Block 1

[mightyjesse]

Well, I must say that I'm very pleased with my first-ever quilt block. The hand-piecing doesn't appear to be going as slowly as I'd feared, and I'm really enjoying the little embroidered fidley-bits that I get to do for each block. Plus, the project materials are very portable, so I should have no trouble taking my quilt blocks wherever I go this month.



I learned a new stitch for enhancing some of the seams, and look forward to working my way through most of her stitch-dictionary over the course of this quilt.



Hopefully I've found a color selection that won't clash with the baby's room - never having seen any actual color swatches for it...

I'm still undecided on exactly how big this quilt will be, but I think at this point it's safe for me to just concentrate on my blocks and let things develop organically.

Comments

[cyano.livejournal.com]

Yo.
My family has been quilting for as long as I can remember, and my Dad is the de-facto chair of the "quilting committee" at church.

one non-intuitive tip on piecing corners together, is to precision-pin the endpoints first, and then pin the rest of the lines together. That way your corners will meet sharply, and not leave the last angle flat.

in a bit of A-R lunacy that you will appreciate, my dad not only hand stitches everything, but makes sure that all of the fabric warp-weave lines are in the same direction, so the end product handles like one sheet of fabric.

I love the fancy stitching bits with the contrasting thread. very nice touch. :)

[mightyjesse.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I precision pinned the corners, but didn't quite understand how the little triangles were going to end up lining up to make a square... so the whole thing ended up being precisely off on all four corners... But this is why I plan on making a couple extra blocks... This will just be a "best of" sort of situation where the bottom three candidates will end up as "accent pillows" rather than as a part of the quilt itself...

[(Anonymous)]

This is lovely work. Are you cutting the pieces out per block or is the fabric for each going to be the same, so you were able to quick-cut? I used to do this handwork, and am eager to watch your progress. It is very organic, isn't it?

[lazygarden.livejournal.com]

I love colors and patterns :) The feather stitching looks great!

[dromeda.livejournal.com]

It's lovely! My grandmother made beautiful quilts. Most of my memories of her are of her cutting out the pieces or her sitting there with this mound of fabric before her quilting the pieces. She made two for me. Both with little embroidered messages under one corner.

[mightyjesse.livejournal.com]

Heh... Age aside, while I occasionally have doubts about my parenting abilities, I usually feel that I'd make someone a GREAT Grandma....

[reneekytokorpi.livejournal.com]

Ooo! We could totally quilt together as well as have cooking lessons. :) I'm technically **coughcoughputtingoffcough** working on a baby quilt. Yes? No?

[mightyjesse.livejournal.com]

Whatever you like. I'll see you at the event this weekend and we can go through our schedules and see when we're both free to get together.

[violetmint.livejournal.com]

I cannot even believe that is your first ever quilt block! Love the feather stitching, and the color composition!

[doctorcurly.livejournal.com]

I've never thought much of quilts, but this is gorgeous.