December 16, 2008

Christmas Square Dance Quilt

CHRISTMAS SQUARE DANCE

34 x 43



I'm a member of the LEARNING FIBRE ARTS yahoo email group. The owner is Shirley of One of a kind Fiber Arts Blog. Feel free to check the yahoo email group out .... lots of great ideas and techniques to learn.

Recently the Square Dance Quilt was taught as a on-line class. I'm not a traditional type of quilter but this quilt caught my eye and I had to make it. In fact, I dropped everything I was doing (including Christmas gifts) and jumped right on it. Thanks for teaching this class and for holding my hand.

I changed a couple things like my red border is only 3/4 inch wide (finished) and my outer border is 2 1/2 inches (finished). When I make this quilt again I plan to starch my blocks because you see all those blocks have (all 48 blocks) (four) 4 bias edges. To compensate or rather control those bias edges I used Elmer's washable glue instead of pins. This kept the bias edges in check and also gave me 99.6% perfect blocks and the matching intersections are near perfect if I say so myself. I use Elmer's washable glue for lots of things in my quilting ... thank you Sharon Schamber for enlighting us of Elmer's washable glues value.

I thoroughly enjoyed making the quilt even though it's alot of work .... more than I usually put into my quilts. Why you ask? Well I'm mostly a charity quilter (about 95% charity) so I make simple, easy quilts. Although lately I have been looking and liking more complicated construction of quilts .... looks like after 6 years I'm changing ..... that's good.

I'm a little disappointed in my own color selection. I wish I had used a darker border print and I'm not real happy with using white. This would have given it more contrast ... I love contrast. I'm not a fan of using white in my own quilts. Unfortunately I won't have time to quilt it on PRINCE before Christmas rolls around next week ..... I have closed my quilting room as it's such a mess (I'm so bad).

Anyone have a suggestion on how to quilt it. I would like to make a smaller version but don't have a clue how to adjust the measurements ..... I'll have to figure that part out in 2009.

I really like my Christmas Square Dance wall hanging and DH really likes it.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

4 comments:

Shirley said...

I love your quilt! You did a fantastic job, and I am glad you
enjoyed Cheryl's class on Learningfa.

If you haven't already, would you please put it in the draw album in learningfa so you will be eligible for a prize as the square dances are all eligible. Great job!

Shirley

Carolyn said...

Beautiful !!!

Jan said...

I like your quilt! It reminds me of old fashioned Christmas candy!

Mary Johnson said...

I think it looks great too and I like the border choice. How about some line dancing if you don't want to do an overall although I think a pantograph would work well too.