House Arrest Quilts: Day One

Yes, that's what I call it. And sometimes "The Twilight Zone Zombie Apocalypse." But you know what I mean. It means I've had more time to sew (since all my teaching contracts for 3 months were cancelled). As of this writing, I'm been able to quilt 12 quilts - and bind them! To be honest, some of the tops were finished before we were ordered indoors.

The first two quilts are leftover teaching samples from this Diamonds and Blooms quilt:

Diamonds and Blooms: 34" x 34". Block Size: 7"

This is from my last book, Paper Piecing Perfect Points and was actually the hardest quilt to both make and pattern. That's because I sew first, write directions later! But because I had editors check my work, it works out like a dream in the instructions!

The blocks with points are paper pieced. The bordered diamonds are rotary cut. Yes, there are set-in seams for this!

Here are the two quilts I put together and quilted in the past month. Remember, the blocks were already paper pieced, so don't panic and think I'm Wonder Woman! I only had enough of this fabric to make 7 blocks. What can you do with 7 blocks? Turn it into a 9 block quilt with two companion, same size blocks. Can you see the square-in-a-square blocks?

Waterwheels blocks using Floribunda fabrics (from 2013)
Quilt Size: 28" x 33" (because of the different border sizes)

Here's one of those paper pieced blocks:

7" Waterwheels block using remnants of an older fabric collection

And I had some leftover blocks in blue and black. And not enough of that background fabric. No problem - I improvised!

7 Waterwheels blocks and a mix of other prints. 32" x 32"

I quilted this on my Handi Quilter Sweet 16. I counted the stitches (well, the machine did the counting, I can assure you!) 9,153. That's a lot of stitches, isn't it?

One of the blocks up close. That music fabric is at least 25 years old!

Single block with a mix of fabrics

You can find Diamonds and Blooms in my Etsy shop.

Two more quilts from my book. These also were my teaching samples for my Casablanca Sunrise class. Here is the quilt from the book where I took four 7" blocks and set them on point.

Casablanca Sunrise: 33" x 33"

This is Milady's Fans made with 16 of the Rising Sun blocks and a bit of creativity with the colors. And I stitched 13, 147 stitches on my Handi Quilter Sweet 16!

Milady's Fans: 38" x 38". 16 Rising Sun blocks

And one more in orange and yellow, again using 16 blocks:

Same Casablanca Sunrise quilt as above with different colors

See you tomorrow for Day 2 with a special treat from Benartex Fabrics and Technique Tuesday!