Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Liberation!

It is getting warm in Ohio!  I think our Spring lasted about 5 hours!

But no matter how steamy the temps, the quilting continues :)

sorry for the pictures...not sure if it was the light or my camera
 
 I love revisiting liberated quilting....Gwen Marston is the woman behind this process.  If you have not heard of Gwen or read any of her books....I highly recommend them.  I began quilting long before the days of blogs and you-tube videos.  I read every quilting book I could get my hands on.  It is wonderful to have the internet for quick research, but I think books are so much more comprehensive.     


How fun are these 'sails' in pops of solid color! Liberated Quiltmaking is a very forgiving process.  No need obsess over seam allowance or accurate cutting.  

I have posted a tutorial on the process for making this block...but it is worth a refresher...
Begin with your foundation piece of fabric.  I have used Kona Snow for my foundation fabric...the piece in my example is 4" X 6"...therefore my block will be 4 X 6.

     
 for the 'sail' you can use scraps of fabric...the smaller the scrap the smaller the sail....and vice versa.  

I have cut a solid red piece a little larger because I want it to extend from the lower left corner to the upper right corner.


Next I place my red fabric on top of the snow foundation fabric.  Place it so the corner you want covered is exposed.  This can seem awkward, but as soon as it is stitched you will flip it into place.

  
  

stitch with a 1/4 inch seam allowance and flip the 'sail' piece open and press.

   
now turn the entire block over so you are looking at the wrong side of the block.  Using your ruler and rotary trim the 'sail' even with the edges of the foundation piece.


You can see my red fabric is much larger than I needed....


Next, trim away the excess foundation fabric to reduce bulk.



There you go!  Now you can set your own sails!  Make your own summer sailing quilt!


xo mary

19 comments:

  1. A beautiful quilt!! They do capture the colourful sails of boats. By coincidence I was just reading a Gwen Marston book, I put it down to check my phone!

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  2. Love this! And the big loopy quilting. Very modern and fresh.

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  3. Another gorgeous quilt, so totally perfect. Love the quilting, too.

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  4. LOVE the colors and the charming change-up of sizes to the sails.:)

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  5. Nice quilt. I grew up in Youngstown and Cincinnati Ohio, in the late 60s early 70s and remember well how hot it got. We had no AC back then only window fans. I seem to have blocked that out LOL !! I only remember how it would snow in Sept. Thats what I looked forward to..

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  6. Sunny days for happy sailing! This is such a sweet quilt with its pretty range of solids and loopy quilting! I'll swap some sunshine for our gloomy skies....

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  7. very nice and thanks for the refresher course, very clear and easy to understand

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  8. Are you sailing this way soon? :)

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  9. Hi Mary! Thank you for inspiration - so beautiful and looks fun to make! x Teje

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  10. Very fun and liberating : ) With some figuring, one could turn them into little boats. Hmmm......

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  11. Very cool idea! A great way to us scraps! I'll give it a try!
    Cheri

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  12. Such a beautiful quilt.Thanks for the tutorial!

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  13. That looks really fun to make! I love that you've been quilting before the internet was here to help. You are the real deal :)

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  14. I love everything about this quilt!

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  15. Gwen's books are some of my favorites as well, Mary. Your little quilt is so cute!

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