Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Heart Lab: Carolina Patchworks



There's nothing I love more than curling up on my couch with my favorite blanket. A Carolina Patchworks quilt by Emily would be a perfect match to a nice cup of tea and one of my favorite magazines!

The making of the Modern Lotus Orbs Quilt...

Step 1: Fabric Shopping
Who doesn't like shopping? I can easily spend hours at my favorite shop.

Step 2: Designing
Sometimes I have a design idea when I buy the fabric and sometimes I just buy what I love knowing I'll find a pattern later. I design a lot of my quilts but I occasionally use a commercial pattern. 30 minutes

Step 3: Ironing and Cutting
Take lots of fabric and cut it into millions of little pieces so I can sew them all back together. 1-3 hours

Step 4: Piecing
Chain stitching is your best friend. 5-20 hours (or more)

Step 5: Pinning
Hundreds of safety pins go in at 4" increments to hold the quilt, batting and backing together. 1-3 hours

Step 6: Quilting
Sew a meandering line over several thousand square inches of fabric. 2-12 hours

Step 7: Trimming and Binding
Trim it, square the corners and put the finishing touch of binding around the edge. 1-3 hours

Step 8: Washing
The easiest part of the whole process. I wash my quilts after quilting to give them a vintage puckery look. 1.5 hours

Step 9: Photographing
Natural light is a must for quilts. 15 minutes

Step 10: Editing photos, blogging and listing on Etsy
30 minutes

Thanks Emily!!

4 comments:

Melissa de la Fuente said...

This quilt is absolutely beautiful and I can just picture all the awesome snuggling that could be done by a nice warm fire in the winter.....with this quilt!
xo
Melissa

Cindy said...

oh, i love quilts and this one is a beauty. i can handle everything up to the quilting part though. that takes perseverance, but makes all the difference in the world. thank you for sharing her process.

Anonymous said...

This description of quilting cracked me up! So clever.

Anonymous said...

beautiful!