The July Free Motion Quilt Challenge (Sew Cal Gal blog) instructor is Angela Walters. She is a long arm quilter but her background fill design called Tiles translates to the home sewing machine very nicely. This is a great little blank space fill design that can still be used with simple stippling or other background fill designs. It shows better on a plain fabric and is much more difficult to see on a printed fabric but that is the case with many quilting designs. The tile effect can be done with box type tiling or with angled lines giving a more jagged appearance (see the right upper corner of my sample) There is a picture of a quilt quilted with the angled line tiles on the tutorial, it looks very good with modern fabrics.
In between other summer activities I have continued working on my two album quilts. Two more Ladies of the Sea (pattern by Sue Garman) completed, the USS Constitution, aka "old ironsides". The second is a viking ship, the Osberg, circa 875, a long ship moved by oarsman
The block count on Ladies of the Sea is 14, only 2 more ships to go and I am on the borders!
I also have finished four more blocks for the red and green applique album.
I had originally planned to do 42 blocks and have an applique border, but I am leaning toward adding blocks -maybe 63 - a 7 X 9 set- and then the sashing around each block and no border.
I keep looking at the picture of the antique quilt I saw at the International Quilt Study Center & Museum in Lincoln, NE. that inspired this quilt and I like its simplicity of just applique blocks and sashing.
I am getting the patterns for the red and green block from all my favorite applique books. These last four blocks were from the Kay MacKenzie book Inspired By Tradition. There are a couple more in that book I really like and I need to spend some time today prepping some more blocks to work on. I enjoy the Olympics and I know it will be a great opportunity to get a lot of hand work completed while watching television.
Happy Stitching All,
Cheri
Your blocks are so very lovely!! I adore the reds and greens you are using.
ReplyDeleteYour willingness to add modern techniques to your existing beautiful, traditional techniques is impressive!
ReplyDeleteYour applique blocks are wonderful! I especially love seeing the ships! Amazing!
ReplyDeleteYour machine quilting look great, the stitches look really consistent. I adore the applique blocks. They are going to be two gorgeous quilts.
ReplyDeleteYou did really well with the FMQ challenge. Nice job.
ReplyDeleteYour applique is ebautiful!