Garlic Knot

After seeing Bonnie Hunter's Garlic Knot quilt, I realized that quilt could be assembled using the quilt-as-you-go method. I just needed to come up with a block size and figure out the measurements for the individual pieces that would make up a garlic knot block.

The sashing strips that hold the blocks together will be the strips that Bonnie used to separate each garlic knot block in her quilt design. Since sashing strips in a quilt-as-you-go covers a portion of the blocks to hold blocks together, I needed to make sure that the perimeter squares of a block would be equal in measurement to the inner squares of the block once the blocks are joined together by sashing. This means that the perimeter pieces of the block will initially have different measurements from the inner blocks. I picked a finished 8 inch block with strips between blocks to be 1 inch in width once finished. If I were just making a block, I could have made the block with 2.5 x 2.5 squares and sewn the blocks to the strips between blocks. Since this is a quilt-as-you-go, I had to make changes to keep squares in proportion for a finished 8 inch block. The inner squares are cut at 2.5 x 2.5, the corner squares 2.75 x 2.75, and the inner perimeter squares 2.75 x 2.5. Since two pieces that make up this block are rectangles, those pieces measure 2.75 x 4.75. After piecing, the block size is a 9 inch block, which will become an 8 inch garlic knot block after joining blocks together.

Next step was coming up with a design for the backside of the quilt. I could have just used large pieces of fabric for a block, but this year I want to use up a lot of my scrap fabrics. I decided on a string quilt backing. Since I have lots of scraps of batting that needs to be used up too, I sewed strips of fabric onto the batting.

I wanted the quilting to be simple, quick, and easy to do. So after layering the garlic knot block onto the string pieced block, I quilted straight lines to bring attention to the garlic knot pattern.

I'm planning on making the quilt 63 x 72. One block completed and 55 more blocks to assemble!

First Finish 2017

Yeah! First quilt of the new year completed!! This scrappy quilt has only taken me six months to get it finished. It's been over a year since I did any quilting with my Davis. Sitting down to quilt with this vintage beauty was like having tea with an old friend that I hadn't seen for awhile. She had waited patiently for me. She treadled so smoothly--it was like we had worked together just yesterday.

Then came stitching down the binding with a decorative stitch from Singer. She also performed effortlessly.

I had put a yellow flange on the backside of the quilt to dress the back up and bring out the yellows in the Chickadees.

My father loved watching and feeding wild birds, and his favorites were the Cardinals and Chickadees. My mom loves Bittersweet, and the berries in the design looks like American Bittersweet. So when I saw this fabric, I knew I must have it to use in one of my quilts.

The bird fabric could have been used as large blocks to give the back of the quilt a more pieced, pattern look, but I just wanted to get the quilt done.

Many of the scrapes came from my mom, but there are many that came from me. I plan to make this year the year of scrappy quilts since I have a large stash of fabrics.