Friday 31 May 2013

Pinwheel Quilt

This is my favourite of the quilts I have made so far.  It is made up of pinwheels and a 2.5" scrappy border around the edge.
It is made with Tanya Whelan fabric called hatbox.  I love the fabric and this style of fabric generally.  I love the colours, and I love pinwheels.  I got inspiration to make this quilt mainly from here and also here.
This image is from here and just made me want to make one like it.  I love it and the fabric here is ginger blossom by Sandi Henderson.
My colours are more muted but I don't seem to be able to get my photo colours to pop like others do.  I am working on that.
I pieced my pinwheels using 5" squares, two white and two coloured for each pinwheel.  I used a tutorial on youtube for instructions. I saw a tutorial for using two squares and sewing around all four sides to generate four pairs of half square triangles by cutting diagonally corner to corner twice.  I am glad I didn't do that as I had enough distortion the way I did it.  Doing it the other way would have lead to even more seams on the cross than I had which means it will all be more stretchy and easy to deform.
When I put the borders on I forgot the golden rule of measuring through the centre to determine the lengths of the borders.  I just sewed on enough border and found that it was a bit 'frilly' afterwards because the borders were longer than the centre of the quilt due to triangles deforming and stretching.  I took them off and resewed them on again after measuring them and it was ok.  This was just annoying as I ended up basting it twice.
I pieced the back with more hatbox fabric and the binding if a dot from the same line.  I love this quilt and it lives on our sofa and is often used on chilly evenings.  I machine quilted it with lines in a grid about 0.25" from the seams around each pinwheel.
In other news, my hexagon log cabins quilt is progressing slowly.  I sewed a lot of it together with triangles in between and I was grappling with it and it just wasn't fitting together and looked absolutely awful - most of it wasn't lining up at all.  So I ended up taking it all apart and cutting all of the hexagons and triangles to size accurately.  It isn't rocket science!  I just thought I could coax them into fitting and get it good enough, but it just ended up taking far longer and looking much much worse than I thought.  So that was a lesson learnt - make sure everything is the right shape and size first!  I have fussy cut some of the triangles and the one above is my favourite because it has a pink elephant on it.  That was right on the edge of my 'parade' fat quarter from children at play by Sarah Jane.  I couldn't have done much else with it so it has made some really nice fussy cut triangles.
Have a great weekend!
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15 comments:

  1. Anonymous1 June 2013 at 01:58

    I want to make a pinwheel quilt too. Yours is really nice.

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    Replies
    1. Marianne1 June 2013 at 08:21

      Thanks Terry. They are very satisfying to make!

      Delete
  2. Turid1 June 2013 at 21:57

    This is really nice. And the borders just "did it".

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  3. Clair2 June 2013 at 01:08

    Pinwheels are great! I am thinking of doing that for one of my next quilts.

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  4. Lucy | Charm About You2 June 2013 at 07:45

    Such a pretty quilt! I love your hexie log cabins too!
    Thanks for linking up :)

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  5. Julie2 June 2013 at 10:42

    such a pretty quilt

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  6. Lisa2 June 2013 at 11:43

    Very lovely quilts even the one not finished yet! I love Sarah Jane fabric! Great work!

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    Replies
    1. Marianne9 June 2013 at 16:35

      Thanks Lisa, I am determined to get stuff finished and not have too many wips.

      Delete
  7. Connie Kresin Campbell4 June 2013 at 23:36

    Your pinwheel quilt is adorable and of course I love your hexie log cabins! I'm glad the blocks are working out for you now.

    Thanks for sharing.
    Freemotion by the River Linky Party Tuesday

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    Replies
    1. Marianne9 June 2013 at 16:34

      Thanks Connie, good to 'speak' to you. xxxx

      Delete
  8. Amy6 June 2013 at 15:11

    Your pinwheel quilt is gorgeous! And I love love love your hexagon log cabin blocks.

    Thanks so much for linking up to And Sew We Craft Together x

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    Replies
    1. Marianne9 June 2013 at 16:34

      Thank you Amy, and thanks for your link party!

      Delete
  9. Adorned From Above12 June 2013 at 12:50

    Thanks so much for sharing with Adorned From Above's Blog Hop. We always love seeing everyone's posts.
    Have a great week and here is this weeks party has started. Here is the link.
    http://www.adornedfromabove.com/2013/06/wednesdays-adorned-from-above-blog-hop_11.html
    Debi and Charly

    ReplyDelete

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