I thought I’d show you some of I what I did while I was visiting my dad last week. I started hand quilting the Cosmic Jewels quilt. “Cosmic Jewels” is the name of the Debbie Maddy pattern I used, but I need to think of a good name for my own quilt. I’m thinking I’ll call it “Sapphire Star.”
In any case, I had filled my suitcase with my pin-basted Cosmic Jewels quilt, a rectangular hoop, needles, thread, and my Roxanne thimble. I splurged on that thimble back in 2000. I remember the year because at the time we were traveling a lot while my youngest played volleyball. I wanted a hand project to bring with me on those two- and three-day tournaments. That was the year I began my two millennium quilts. Each quilt had 2000 different pieces and each piece was a different fabric. During all those volleyball trips, I hand pieced two hexagon quilts! One is a Grandmother’s Flower Garden arrangement and the second is a “Field of Diamonds” pattern. When I went to the International Quilt Festival in Houston that year, I bought my Roxanne thimble so I’d be able to hand quilt them, too. I finished hand quilting the first one in 2003. The other one didn’t get finished until 2010. At least they’re both done now! Here are two poor pictures of them.
All that to say I started hand quilting “Sapphire Star.” What a rabbit trail!
When I left my home, I didn’t really think about how I’d quilt this small wall hanging. When it came time, I decided to just do some simple lines 1/4″ away from the seams, but that left some pretty big areas unquilted. If you look closely, you’ll see that each “diamond” is actually made up of two triangles. That made piecing this quilt top really easy — no “Y” seams! To help with the illusion that they are supposed to look like diamonds, I thought I’d quilt a line from tip to tip, but I didn’t bring anything to mark my quilt top. The quickest, easiest solution was to simply use ordinary tape as a guide. It worked like a dream!
I didn’t finish quilting this yet. That will come during the next trip.
I’m linking this to Freshly Pieced’s Work in Progress Wednesday.
Comments
One response to “More markless marking: tape”
Wow, that is awesome. I’m not sure if I ever will try to hand quilt a large quilt. It seems like I wouldn’t have the patience. But, who knows when I’ll have a several day tournament to make it through. It all looks wonderful!
Also, it seems to me that few people accomplish more than one hexie quilt in their lifetime. And you did two! So, congrats. It was a good rabbit trail!