Quilty Habit: Blogger's Quilt Festival: Scatter

Friday, October 24, 2014

Blogger's Quilt Festival: Scatter

For my Fall 2014 Blogger's Quilt Festival entry (in the Original Design category), I'm sharing one of my favorite projects from this year: Scatter, my first orange peel and improvisationally pieced quilt! I wanted to make a modern orange peel quilt, and I decided to experiment with scattered peels. It came out exactly as I hoped it would!

I originally created this quilt for a dear neighbor back in June. I was going to give it to her if she had a girl. Then, Jan, the owner of my LQS, Pennington Quilt Works, liked it so much that she asked me to teach a class. It hung in the store for a couple of months (!) and now that the class is over, it's back in my clutches. But my neighbor just had a boy, so I made a whole other quilt ;) (to be posted shortly!). It's just as well because I'm not ready to give Scatter away.

In my class, I discussed my design process and encouraged my students to "let it go" as they pieced. We learned and practiced methods for improv piecing - it doesn't have to be a "free for all!"

I sketched my vision for the quilt at the very beginning: I wanted to feature Anna Maria Horner's Pretty Potent fabrics in a rainbow burst from the middle of the quilt. I included just one "full" orange peel at the very bottom on purpose. Finally, I pieced a couple of gray scraps into each panel before I sewed the whole thing together; looking back, that's my favorite part!

This quilt was witness to many "firsts" for me and I've been working on another for my mom with different-sized peels. Scatter definitely sucked up part of my soul, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

I backed and bound it with one of my favorite prints from Anna Maria Horner's Dowry and quilted with my free motion foot all over (changing up the design at my leisure). I also quilted one full ghost peel in the middle, which you can see here! This picture makes me super happy. :)

Thank you for all of your support and encouragement this year through the Orange Peel QAL and my very first class! I'm happy to say that I'll be teaching another section of the class at Pennington Quilt Works early next year, so stay tuned for those dates!

Quilt Stats:

Size: 44" x 55"

Pieced and quilted by me on my home machine

Entered into the Original Design category

Original post here

Make sure to check out Amy's lovely Blogger's Quilt Festival - eye-candy for the quilty soul!