Cabbage Roses

Cabbage Roses, the quilt I started cutting so I'd have something to play with if I felt like sewing while I was recovering from my knee surgery, is quilted and bound.



It's got three hundred and twenty curved seams -- I've mentioned that, right? At this point, I think it's safe to say that I've got a thing for curved seams. Enough of a thing that I'm looking at every Drunkard's Path layout I can find and deciding to give it a try. My AccuQuilt dies are going to earn their keep!

I don't think I'd have started this quilt if I'd had to trace and cut all of the pieces by hand. Someday maybe, but not right now. Cutting the pieces by machine let me concentrate on the pinning and piecing. Now that I know I've got that part down, I'm ready to tackle curved patterns that I have to cut myself. I've done it before, I just never could be sure if my sometimes badly pieced blocks were due to the cutting part or the sewing part.

Curves aren't nearly as hard as they sound. When I decided that I wanted to learn curves, I found a great looking book from the library and checked it out three or four different times. When I had the book, I had no free time to experiment with technique. When I had sewing time, I didn't have the book.

Then my best friend fell in love with the Glorified Nine Patch pattern, and her quilting mentor told her that "even experienced quilters avoid patterns with curves." Which didn't seem quite right, since there are antique stores full of double wedding rings out there. Someone made them.

My friend says that I'm the one who taught her to piece curved seams, over the phone. When I didn't know how to do it myself. Where there's a will, there's a way!

I could get back to my Lover's Knot quilt. (If AccuQuilt made a die for that block, I'd order one tonight!)... Or try one of my other curved dies. I've still got two that I haven't used yet... Or start cutting pieces for that scrappy Drunkard's Path I've decided I need to make... It's not the best time to be starting a new project, but I can still dream, can't I?

cabbage roses top finished

This is my "getting better" quilt, the one I started cutting so I'd have something easy to sew once I was recovered enough from my knee surgery to do any piecing. (Easy in that case meant having fabric right by the sewing machine and not scrambling around for the right scraps to finish the project.) It was a good project, because the drunkard's path units took lots of time to pin and not much time at the sewing machine.

Two months later, and I've got the center of the top done. There are 320 curved seams here -- I'm kind of excited about that!

I thought I was making a twin size quilt (that's what the pattern I'm following is for), but I'm not a big fan of borders. If I stop here and just make it a throw, it'll get a lot more use.

Now I want to make a scrappy drunkard's path. I could see myself wearing out my die by the time I get bored with these.

This post is linked to Can I get a Whoop-Whoop?? Friday over at Confessions of a Fabric Addict.

lovin' the curves

I am so glad I didn't put back the bolt of red fabric I'm using for this quilt! When I was standing there in the fabric store deciding whether or not to buy it, I didn't have any real idea what I was going to use ten yards of this red floral for (other than the usual options of backing, binding, sashing), or realize how close it was to the fabric I fell in love with when I used for Strawberry Fields.... I definitely wasn't thinking of using it for a two color quilt.

I'm slowly working my way through the piecing. The finished quilt will be big enough for a twin bed and have twenty big blocks. I've got nine of them done so far and have been trying to do three a day...on days when I find time to sew.

I need to start making time.