Week 3: Argyled Quilt Along (Suggested Quilting)

 Welcome to Week 3 of the Argyled QAL with 1 Choice 4 Quilting! We're almost done! I've had such a blast designing and make this quilt, and it's so much fun to see your versions come to life in the Flickr group :)

March 6: Cutting and piecing the diamonds

March 13: Cutting and piecing the strips, finishing the quilt top

March 20: Suggested Quilting

March 27: Post your photo of your finished quilt top to the The 1 Choice 4 Quilting Club Flickr Group by this day for a special PRIZE!

Today I'll show you how to add dimension by quilting in an Argyle pattern. It's easy (promise!) once you get the hang of it, and setup take very little time.

Suggested Quilting

You left off with a pretty quilt top... now it's time to get it out of potential UFO status.

1. Make your backing. Slice off selvages in your preferred method. Take a moment to observe some of the prettiest selvages ever (IMO).

If you bought the quilt kit, you should have 4.5 yards of Honey Honey of your choice. Just slice it in half and sew it together to make one long backing piece. I'd love to see pictures of the backs of your quilts (as well as the fronts) on the Flickr page!

2. Baste in your preferred method. I personally still like to use safety pins (it feels more secure to me), but sometimes I get out my spray.

3. Remember that cardboard piece from your layer cake (that you hopefully saved?) It is a little less than 10x10 inches – mark with a pencil (like above) and cut down to a 9.5 x 9.5 inch square.

4. Using pencil or a washable marker (mine is blue - a Mark-Be-Gone, and yes, it will wash out of white!), trace your diamond on to the top of your quilt. Here's what I did, but feel free to do any pattern you want!:

It's hard to describe this in words - basically, for the bottom and top parts of the quilt with just 2 rows of Honey Honey squares, I went across, places the template so that the side points hit the centers of two diamonds, and continued across. You can also see this in these pictures:

 For the middle strip with three rows of Honey Honey squares, I did the same thing, but traced an extra row of diamonds across the middle. If this doesn't make sense and you'd like to try it, leave a comment and I'll try to explain better!

For the strips in the middle, I cut a freehand diamond (2 sides are shorter than the other two) and traces across my quilt.

5. Now, start quilting! I chose four different colors of coordinating threads from Connecting Threads, and got to work. Instead of quilting one diamond at a time, I found it easiest to trace the lines as they connected, all the way across the quilt:

 The possibilities are endless to make this quilt your own.

6. Bind with 1/2 a yard (I used a 2.25" bias method), throw in the wash (if you prefer), sew on a label, and cuddle!

Now, go quilt and post your progress on Flickr! Don't forget to add your finished quilt top (aka, doesn't have to be quilted) there by next Wednesday, March 27, to be in the running for a great prize from 1 Choice 4 Quilting!