Welcome Everyone from the Blogathon Canada Blog Hop!!
My name is Stacey, and I live in Beautiful British Columbia, Canada. I have been blogging here for just over a year now. I love to quilt, and Paper piecing stars and compasses are my favorite. I am a founding member of the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild, and I love it! I am a self-described Hybrid Quilter, not fully traditional, not fully modern, but fully a quilter! I love to write patterns, and I work as an X-Ray Technologist to support my quilting addiction.
I hope you enjoy your visit.
I am so excited to share my newest quilt with everyone- Sherbert At The Beach!
Sherbert at the Beach
Sherbert at the Beach is my Michael Miller Cotton Couture Challenge quilt. I gets its name from a memory of the summer, when I took my little guy to the beach on a hot day. We had ice cream and it dripped all over the sand, too fast for us to catch it. It was a great day that I will always remember. When the challenge was announced at the August guild meeting the bright, citrus palette immediately brought the idea of bright fruity sherbert to mind and the memory of that day. Having only worked with Kona solids at that point, the Michael Miller Cotton Couture was a pleasant change for me. I like the texture and the weight of the fabric. It is almost a voile weight. Very light, easy to sew. I chose a Free Spirit Designer Solid in Sandstone as by background color to keep the colors popping without looking like a neon sign. I also used it for the backing and binding, and threw my extra blocks onto the back. WHAT?! A Pieced back you say! That’s right, I finally did it!
The quilt consists of 16 Disappearing Nine Patch blocks. Those were a lot of fun to make once I got over the fact that I was technically making each block twice. I chose random color placements and some I even cut off-center for some variety. Overall it worked out great and this quilt is probably the most truly modern thing I have ever made.
Quilting Detail
I chose an overall meandering square design for the quilting. I saw the design used by Melissa Corry of Happy Quilting some weeks ago, and I immediately thought if it when I was preparing to quilt. I free motion quilted mine however, and getting those points perfect takes some practice! Not all the lines are perfectly straight, which I think gives it a great organic feel. I used a YLI Coated Cotton Quilting thread in Rose for the top and Mettler Metrosene for the bobbin. The balance between the two threads was amazing and you cannot see the colored thread on the back.
YLI Coated Cotton Thread in Rose
I was very impressed with the thread. I was afraid that the weight combined with the coating would not go over well, but it is specially made for machine quilting, which definitely shows when you are quilting. I highly recommend trying some out!
Quilting Detail
Thank you everyone for for coming over for a visit! There will be lots of exciting things happening here at Stacey in Stitches over the next few months, so feel free to follow along!
As promised, here is the free pattern I promised you all! Some of you may recall the Quilted Clock I made for my FLiRTS swap partner. There was enough interest to turn that clock into a pattern. Enjoy!
Happy Stitching,
Stacey