Pick-Up Sticks

Pick-Up Sticks is such a fun and unusual quilt for me. The original pattern is called On the Ball by Brigitte Heitland (of Zen Chic). I really liked the pattern, but it was made with the splice and insert technique which will be incredibly difficult on this scale. So instead, I made it with the applique technique. Details on how I made this top is here.

When it comes to quilting it, I decided to keep this one simple in concept. I extended each "stick" into the background space, and I love the way it divides up the background.

I filled all the areas in between with my favorite filler: elongated elegant swirls.

I filled the center areas with pebbles, and left all the sticks unquilted so they would rise to the top of the quilt.

This quilt was easy even if it was time consuming. I absolutely love it, but I also cannot use this as a lap quilt because between the applique and the pounds of thread I added on, it's just too heavy! But I think it'd make a fabulous wall hanging ...

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.