Sunday, December 9, 2012

Quilty Christmas Open House

 Merry Quilty Christmas!
... to all my online quilting friends and welcome to my blog if you are here for the first time via the Quilter's Christmas Party from Sew Cal Gal.


My Christmas Tumbling Blocks small quilt is done!

This quilt was made with no "y" seams, no templates, no paper piecing.  I used only a regular straight quilting ruler and cutting mat. The pieces are triangles and diamonds that are chain pieced into strips and then the strips are sewn together to form the blocks.  To learn more about my method for making these Easy Tumbling Blocks, click on this link or visit "My Tutorials" at the top of this page.

Here are a few more pictures of the quilting. 

Ready, Set, Quilt!

Since my fabrics in this quilt are very traditional, I decided I wanted to use a quilting pattern similar to ones I have seen on antique quilts. 
Walking Foot Curves

To do this I used the walking foot on my home sewing machine and quilted gentle curves over the blocks.

This quilting is interrupted by a very important catnap!

As always, I had my ever present Quilty Kitty Helpers with me in my sewing room.


For the border, I did simple straight line stitching about 1/2" apart.

The I adding my binding by machine and turned and hand stitched it to the back. I always finish my quilts with these quiet hand stitching moments.



My favorite part of quilting is that moment when I complete that last stitch on the back binding ...  tie the knot ...  snip the threads ... smooth the quilt ... turn the quilt over and see my beautiful quilt finished ... and realize ...
 "I made that!" 
That wonderful feeling never gets old no matter how many quilts I make, how big or small they are, how much I struggled with them, how imperfect they are. 

I am really pleased with my quilt and am planning to make a Tumbling Blocks Baby Quilt someday.


This and all my free tutorials may be found in


If you try this method, please let me know as I would love the feedback.  If you piece a quilt this way, I would love to see a picture!  If you use this method and post pictures and write about it, please link back to my blog.

I will be making more posts today for the


Sew please stop back later if you have the time.
My Quilty Door is Always Open
Ho! Ho! Ho!
 ... and a ...
.. for more of My Quilter's Christmas Open House

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10 comments:

Nanbon44 said...

lovely, and thanks for the insight on making this quilt...

Quilting Babcia said...

I do hope to make this quilt, perhaps later in the new year after I've FMQ'd my stepdaughter's wedding quilt - first things first! Merry Christmas to you, and I'll be looking for your later posts.

Dana Gaffney said...

I do still love that "I made that" moment. Thanks so much for sharing this, I love the kitty helping pictures. How does anyone quilt without a cat?

IHaveANotion ~ Kelly Jackson said...

Oh geez...I can only dream of making a tumbling block quilt....if I do, you know I'll be back to do it with your method.

I hope you have the happiest of holidays :)

Smiles,
Kelly

Scrapatches said...

Thanks for stopping by and sharing my Quilty CHristmas Open House.

This Tumbling Blocks Quilt is sew easy. The how-tos are in "Tutorials" at the top of my page.

Link Here ... http://scrapatches.blogspot.com/p/tutorials.html




Dorian said...

Lovely job, as always Ms Pat :)

Barb Neiwert said...

Such a fun party - thanks for the little tutorial, and happy holidays!

Scrapatches said...

Thanks and Happy Holidays! ... :) Pat

Unknown said...

This is the best quilting tutorial I have ever seen. I'm just wondering how much fabric I would need for a queen size quilt and is it possible to use more colours?

Scrapatches said...

Thank you, Diane, for the kind words.

I tried to answer your question by email but you are a "no reply." I checked your google profile and there is no email address for me to contact you directly. So I will answer here and hope you stop back to visit this post.

For a queen size quilt, 93" square with larger blocks, made in five colors, you would need approximately 5 yards of the "top color" cut in 6.5" strips. For the four side colors you would need approximately 2 yards each for four colors. If you contact me by email to scrapatches@gmail.com, I will explain further and send you a layout image. Hope this helps. Happy quilting ... :) Pat