Quilting underway

I have begun quilting my Tradewinds quilt. I always find the first bit kind of daunting, but once I have got some long lines done and and don't have to fret about the quilt layers moving about so much I can settle into a bit of a rhythm. I'm stitching about a 1/4 inch out from either side of all my seam lines to start with and considering repeating this so there are double lines echoing the seam lines.

I also made another block sample for my Monday night modern quilt group bee that we are planning. At our last meeting we realised that coming up with a bee block is not quite a simple as it seems, especially if you want to give people a bit of a chance to be creative. I think I prefer the second colourway I have tried and will probably use Kristy's suggestion to sash each block as well.

Option A - solids only:

Option B - prints and solids:

Decisions, decisions! 

Tradewinds

I have finished sewing my large Tradewinds triangles together. I can't stop gushing about how much I love the colours in this fabric. My quilt-along buddy went away for the weekend and I promised I wouldn't do any more on it until she has sewn all her triangles together. So instead of sewing, I spent some time trying to photograph it in the wind. I may also have spent time muttering 'my preciousssssss' while stroking the fabric...

Using a 60 degree triangle ruler

I have seen some lovely triangle quilts popping up lately like this one and this one. I duly sent away for a ruler so I could have a play around. This is a 2"-6" ruler - I decided to try out the biggest size. Initially I wasn't sure what the advantage of having the corners cut off like this was, but felt sure it would be for a good reason!

Sure enough it was! It means the pieces all line up perfectly. In the picture above I haven't matched the edges up so you can see how the shapes fit together.

This is how neatly the pieces go together - I haven't done any trimming at all. I then pinned another little row on - I wasn't too sure what I was trying to line up so I just eyed up the seam lines.

Hey presto! The points matched pretty well with minimal attention on my part. Magic!

I wasn't too sure about pressing the seams. I like to press seams open where possible because I like to minimise that knobbly bit in the middle. But you can see my battle against the knobbly-bit is not entirely won.

Overall, I'm pretty pleased with how this little experiment unfolded. And doesn't my grotty ironing board provide a lovely backdrop ;-). I see a triangle quilt appearing on my 'to do' list...