exceptions (mostly a few basics), I am not a fan of Anna Maria Horner or Amy Butler fabrics ... and a lot of the Cotton + Steel fabrics (though I LOVE their basics).
(4) I machine quilt all of my bindings.
(5) I love the look of EPP, but I hate hand sewing, so there goes that.
(6) I like the idea of designing my own patterns, but I'm perfectly happy to use ones others have created, often with my own little twist.
(7) I like the idea and process of improv piecing, but I'm my own worst critic and often don't end up liking the look of the result.
(8) I second guess my choices all the time and constantly ask my hubby for his opinion (and listen most of the time).
(9) I generally don't pin while quilting unless I'm connecting really long strips with lots of seams to match.
(10) I don't cut my backing and binding as big as they're "supposed" to be. I cut both about 2" wider than the quilt all the way around. I generally lay my quilt top on top of my batting (on the floor), then cut around it (eyeballing the 2"), then lay the batting on top of my quilt back and cut it to the same size. I've never had a problem with the backing not covering the top after quilting. (11) I sew on a (very) basic Singer. So what are your quilty little secrets? Feel free to leave a comment or link up your own post over on Amy's blog.
