Painted Daisy Quilt; Week 1 – Section I  For those of you who are sewing along with me to make the Painted Daisy quilt, we are starting with the pieced block.  Making all of these at one time will be the most efficient way to get them done in quick order.  Only the pieces for the blocks will be cut at this time.  When you are done with the blocks, press them and set them aside. This is so much easier and less confusing than cutting everything for the entire quilt and labeling all the pieces to be used later.  This week you will be cutting, sewing and finishing the blocks to have ready for Week 2’s instructions.  For those of you haven’t decided yet to sew along with all of us, I think you will want to print out the pattern as we go so you have it in your library.  You might be sorry you didn’t get your fabric together to start today…but it’s not too late.  Head to your stash or your quilt shop, get your fabric and join us.

You will find the instructions written and illustrated in the customary Thimbleberries fashion…guiding you through each step and reminding you as you complete each step, what your unit should measure when completed.  That has been the #1 most popular feature of Thimbleberries patterns.  So take the opportunity to measure when prompted before you go on so you can correct at the beginning of the process.  It makes everything so much easier down the road and prevents the need for the dreaded ripping tool.  Also, remember careful pressing can make a huge difference in a block’s measurement and makes general quilt assembly so much more pleasant. Let’s get started….”see” you next Monday for Section II.

Painted Daisy – Section I

While I have been away vacationing with my family, grandkids and all, you have been stitching away on your Painted Daisy Quilt.  I would love to be a mouse in your sewing room seeing your fabric combination that you chose for this great traditional quilt.  The instructions for this week will involve putting the multiple borders on the quilt.  I have a few tried and true tips for putting on borders to keep the quilt “square” and not stretching or distorting the borders.  I also have a few opinions about batting selection to pass onto you.

 Painted Daisy Section III

The following steps were a mainstay at the Thimbleberries Design Studio and many quilts over the years were successfully completed for photography and trunk shows using this method.

Step 1…With pins, mark the center points along all 4 sides of the quilt.  For the top and bottom borders, measure the quilt from left to right through the middle.  This measurement will give you the most accurate measurement that will result in a “square” quilt.

Step 2…Measure and mark the border lengths and center point on the steps cut for the borders before sewing them on.  Often the border lengths given in the instructions are cut a bit longer than needed to give the opportunity to trim and “square off” perfectly on each border attachment.

Step 3…Pin the border strips to the quilt matching the pinned points on each of the borders AND the quilt.  Pin borders every 6 – 8 inches easing the fabric to fit if necessary.  This will prevent the borders and the quilt center from stretching while you are sewing them together.  Stitch a 1/4-inch seam.  Press the seam allowance toward the borders.  Trim off excess border lengths using a large acrylic square or a  long acrylic ruler.  Use all the marks on the ruler to line up seams etc. to keep border ends “square” and accurate.

Step 4…For the side borders, measure your quilt from top to bottom, including the borders just added, to determine the length of the side borders.

Step 5…Measure and mark the side border lengths as you did for the top and bottom borders.

Step 6…Pin and stitch the side border strips in place. Press and trim the border strips in with the borders just added.

Step 7..If your quilt has multiple borders, measure, mark and sew additional borders to the quilt in the same manner.

This attention to detail on all the multiple borders in your Painted Daisy quilt will produce a perfectly finished quilt top. These steps are very helpful especially when making wall quilts to keep all outside measurements accurate.  When borders get stretched, it is so obvious when a quilt is hung on the wall.

BATTING CHOICE

The availability or many high quality batting products has really exploded over the years.  In the past,  we didn’t have so many choices.  We had cotton or very poor, puffy polyester. Now there are beautiful blends, silk, wool, bamboo and yes, even high quality polyester.  The choice is probably very personal, meaning how lofty or how flat you like your finished quilt to be.  Now, all of my quilts are machine quilted by long arm quilting artists.  I will cherish my hand quilted quilts from the past, but now the reality is machine quilting for me.  I am so pleased with the results as well as the convenience and speed, that there is no going back to the quilting frame for me.  For those of you who still love the process of hand quilting…hats off to you.  But for most of us, machine quilting by a long arm quilter or on a home sewing machine seems to be the norm.  I find quilts machine quilted with 100% cotton batting are too dense for my taste, and sometimes too stiff and heavy because of the weight of the thread that has been added to the surface of the quilt. I have mentioned many times before, my family likes floppy quilts. My preference is a 20/80 blend or even a pure, light polyester.  I am still really fond of Hobbs Poly Down.  I like the light loft it gives the quilting design in the spaces between the stitching.  The loft casts a slight shadow that in turn highlights the quilting design.  The line of quilting stencils that I designed  for Quilting Creations International were designed to all work for the machine quilter as well as the hand quilter.  And they have been digitized for the long arm quilting industry as well.  You might want to check the Thimbleberries Stencil Designs available from quiltingcreations.com.   The block and border designs were designed specifically for the most standard block and border designs I use in most of my pattern designs.  Check them out if you haven’t already.

In most cases, my preference is to use a thread color that is neutral and blends with the the fabrics of the quilt top so the actual stitches are secondary to the quilting design quilting.  The exception, is of course, when decorative threads are part of the final design decision.  So far, that hasn’t happened on my quilts, but I have seen many beautiful quilts done with vibrant thread colors and a variety of thread fiber content.  If you need to change colors to blend with high contrasting fabrics used in the top and you do not want the change in the stitching to show on the back side, plan on using a print on the back of your quilt so that the change in thread will not be noticeable.   It will be a more attractive quilt back and could also be used a a reversible quilt if the backing fabric is chosen with that in mind.  It is always good to get double use from your quilt…especially a large bed quilt.

I hope your have enjoyed our quilt along.  I am working on a few more for my upcoming fabric collections, Autumn Landscape and Christmas Remembered which will be available in quilt shops this late spring.

Now that all the pieced blocks are done, you are well on your way to completing this quilt. I think the blocks take the most time for precise piecing.  It’s nice to have that all done.

Painted Daisy Quilt; Week 2 – Section II  focuses on cutting the center green squares and the side and corner triangles so that you can proceed to sewing the blocks, side triangles and green center blocks together in diagonal row.  Note: the side and corner triangles are cut a bit larger than needed, giving you the opportunity to trim so you have a perfect quarter inch seam allowance and very straight edges on all four sides of the quilt before attaching the borders. Refer to the diagrams under the section titled Trimming Side and Corner Triangles.  This is the point which pays to be precise because it will make the next 6 borders fit perfectly.  All of the pieced borders balance the center of the quilt in a graphic bold fashion and make a lovely drop off the side of the bed with the pieced design centered on the top of the bed.

Painted Daisy Section II

I am looking forward to seeing the fabric selections you’ve made for this quilt.  Share your pictures with me at lynette@thimbleberries.com. Tops only are accepted, but I do hope you eventually get yours quilted.  In Section III, I will talk about batting and quilting design choices.

This is a quick reminder that the first section of Painted Daisy (Monday’s post) will be available to download on Monday, March 21.  Get your fabrics ready, get set….let’s sew.

I am going to try something new for the next three weeks…a Quilt Along.  This lovely traditional Painted Daisy queen size quilt was made by Sue Bahr with my Home Again Fabric Collection. The pattern does not exist in any other past publication.  I will be posting instructions to make this quilt starting Monday, March 21st. The quilt instructions will be divided into three sections, one week apart.  Section One – March 21, Section 2 – March 28 and Section 3 – April 4th.   You can download the instructions on those dates.  If you keep up with the sections, you’ll have this lovely quilt sewn in just three weeks. If you want to use the same fabrics as shown, check out your local quilt shop for the Home Again Fabric Collection.  If unavailable in your location, call Quilt Haven on Main at 888-843-8251 or 320-587-8341.  You may have a whole stash of Thimbleberries fabrics that would also work in this quilt.  To prepare for this Quilt Along you may need this week to gather or order your fabrics. Please see Fabrics and Supplies below.

Here is the quilt again used with the Heirloom Winter White quilt from last week’s post.

I hope you join me in stitching up this great quilt to add to your Thimbleberries quilt collection.