I've been interested in paper piecing for quite some
time, but
I haven't done much of it. However, Carol Doak's methods make it very
easy and, when she began an online group for paper piecers, I joined.
So here is where I'll put any paper-pieced quilts I make.
I was really in the mood for something spring-like, and I had this
pattern hanging around.... ;) I do love pansies, so it seemed a good
idea to go ahead and make this little miniature. It's only 15.75" x
9.75", and I paper-pieced it according to Carol Doak's easy method,
machine quilting the petals of each flower and adding leaves to their
stems. Then I did a small version of McTavish-style quilting in the
background and a series of quilted pansies in the outer border. Flower
buttons and beaded pansy centers were added after the quilting. There's
also a narrow purple piping between the outer border and the binding. I
finished this in April, 2006.
Conflagration
This is from a miniature
pattern Carol Doak
designed. I chose to do it in red, white and black, and it looked very
"flame-like" to me when it was finished. I machine quilted it in a
flame pattern with a variegated thread. It measures 12" x 12" and was
finished in September, 2006. If you like this one, the pattern is on Carol
Doak's
web site.
Home
Sweet Home
Carol Doak posted a row by row quilt (one row each month) for
her
online group. It was supposed to be lap-quilt size, but I wanted a
smaller version. I redrafted all of the rows at half-size and made my
version. The finished quilt measures 20.5" x 27.5"; I finished it in
February, 2007. It's machine quilted, with each row having a different
motif, and the borders have stars, hearts and flowers.
Here is a detail of part of
the quilting:
Update:
I entered this quilt into our local quilt show in February, 2008, and
it won second prize in its category! Here it is with its ribbon:
Paper-pieced
table runner
My mother-in-law loves blue and yellow almost as much as I do!
:) She needed a runner to use on her coffee table to accent a
vase, so I made this one for her.
The two end blocks are from a free pattern on Carol Doak's web site,
and the center block is from her book Mariner's Compass Stars.
The runner measures 17" x 48" and was completely machine pieced and
machine quilted. I finished it in September, 2007, and gave it to
my mother-in-law for Christmas.
Baravelle Spiral
This piece came from a book from a very good friend in the UK, Pat
Storey; her book is called Geometrical
Quilts.
I loved this pattern at first glance, and it was natural for me to use
it as the basis for a challenge quilt for the local guild. We had to
use the two black and white prints you see, and we could also use as
many other blacks and whites as we liked, as well as one other color.
The quilt also had to be embellished, which was a true challenge for
me, as I don't usually embellish mine.
The
quilt was paper pieced (Pat's instructions were extremely clear!) and
machine quilted and beaded. The original pattern added triangles to
four corners to make the quilt square, but I decided to leave mine
hexagonal. It measures 23.5" x 27.5" and was finished in April, 2008.
Here are some details of the quilting:
Starry Starry Night
Carol
Doak sponsored a BOM for her online group, beginning in September,
2007, and ending the following August. I made all of the blocks at 3"
square and then couldn't decide how to set them together. As I was
trying to solve the problem, the 4000th member joined the group, and
Carol designed another block to celebrate. That block became the center
of the little quilt with the BOM blocks.
All
of the blocks are in shades of purple and lavender with yellow as an
accent and black as the background. The quilt measures 15 1/4" square
and is machine pieced and machine quilted. I finished it in August,
2008.
Spiked Desert Star
I
took a class from Deb Karasik at Quilt Camp in 2008, and we made her
paper-pieced pattern called Arizona Sunrise. I didn't square off my
corners, choosing to leave the quilt octagonal instead; for that I had
to redesign the borders in EQ6.
Another machine quilting class
from Sharon Schamber inspired the quilting on this piece, which
measures about 45" x 45". I finished it in November, 2008, after
several delays.
Here is a detail of the quilting in the large navy squares:
And here are some of the other quilted motifs:
Starlight Baby Quilt
Carol
Doak published a mystery quilt for her online group in 2007; I
made the top and set it aside. Then a baby was born to one of our
nephews and his wife, so I decided to quilt this piece for their new
little girl. The quilt measures about 30.5" square and was finished in
March, 2009.
It's
colorful enough that I think it will keep a baby's interest --
especially in the borders. I machine quilted sprays of feathers all
over in pale pink, using a darker pink in the borders. Here's a detail
of the quilting:
Spinning
My Wheels
Our
local guild has an annual challenge, and this year we were required to
make something with two specific fabrics and then add beading. Beading
isn't something I love to do, but what's a challenge without a bit of a
stretch? At any rate, I found a paper-pieced log cabin variation online
at Wilma Karel's site,
though I resized the blocs to 3" square. The two required fabrics are
the purple/green dot and the yellow/red dot. Since the pattern and
fabrics are so busy, I quilted the blocks in the ditch and left well
enough alone. <G>
The
quilt is 15" square, machine pieced and machine quilted. I finished it
in August, 2009. Here's a detail showing the (rather meager) beading:
