Sunday, January 22, 2012

Another finished quilt!

I seem (seam, lol) to be on a roll recently.  In the mood to finish, not just sew.  Here's another I finished last night, but waited until this morning's sunlight to photograph.  This table topper or small quilt was made from a variety of fabrics cut with the Accuquilt Tumbler 6" die.  I love my GO! cutter.  It makes things like this so easy.  I was really careful how I laid out the fat quarters on the die, and was able to get 6 blocks from one FQ.  I had some tumbler pieces from another quilt I made last year, and added a few coordinates and contrasts to those to make this. 

The Accuquilt die cut pieces are a breeze to sew.  Mostly mindless, which is what I needed this week.  Sometimes I want a challenge, and other times I want to make and finish something quickly.  The tumbler is certainly easy.  Just sew the pieces together (make sure one is going up and one is going down), vary your colors, make an odd number of blocks per strip.  This one had 7.  Stick your strips on the design wall to help get a variety in the mix, and sew the rows together.  Did I mention no "dog ear" triangle points or corners to clip??  I plan to make a few more of these, since they are fun and a great background for some new quilting designs.  I am, afterall, in a challenge to improve my Free Motion Quilting.  This month's theme at SewCal Gal's blog was leaves (see my previous post for my first examples) and I wanted to do more leaves. 




So here are some pictures of the most recent work, on this small quilt. 


For me, the most practical practice is in real life.  If I can really make something out of my stitching practice, or are making a real project, I concentrate more on the stitching, speed and shapes of the design.  The practice and repetition becomes real, not just a test.  Afterall, isn't applying what we learn to real life situations the true test of our skills and knowledge?  I think sometimes the powers that rule our current education systems forget that.  Performance in a test does not equate performance in real life.  Um, yeah, that's the teacher in me talking. 

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Very nice quilt. I wish I could get that free motion quilting figured out, I have so many things I would finish! Glad you are having so much fun with your quilting!