I’m late to the party again, but still in time to enter a couple of quilts in the online
Blogger’s Quilt Festival. This time I’m featuring
Sparkling Strings in the
Modern Quilts category. If you follow my blog, you’ve seen this one a few times, but I really like it so here it is again.
I don’t remember ever finishing a quilt as quickly as I did this one. Someone I know suffered a stroke just before Christmas. Her family was well taken care of and didn’t want any more help for cooking and laundry and such but I really wanted to share something . I eventually remembered that I’m a quilter and quilter can share quilted hugs and this is what emerged on the design wall.
![IMG_7580 IMG_7580](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWRYkoY2ARu0083MzFpUZEUriaH1xc4kvqKVQEmrrtl3UREFy9DWC55s8v_uz187jDgYAu5GO0lzTIZcq0jkkC3bKMbL39yywliGh_s6SjreP8_dTN8bTqE7otmTcKwj4GxpOfDhvknKzn/?imgmax=800)
![IMG_7578 IMG_7578](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjq6SFcvN7thHjkICg4hZpvuRtIt12c1y5mN5gv5K5c83gGF23VWVo6HRtRwf-WbrmGFjEv6dFrqO2pOGU7oiVz1jk8a2yyMJt5b_bVyAlYChLDa-RGqQyw1UvATwPAPQLgVHdlZL_2EAq/?imgmax=800)
This was a quilt of “firsts” for me:
- First string quilt – I had just been thinking I was a fool to save all those strings because really, how likely was I to actually use them? Surprise! I did use them. This quilt pretty much depleted my collection, but now I know it’s OK to keep saving them because will find a use for them eventually.
- First time piecing equilateral triangles – my son gave me a triangle ruler for Christmas just in time to design this quilt. There will be other triangle designs in my future, I’m sure.
- First time quilting oodles of negative space – this was bit intimidating at first. I warmed up by quilting lots of lines with the walking foot in the trickier middle sections then took a deep breath and free motion quilted the rest. This is the most freemotion I’ve ever done on anything larger than a table runner.
- Almost, but not quite a first – I remembered to label this one!
I spent several weeks this winter writing a pattern for
Sparkling Strings. I made a
non-string version of the layout as I worked through it, and a friend is currently testing the pattern for me. I can’t wait to see how it looks in her fabric choices.
Thanks for visiting. Please pop over to the
festival blog and enjoy the quilty eye-candy being shared this week.
Update: The
Sparkling Strings pattern is now available in my shop! Click on the "Pattern Shop" tab above. Also, check out my post about
Sparkling Trails, a version of this quilt without the strings.