mmm quilts: My 4Patch Charm Quilt

Sunday 6 November 2016

My 4Patch Charm Quilt

I made this quilt because I loved Kathy of Tamarack Shack's quilt so much. She had been kind enough to put a tutorial up on her blog, and now I see she's added a pdf pattern, so you too can make your own.

One of the things I loved about Kathy's version is how she quilted it--I loved it so much I wanted to quilt one just like it.....

But, then, when the time came to quilt it....

I changed my mind.

First I quilted the colored patches with a double continuous curve--loved it. As I was going to change threads for the background-- I just basted those areas as I advanced the quilt with a wavy line basting stitch.

And, I liked the look of the serpentine basting stitch so much, I wanted to quilt something with that serpentine look in those areas.

About the same time (last March I think), Mary of Addicted to Fabric was saying that she was trying to do something new with each of her quilts--using something she had learned in a book or class. She inspired me to pull out some of my recent book purchases, and I decided this would be the perfect place to use the border version of Nemeshing - from Bethanne Nemeshes book. Which is basically Nemeshing without the the background fill.

Needless to say, I love how this turned out! I've gone on to us this technique again, and it has also improved my 'longarm' feathers which is a style of feather I wasn't able to stitch to my satisfaction prior to practising and quilting Nemeshing.

I bought the charm packs while at Quilt Canada in Lethbridge with friends, I pieced the quilt at Retreat in 2015, and quilted it in March 2016. It took until July to finish the binding. (hand-stitching--bah).

Like many of my quilts, I love the back as much as or more than the front. This is a lovely sage green cuddle on the back--the lower picture shows the color better.