Friday, July 28, 2017

Gone Bowling

The idea for this project came about one day when I thought about making a circle quilt with scraps. I wanted the circles on a lot of negative space, but didn't want to go with a traditional grid pattern. Then suddenly, the image of a top-down view of a bowling lane came to mind, and that became the inspiration for this quilt. I got out my sketchbook and did some rough planning.

There are two things I wanted to really play with in this quilt: striped circles for the bowling balls and free-motion quilting the "lane" space. For the circles, I used some leftover charm squares, and it's a combination of Northcott Urban Elementz and Moda Thicket.

For quilting the negative space, I sort of simulated the look of a bowling lane by quilting lane spaces, and in the spaces I filled each one with a different level 2 filler. I call them level 2 fillers because they're a lot more time-consuming and involved than my normal go-to fillers. But since the quilt is not big and it's a wallhanging, I quilted it to death and then added some more quilting.

In the "bowling pin" section, I quilted a different design into each circle. Some are more successful than others! I filled the areas around it with dense pebbles. That took a long time but is fairly mindless and relaxing to do.

In the lane space, I let it fly! This would have taken forever to do if it wasn't so small (42" x 26"). My favorite section in here is definitely the pebbled leaves.

This little quilt was great fun to do, and it functions as a quilting sampler. Eventually, it'll be hung in my quilting studio ... when I get around to finishing the space, that is!

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Link parties joined: Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Busy Hands Quilts, Crazy Mom Quilts, Sew Can She, and Cooking Up Quilts.

21 comments:

  1. I am gasping for air on this one, it is beyond gorgeous and the title attracted me to your post right away because I love Bowling. I really think AW is going to kick you out of her class, just wondering what else you need to learn. This quilt definitely needs to hang up in your studio; you need to get your space done for the upcoming YouTube videos.

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  2. This stitching, the planning, everything about your quilt is wonderful and amazing. How beautiful!

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  3. Rose, I love bowling too. I love the white space and the detailed quilting you used. Beautiful!!

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  4. The perfect background quilting I'd say. I love the leaves with pebbles best too. Fun to look at.

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  5. Wow! This is astonishing! Your bowling balls are beautiful. Your quilting is so gorgeous I wouldn't want my grandchildren to touch it! I just wouldn't even want anything to stain anything this fabulous.

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    1. Thank you! I have it hanging on the wall right now ... my younger one can't reach it, and my older one knows not to!

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  6. Great FMQ sampler!!! And I agree with Rose, you're ready to start teaching!

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  7. WOW!! Just... wow. You DEFINITELY did the bowling equivalent of hitting a home run!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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  8. I'm in awe! And very envious that is simply stunning you made an amazing quilt. And that FMQ!!!!

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  9. That is really beautiful quilting. Just stunning.

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  10. What a great idea for a quilt! It is really beautiful. The quilting is absolutely stunning!

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  11. Wow, Liz - this is really spectacular with the lane quilting like that! The Urban Elementz and Thicket collections played very nicely together for the scrappy circles. I've been thinking quite a bit about scrap quilts lately - wanting to start diving into my quite-full color bins and finding out what nice things can happen from them.

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  12. Stunning! I love the bowling ball and lane theme. It is such a great idea. Congratulations on another beauty.

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  13. Ooh, even MORE fun!! So glad I saw your quilt today. I'm 90% done making pineapple log cabin blocks for a King sized quilt and realizing that I'm going to have lots of 1 1/2" strips left over. This would be a cool way to use some of them up. Love it!

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  14. Another fabulous quilt Liz! You have mad quilting skills! Using it as a sampler is a great idea. I love those pebbled leaves too. Now I want to go practice them! :)

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  15. What a gorgeous quilt! Love the bowling lane idea - so interesting. And your quilting is stunning. Way to go!

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  16. What a fun way to highlight your quilting. You should definitely get it up on your wall!

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