Quilts Are Calling

Summer has come to Wisconsin like a lion. We went from 50 degrees to 90 in a matter of days. Luckily, the heat stayed at bay until I cast-off one of my large wool projects...the other will just have to wait until fall. It's time to work with cotton fabrics...and maybe even do some hand-work while sitting on the porch sippin' lemonade.

The siren song of making a pieced cotton quilt is calling me. Maybe I'm in over my head... maybe not. For help and inspiration, I bought this book:

The Practical Guide to Patchwork: New Basics for the Modern Quiltmaker

The Practical Guide to Patchwork by Elizabeth Hartman has some really great general tutorials and the beginner projects have very clear directions. After much thought, I have decided that this is where I'd like to start:

I'm going to make the Small Plates quilt...yeah!
It seems like a project that is straightforward enough to be done well by a beginner, yet the finished product is dazzling! I plan on adding colorful hand-quilted elements to really make it my own. (That is a technique I've been wanting to explore for a while.) I hope to share this process that is new to me as I go. Hopefully some of you with quilting experience will post good hints and tips for me in the comments section. Maybe I will even come up with some of my own to share.

As a rule, I like to buy most of my fabric locally if possible...but that doesn't keep me from peeking around online. Fabric is just too fun.

Ooh-la-la... Amy Butler's Passion Collection
Awesome woodland fabric by Antioniamanda on Spoonflower
Mmmm... Bubblegumlove by Anna Maria Horner
I found this intriguing George Washington print on fabric.com
So I will be hunting for just the right fabrics to begin this adventure. If you see an indecisive woman sighing over bolts and bolts of fabric in a local craft supply store in Madison, Wisc., yeah, that would be me. ;)

–Cassandra

2 comments:

  1. Oooh, I want the bubblegumlove fabrics - so pretty :)

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  2. I know...those might have to end up as a quilt just for me!

    ReplyDelete