Celtic Knots

Celtic knots have always fascinated me. The way they wind over and under and around without having a beginning or an end.

Celtic Knot - FOR SALE here

I've done this knot a few times in green, but I did this one in purple for something different. I had no ideas of how I was going to finish it, but that rarely holds me back from stitching something up!

Borders

At our quilt guild's Christmas party in 2016, we were each given 3 fat quarters with the intent that we were to bring something back for our end of year potluck in June of 2017. Well, that didn't happen and the 3 purple fat quarters stayed on my shelf, waiting for their turn to shine.

Quilting

I love smaller projects like this because they let me try some new things and practice some things that I don't really want to do on a larger piece.

1",2" and 3" borders

The 3 guild fabrics ended up making a great set of borders around this Celtic knot.

Pebble quilting

A little pebble stitching around the centre motif makes the Celtic knot stand out. Simple meandering on the purple dragon fly border. And a spiral on the outer border to echo the design on the fabric.

Showing off the back

A plain colored backing fabric shows all the quilting, including the stitch in the ditch straight lines around the borders.

A Tale of 2 Charm Packs

Fabric manufacturers are doing a great job of finding unique way to market their fabrics. From little 2.5" squares to 10" squares to fat quarters to 1/2 yard bundles, there are lots of ways to get a whole collection of coordinating fabrics without having to buy yardage of each piece.

 One of the fabric designers I love is French General. Their fabrics are rich and have an old world feel to them and I think they'd look very much at home in any heritage home.

I bought a couple charm square packs (5" squares) of their "Madame Rouge" line and pared them up with an off-white tone on tone that I had on my shelf. I wasn't sure that the off-white was a good choice as it seemed too bright, but I like the way it makes the reds and golds pop.

The first quilt I made was a pattern from quilter Carrie Nelson's book "Another Bite of Schnibbles". The pattern had some half square triangles and some quarter square triangles and a sweet pieced border of half square triangles.

And I still had some pieces left from those 2 little packages of charm squares, enough to make this other little quilt in a tradition Flock of Geese pattern.

Quilting was just in the ditch along the seam lines on the larger quilt, and diagonal lines on the smaller one. I still have a couple squares left of the charm packs, but they will just get added to my scrap pile. 

I'm pretty impressed that I was able to put two quilts together with a couple charm packs, a little background fabric and a bit of yardage for binding (This was a solid from a previous French General line of fabrics, not a perfect match, but pretty close!)

---Ann

Update to A Winter Quilt

Just added borders to this one and it looks great! Now on the hunt for a flannel for the back!

Snowman Double Irish Chain

Do you like this combination of machine embroidery and quilting? I'm looking for more ideas to combine the 2 techniques!

--Ann