What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

One simple applique shape … so many ways to add them to a quilt.

Love the second design today …. love the way the blocks came together to form frames around the clusters of beads on four of the blocks.

I like it.

If only I could keep my strings of beads, chains holding pendants in my jewelry box in such attractive tangles!

Love it!

Like the second one too, despite the booboo of the border.

Nice one, and it brings back memories of being allowed to play with button boxes when I was little … by my Mum and grandmother on dad’s side of the family. Scattered amongst the buttons were beads, and some of them were pearls.

Love the quilting in the second design.

Interesting, though not really fan like.

I love the second one, though once again the fans are not obvious in the design,, but I am going to play with the centre bloc design to see if I can make them look more like fans.

Interesting, but think the blocks in the middle would look better surrounding the fan blocks around them.

Love the second design as it is!

One simple shape … one multi coloured fabric plus a border fabric.

All those simple shapes could be cut from small scraps.

Of all the shapes I have used to design quilts, this simple shape would have to be the most versatile.

Gran’s New Beads are a very mixed bag of beads … round, diamonds, teardrops, ovals … and they form strings and clusters, both for applique and quilting designs.

Tangled up together they make Strings of Beads, Double Wedding Rings, clusters and starbursts and pretty much anything you like.

This project file was started so I could play with beaded applique borders, in particular, getting around corners.

String of beads, no matter how I tangle them up, are my favourite traditional style applique quilts to play with virtually, as well as in real life.

The applique was originally turned applique, either needle turn or folded and tacked before stitching, but now I can fuse the beads onto the background, and stitch by hand or machine. The quickest is to use a narrow zigzag by machine, and I like buttonhole stitch by hand.

They would also be easy machine quilting ...

Interesting. I like it, but would have to find just the right quilting to use in the centre.

My first thought is Double Wedding String of Bead outlines … with something in the centre.

That centre is what I was thinking of quilting in the first design!

Simply repeat blocks … not often I share a design with just one block, but I love the simplicity of this design.

The second design for today is more like my usual offerings, but I prefer the first one.

String of Beads was popular nearly one hundred years ago, and that was many years before fusible webbing and cutting machines were available. I have made several items using that one simple shape before I bought a cutting machine, but the next one will be cut mechanically, guided by computer.

I love the first design, but this second one would look great with the motifs I deleted from the first quilted in the open spaces I created, and I think I would like it more!

I love the design, but it is far too busy to make using scraps.

I like the second one, and it would be lovely with scraps.

Love just about every String of Beads quilt design I have seen, including the one above. And the one below!

Love this one!

Happy New Year … and as this year gets underway I am about to start some new virtual projects, using the blocks I have been sorting during the last year.

First though, we are still catching up with family and friends we have not seen for a long time!

I started playing with these new blocks last year, and couldn’t wait to start sharing them, but there are a few virtual quilt designs still to share, and a lot more to find in future play sessions.

Love the design above … lots of tiny pieces can be fused onto the background, and machine or hand stitched to secure them.

One of the trees I have let out of storage so far I refer to as The Family Jewels. It is decorated by single earrings, broken chains, worn out watches … and strings of beads.

The linked blog is the original smaller, purchased tree … that tree has been replaced with a taller hand made tree, and the collection of family jewels has grown to fill it!

Love playing with beads … I fix, modify and make a few bits of jewellery from time to time, and have been known to add beads to a quilt, and of course, love appliqueing beads to quilts, both real and virtual.

Interesting, though the fans are not going to be very effective on a hot day.

Very interesting! Love it so far, but needs some work.

Hmm! The centre of the first designs sort of looks like a game of Noughts and Crosses.

I love it.

Second design is much simpler, and I love it … no favourite for today.

Very pretty.

Love the centre of the second design.

I love Strings of Beads, and all the variety of designs possible with just one simple shape.

The second design is my favourite for today!

I wonder how many little leaf shapes would be needed to make todays designs? They not too hard to cut as there are no fiddly corners, and they can be cut more easily with a die cutter, and my Scan’n’Cut makes it even easier, and setting out pattern sheets in Electric Quilt makes it even easier.