Wednesday, January 7, 2015

Setting In Circles

 Last weekend, Julia and I worked on our retreat projects from last March. During the retreat, we made the jelly roll race tops. Pat Harrison's design had a lovely swirl of circles that were set in using Sharon Schamber's piece-lique method. Julia and I thought we could arrange our circles so the quilts would work together. I first thought of a yin-yang type deisgn. The heart was Julia's brilliant idea.


The original method requires cutting holes in the background first, then piecing in the circle. We reversed that and prepared the circles first by pressing under the seam allowance. Then we glue basted them to the background and cut away the inside of the circle from the background. Finally, we machine stitched the seam. If you've done any piece-lique, this might make sense. It's hard to describe, but it worked for us. Anyway, don't our finished tops look cool together?


When I went to my stash to look for a backing, I found my bin full of Anita's Arrowhead blocks and batik squares waiting to be pieced. About a year ago, I cut up my entire batik stash into squares for these blocks. I pulled all the yellow, orange, pink and green and went to town piecing blocks. I absolutely love making these blocks! Anita's process makes me happy! Now I have a pieced backing that will make this a two-sided quilt.


The binding is pieced from scraps leftover from my circles.


My top, backing, and binding are ready and waiting for me to buy some batting.


I set aside all the blues for Julia, but she won't be able to work on hers again until Spring break.


6 comments:

Jodi said...

Tina! And Julia! These are fabulous! I didn't even notice that the backgrounds are jelly roll tops (which I made one and gifted - not a big fan), but what a great idea to do the heart, Julia. I thought it was one quilt, though, instead of two. Seems like a great technique to teach us at the RIMQG, Tina :-)

Pat Harrison said...

They look great - congrats you two!

Archie The Wonder Dog said...

Bravo!

Sue SA said...

such a happy quilt, love the back as much as the front!

Tilkunviilaaja said...

The top and backing look great! Wow!

Rike Busch said...

That's a fantastic idea to get a doube-side quilt and also to make two quilts like a ying-yang.
I think, your happy that your daughter is back to the USA, aren't you? ;)
Greetings, Rike