Saturday, November 17, 2007

Thinking About Making a Quilt as a Gift?

When I looked back in my photos for the quilt I made my niece, Kelly, last year, I remembered this one I made for my former boss:




I thought I'd share it with you because it's really a simple quilt to make with a lot of visual impact, particularly for any guys on your Christmas list. I think the cutting and piecing probably only took me about a day, and then I kept the quilting pretty simple with just some straight lines to fill in the "star" and some meandering in the background. From start to finish, this one only took a few days and I think it turned out nicely--so did my boss and his wife!

The pattern is the Carpenter's Wheel, and I think you can find the block on the Quilters' Cache site. It's made up primarily of half square triangles and a few plain blocks, and I believe I made each block 6". In fact, when you're thinking about simple quilts with lots of visual impact, you might consider just taking a regular block pattern that you like and making each piece much larger, as I did with the Carpenter's Wheel block. Sometimes just one large block can make the whole quilt--or maybe four large blocks set together. The possibilities are endless! All you have to do is think outside the box a little bit!

9 comments:

  1. Love those colors and the stripes . . how effective! I see why the boss and his wife loved it!

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  2. Ooooh -- pretty, pretty quilt. Love the colors and the use of the block. I will have to remember this!

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  3. Holy Cow Kim! You made this for your boss??? I hope you got a HUGE raise LOL!!! What a great employee you are -- it's beautiful. I LOVED your post about your kids -- it brought tears to my eyes for some bizarre reason -- thanks for sharing!

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  4. I do love these fabrics, espcially that border fabric. I think my taste are changing... or at least broadening!

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  5. Did you say FORMER boss??? WOW!!! Can I be your FORMER friend??? LOL!!!

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  6. Wow Kim....I love it. That is one of my favorite patterns. You are so clever. :)

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  7. One of my favorites, Kim. Simple design, stunning results! I really like those fabrics.

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  8. Wow, Kim! What a great idea and a beautiful quilt! Your points are perfect, and I really looked, too! Thinking outside the box is fun, although I don't always do it successfully - certainly not like this!

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