And Some Were Finished

I did a photo session in the yard (my neighbors driving by asked if I was doing a show) of the quilts I’ve finished this year so far.

I really like the way this Kentucky Crossroads quilt came together. I started it in 2019. It is based on a block from Barbara Brackman’s Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns. I have been trying to use white and black in some of my quilts.

I started this Carpenter’s Star Variation wallhanging at the beginning of the pandemic. It feels quiet and ordered to me, and I’ve spent a lot of time in teleconferences looking at it on my design wall. I’ve been changing out the quilts on the design wall a lot this year, maybe in part because I’ve had a lot of time for quilting during the pandemic, and also because quilt studio is now my home office so I spend a lot of time looking at my design wall. I finally cleaned the windows in my studio because I spend so much time in there working and I kept noticing how dirty they were.

I finally finished this blue and white quilt that I call Twelve Crowns, I think I started it in 2016 or 2017. I designed it based on a couple of blocks I found in Barbara Brackman’s Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns. I was very indecisive about the border and how to quilt it, so it took way longer than it should have.

This Tessellation wallhanging is from a pattern by Gyleen Fitzgerald. I started it in about 2009 in a class she taught at my local quilt guild. I didn’t use a walking foot when I sewed the border on the first time and it stretched and I didn’t feel like fixing it so it spent a long time in a box. And then I couldn’t decide how to quilt it. It’s finally finished and I’ve been using it to cover the TV, although it isn’t wide enough. I hate looking at a bank screen.

I started this Double Irish Chain quilt a couple of years ago to use up some of the 2-inch squares that I cut from my scraps.

The quilt is reversible. I put together some leftover blocks from another project to make the backing.

I started this rectangular pattern during the pandemic. It is from a Bonnie Hunter pattern called Rectangle Wrangle, but I changed the border to one I found in a book on border patterns. Quilts with very simple patterns really benefit from pieced borders, they add a lot of interest. I bought more black and still ran out, I had to substitute some gray and brown in the binding. I quilted it with a clamshell design.

I started the Dresden Hexagon Star in 2017. We went on vacation in Michigan and I wanted an easy hand applique project to work on. This is the second of the two Dresden plate quilts I made from the blocks. In the first quilt I cut into squares based on a Missouri Star quilt tutorial Youtube video. I decided to try cutting the rest of the blocks into hexagons for the second quilt. I had this one longarmed by The Quilt Peddler because it was so big. I love the way it turned out.

This Quilt of Valor started from a bag of leftover X-blocks and scraps from the last one I made. I dug through my scraps for pieces to make more X-blocks and the red and white star blocks. I have been digging in my quilt studio and finding lots of Ziploc bags full of scraps that I am trying to use up. I made 5 backings from scraps. It is interesting improvising with what I have. Strips are pretty generic, but I also have orphan blocks, half-square triangle units, crumb blocks, string-pieced strips, and leftover triangles, Dresden wedges, and diamonds. If the fabric is already cut into something, it suggests a path forward, a quilt half-formed. Sometimes I will combine scraps from several old projects together, sometimes the scraps won’t mix and need to become something separate. I see more quilts and quilt backs coming from the scrap bags in the months to come.