I finished this quilt. It’s my first time using the quilt as you go process for an entire quilt and I learned a lot. Mostly that my favourite part of quilt making is to piecing, not the actual quilting.
It wouldn’t have been a colour palette that I would have chosen for me, but i actually really like the end result. It’s a gift for a friend.
Small world.
I knew I ‘knew’ the name Helen Howes, but for the life of me I couldn’t remember where or how. I popped over to look at the tutorial and there it was - at the bottom of every page - Raindrop kites.
I used to fly kites in a fairly serious way (as in lots of fun to be had every weekend, not as in deadly serious or job type serious), went to my fair share of festivals, as well as flying with friends at our local park.
I have a Helen Howes kite. I had been lent it by a friend, to use as a pattern to make my own kite, but unfortunately he died before I gave it back (he was retired and awaiting a heart bypass at the time). I also knew his son (I met them both through another hobby - bell ringing) and at the funeral I asked what he wanted to do about the kite. I was told to keep it. When I went flying after that, “Bob’s kite” had to be flown, even if only briefly.
Nothing to do with your awesome quilt, but thought the way we know people for different reasons was interesting. Also, not thought about Bob for a while & I felt sad about that. He was an amazing friend and mentor, thank you for the reminder.
That is a pretty weird colorset for trees, but I agree that it works all together. I may have to try one of these; thanks for linking to the instructions.
Ooh, gorgeous! I’m not sure I have fabric large enough for backgrounds but maybe one or two, I’ll try it! I can make a tote bag, I need a new one of those. I can’t think of anyone I’d make a quilt for anyhow, you are a much more generous friend than I!
That kite lady is hysterical, lol. I had to check out her site. She’s stopped making kites & warns “I will probably make bike flags until the cloth runs out, when I’m in the mood, might be a while. Also no commissions, so please don’t think I’m going to make an exception for you”. Feisty!
The only people I make quilts for (outside of craft swapping) are ones whom I love dearly who are generous and who are makers-ie folk who appreciate hand made. I’ve been burnt too much in the past that way.
Each of the background rectangles is a bit smaller than a FQ. You could use different fabrics to back each block.
Beautiful!! I especially love the top row, second from the left, and the first one on the second row, on the left. Something about the shape of those ones appeal to me. I love trees in general anyways!
This is so pretty. I love the texture of the fabric with the trees.
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AIMR
(Linda -In the year 2025, I am happy to be alive! :us:)
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I have read through her tutorial and I think I am overthinking it…I am going to look back through your process pictures because I think you showed how it was done better…I “felt” I knew how to do it rather than reading through her instructions…sometimes I am better at just touching the fabric and making it work?
Let me know if you run into any difficulties… For me my biggest issue was not making the lines completely straight, so I ended up with slightly curved lines which didn’t lie flat. The quilt as you go method was more forgiving for this.
I think you should just have a go with some scrappy fabric. Once you have the tree shape cut, the rest will be obvious. Just look at the branches to see which bits need to be put in first.
Also I found the trees looked better if you sew the main trunk on (always the last piece) so that it’s a wedge, thicker at the bottom than the top. Looks more -tree like-
I’m still deciding…I found it quite frustrating at first because I hadn’t the machine tension set correctly (I was too impatient to practice first) but as I went on I got the hang of it. It’s definitely easier than manipulating huge amounts of fabric through a domestic machine.
It got more heavily quilted than if I’d just been doing my normal straight lines quilting, which looks more effective. But this meant a lot more sewing.
But the one think that concerns me is that the weight of the quilt is resting on single seams that join the blocks. Whereas in a regular quilt, the weight (eg if it was hanging off a bed, or being pulled about) is been taken up by the strength of the intact backing fabric as well as seams to join the top.
So overall, I’m really glad to learn the technique and it definitely is something I’ll try again, but maybe for small, light quilts (like this one)
