24 Quilts

Welcome back! My summer has had very little to do with quilting so my blog has been really boring. Thank you all for checking back in from time to time anyway. Please spread the word that we're up and running again.

I'm starting a new series of posts. I have chosen 24 quilts from my eq6 stash of quilts - these are quilts I've seen elsewhere and ginned up my own version, or things I've just dreamed up myself, or things friends have suggested. All of them have gone into the "really want to make this one" stack. While paging through these quilts (there are really more than 300 quilts in the stack) I realized that if I was going to get any of them made I would need to start immediately. So I whittled the stack down to just 24 MUST MAKE quilts. Today I will post only the eq6 pictures of each quilt with a brief description where appropriate. Over the course of the next year I will step through the entire quilting process from fabric selection to piecing to quilting and binding for each quilt. Each time a new quilt is introduced I will make the pattern available online for anyone who wants to quilt along with me or just use it later, and I'll make fabric choices and yardage requirements available too.

I've never made an americana quilt before. Gotta do it sometime.

The block above is called simple spider web. I really like the secondary patterns that result from colorplay. This one might get tweaked a little before I start building.

My buddy Babs started the quilt above. This is her fault. :D

I can't for the life of me remember where I first saw this one. Maybe at a quilt show? It'll have a black background on one side and white on the other, but the color strips will be the same on each side.

The quilt above is made up of blocks modified from trading cards I first saw on Mary's blog a few years ago. Here's her post and here's my original block design.

Yes! Trip around the world! My very first gift quilt was a TATW that I made from real scraps (and believe me, it looked REAL scrappy!). This time it will be in my favorite colors, black and grey.

I've been considering neutrals alot lately. What makes a color neutral? Gonna spend a lot of time contemplating that very idea when I choose fabrics for this one.

Chinese butterfly prints have always really grabbed my attention. This quilt will mostly be an excuse for elaborate "scribble" quilting.

This quilt will be made from scraps and leftovers of these fabrics, which makes it a leftovers leftover quilt. Maybe I should call it my leftoverture.

My own designs on hex blocks above. The real quilt will probably be made in two families of coordinating fabrics rather than this hodge-podge of random brights.

Both above and below are my own cube designs.

Yup, classic double wedding ring, gotta make it in black and grey!

Going to use up some scraps on this one. The eq6 version isn't as cool as the real one will be. More on the story when I get to it. But if you plan to do this one with me, start saving your dryer sheets now. :)

Above in miniature and colors, below in a larger format. I have loved the circle of geese idea since I first saw it.

Saw this one in a fairly recent magazine and of COURSE I can't remember which one now. If any of you recognize it, let me know so I can credit the 'zine. EDIT: found it! January/February Fons and Porter's Love of Quilting Magazine. It was on the cover. The picture above however, is my own eq6 adaptation.

Not even sure why I want to make the quilt above. This is the only one that might get cut from the list.

Who hasn't wanted to make a New York Beauty? This one will be in batiks.

The basic idea here came straight off someone else's blog. She's a fellow long armer I think and this pattern was from a customer's quilt. I'd like to credit it if I can find the post.

This is a variation on a single wedding ring quilt. I'm going for a spinning centers look and think I'll need to do a little bit of playing around with this to achieve the dizzying effect I want.

This block has been around for a while. It first caught my eye at the Dallas Quilt Show a few years back. I'm still collecting red and white fabrics for it as red has never been my strong suit in the stash. Good thing it's pretty low on the list. I have found out that this pattern is published in a book called Livin' Large by Heather Mulder Peterson. You can purchase it HERE, but I just eyeballed the pattern at the show and sketched it when I got home, so who knows whether my construction technique matches hers.

This one is my own version of a pattern I saw on a blog - everyone's work was just at the block or top stage in the post's pictures. Anyone remember where it was? The one I liked best from the post was in browns.

Colorful corn and beans blocks. :) I want to go with scrappy neutrals in the background, but the contrast on them is pretty high in eq6. I'll be trying for a more uniform range in the actual quilt.

Ok, there it is. A pretty darned ambitious list, but I believe it's doable. My goal is to get them all done in twelve months, but if it takes a little longer than that I'm not going to kick myself over it. The real point is that life is short. Make quilts while you can!