Tag: diamonds

Floral diamonds done

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A finished quilt to check off the to-do list!

It was actually done last week, but I was waiting to post in the hope of getting outside-in-the-sun pictures.  These early-dark and rainy days make photography even more challenging than it usually is for me.  I eventually gave up and photographed it indoors.

The top is made up of of diamonds cut from the scraps of a floral quilt I made my cousin a couple Christmases ago.  As is my habit lately, I pinned it in my sister’s classroom to take advantage of all the space and the indestructible tiled floors.

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It is my second diamond top, and I quilted it very similarly to the first, with verticle lines and shadow diamonds scattered in.

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I drew the lines with a vanishing pen – when I was done sewing I spritzed water to remove the blue lines, and any remnants were taken care of when I washed it.

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The binding was more scraps, machine sewn as usual for speed and durability.

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This is never going to be my favorite quilt – I like the overall design, but question some of my color combo choices, but I have a couple potential recipients in mind for the holidays who would really like it, and it is more important that the person who gets it loves it than I do.

My son tested it out, blanket-wise, and says it definitely works.

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Rainy days are sewing days

It has been wet and gray, weather that makes me want to curl up with a stack of fabrics and a rotary cutter!

A while back I made another diamond quilt, inspired by one I saw a pic of online. The inspiration quilt was arranged with very symmetrical rows, but I wanted a more random distribution to go with the scrappy stripes. (I can’t find the original inspiration picture, but it was a little like this one, but with wider diamonds and a scrappy background.) Mine ended up rather differently, like this:

Yesterday I gathered a pile of floral fabrics and a diamond template and started cutting to make my second diamond quilt.

My diamonds are 12 inches high, with the blocks end up at 12 1/2″ by 7 1/2″ wide. I always make them a little bigger and then trim them to the exact size to make up for any inaccuracies in my piecing. I don’t use pins when I sew the blocks so trimming fixes any shifting. And it doesn’t take long to trim them. In this case there were 24 diamond blocks.

It was definitely a quicker top the second time around, mainly because I wasn’t having to sew all the strips together for stripes, and I also made most of the background blocks bigger as well. Much less sewing all around, and I like the solid effect as well, though I think I will try a third with a single color background. I was determined to make this one without buying any more fabric which made a patchwork background mandatory. And I do love scrappy in a quilt!