Wonky Circles and Echino. . .

(If you’re looking for the Giveaway post click here.)

So, I’ve been thinking about this quilt for awhile and I finally got started on it. I bought an Echino panel from The Urban Craft Center in Santa Monica and I wanted to highlight the panel when I used it.

So I decided not to cut the panel and to create something fun to go on the back (or the “other front” since I love reversible quilts). Ever since I started piecing circles using the Dale Fleming method, I’ve been thinking about different ways to use the  method and wondered how it would work for “wonky” circles. The design is to make four sets of “concentric” wonky circles to go on the back. Well, really late last night I made the first one. Let me know what you think?

I have quite a few other solids – colors that I pulled from the Echino fabric panel – and each of the four sets of “concentric” wonky circles will be different. Here’s the next set of solids that I’ll use:

Tell me what you think?

Two Perfect Things. . .

There are two things that I think are perfect. Picnics. And, circles.

Picnics are romantic for two and awesome for many. It’s just you and those that you love sitting close  to each other and nature eating yummy food (picnics make all food yummy) having nothing better to do than connect with each other.  What can be more perfect than that? And then you add in picnic baskets and picnic blankets and. . . oooooh, I just can’t take all the perfect yumminess!  So, I’ve been dreaming lately (literally and figuratively) about Picnic Quilts. Here where the circle enters.

So, rectangular quilts were made for beds. And the shape of a quilt should reflect the use of the quilt. What would be more perfect for a picnic than a Circle Quilt? Yes, you heard me right, a Circle Quilt. People sitting and eating seem to fit very easily within the space of a circle. Plus there’s something that the circle the signifies togetherness and inclusion and love. OK, maybe I’m reading into this a little but, a circle picnic quilt just seems right to me.

So, here’s my first version of a circle picnic quilt. I wanted to merge the concept of the traditional picnic quilt with my circle picnic quilt concept. So, I pieced an assortment of 6″ squares – trying to mimic a random pieced traditional picnic top. And then I cut it into a circle! And, what do you get when you add two perfect things together – twice the perfectness. Or, I think so at least!

Strawberry Disco Fields

So, I bought this fabric over a year ago. A friend was having a baby girl and I wanted to make her something. That was before my quilting days where I usually just made blankets with a minky backing, bibs, burps, and a ball.Very cute, but, not a quilt. So, when I started quilting earlier this year – I quickly switched it to a quilting project. I had been eying circle quilts ever since my first quilt and I knew that I would try it on a baby quilt since it would be smaller and more manageable. And since I love circles I started researching how to piece and applique them. I was intrigued with the Dale Fleming six minute circle method and knew this would be one of the first I would try. It turned out to be pretty simple but longer than I wanted it to be. I had 48 circles so if it was really six minutes per circle that equals almost five hours not including any of the prep work. Anyway, I was happy with how it turned out.

The quilt is designed around the Alexander Henry “Very Berry” fabric and a couple of other coordinating Alexander Henry prints. Then I picked up a couple of coordinating fabrics from Joann’s – the black and the pink to complete the look. I am starting to realize that I like black in quilts. I guess I like the contrast. Plus the black print circles really drew out the black background in the “Very Berry” fabric and pulled the quilt together.

I quilted it in what I call a Loop de Loop pattern – don’t know what the official name is. It was fun and easy to do. I’ll definitely get better with this quilting thing over time. . .

The back is simple highlighting the “Very Berry” fabric with a strip going across the width of the quilt and another strip of the coordinating fabrics pieced with a circle in “Very Berry” thrown in.

I wanted the circles in the quilt to be very close together like the Michael Miller Disco Dot fabric – so of course the name of the quilt is Strawberry Disco Fields!
Let me know what you think!