"The Tree Quilt" also known as "Diamond in the Forest Quilt"

Since I referenced this quilt in my previous post, I thought I’d show it again. (The completed quilt was first post in September 2014). It was fun to note that I renamed the quilt once it was complete, something I used to do frequently with quilts I designed myself. While under construction, I called it the “Diamond in the Forest” quilt but when it was done, it became “The Tree Quilt”.

It’s a half square triangle quilt, with one block that has a inset reverse circle patch. I quilted that block to look like it was a hole in a tree trunk. It was a lot of fun doing that free motion quilting. The quilt has a wool batting so it is light and lofty, and really shows off the quilting.

On the back there is a forest fabric. I looked to see the date on the label and … oops. No label. That’s a bit embarrassing! This is one of those times that I’m grateful for the blog and can look back to see the date on posts I wrote while making the quilt, so I can “post-label” this quilt I made in 2014!

Blue and Yellow Quilt with Circles

Here’s another blue and yellow quilt I just completed which will probably go to a refugee from Ukraine at some point in the fall. Like the Hachi Quilt made using Ukrainian blue and yellow fabric which I made this spring, this quilt includes sunflower flowers and storks. The sunflowers are reverse circles peeking through to the top of the quilt and the storks are in the center of both the big Economy Quilt Blocks.

I took the template from one of favorite quilts, “Flying Economy” quilt and adapted it to add reverse circles, circles made using quarter circles blocks and semi-circles. The “Flying Economy” quilt I made in 2018 was inspired by a quilt designed by Sam Hunter called “Fourteen on Point”.

Most of the quilting in this quilt is straight line quilting done with a walking foot. But I know that I’m not any good doing free motion echo quilting around circles, so I hand quilted the circles using perle cotton #12 and a bit of #8 since I only had the bright yellow in the thicker thread.

This rectangular quilt is a nice size to wrap up in, hang on the back of a sofa, or to fold and place at the foot of a bed.

Portholes Quilt Completed

Here's my completed Portholes quilt.  As expected, the quilting on this piece was a challenge.  
I Googled "ripples in water" and found photos of perfectly symmetrical circular ripples and then wavy broken ripples.  Clearly the perfect ones where either taken in a controlled environment or on a mill pond.  The latter where taken outdoors where there was a breeze.

Initially I tried to quilt perfect concentric circles, first with my walking foot and then with free motion quilting.  Neither method produced a perfect circle so I ripped them out attempts.  Fortunately for me, sailboats need wind to move so the irregular circles were actually more appropriate for this quilt.  I rather like the rippled circles around the boats.

I tried doing concentric circles again around the sun after I had done all the other quilting. This time I marked the circles out with dots using tailor's chalk.  Then, with the speed of my sewing machine turned down, and using free motion quilting, I slowly went around the sun twice.  It was much better than my first 2 attempts, but still not perfect.

Here's the back of the quilt.  Looks like a very busy regatta!

Back of Porthole Quilt

This quilt is going to my brother who is a sailor.  Every time I give him a quilt, he asks, "May I take it to the boat?"  And my answer is always an emphatic "No!"  because my usual batting is cotton.  This time I used 100% polyester batting--much more boat worthy.

However, that doesn't mean that I still am not worried about the quilt being on the boat.  What if it blows overboard?  With that in mind, I sewed a ribbon loop on each top corner of the quilt and I put a carabiner into one of the loops.  Now he can run a line through the carabiner attached to either ribbon loop to secure the quilt to the boat.  (Or that's my hope)!.

Ribbon loop with carabiner

This isn't a perfect quilt.  But it was a lot of fun to make and I know it will be used and enjoyed.