Machine Quilting Unlimited - Special Edition - Winter 2011

Foundations
Simple Strategies for Quilting Patchwork
© 2010 Barbara Hollinger
Many recent quilt shows
and current magazine articles feature quilts
finished with the most amazing machine quilting
where design and color blend in a beautiful
array of form and texture the likes of which
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most of us can only dream of creating.
The quilters who craft these
works of art spend countless hours
honing their skills, planning their
masterpieces and working through
every detail, filled with what must
be miles and miles of thread. Many
quilters, especially beginners, find
themselves working at the other
end of the spectrum, making simple
patchwork quilts that will warm a
chilled lap, bundle a small child, or
Simple Shapes
wrap a college student with comfort
from home. Busy schedules and
hectic lives do not allow us to pour
our time into the utility quilts that
are likely to become well worn before
very long. Over the years, I have
used a series of techniques to finish
this type of quilt in an easy way that
gives each one its own style. The
simple approaches outlined in this
article will get you started and will
hopefully serve you well as you work
toward a masterpiece of your own.
Focal Block
Oversized Block
Basic Guidelines
Before you get started, it will be
helpful for you to step back and
assess the quilt composition.
Consider how the pieces interact.
Do they meet at the corners or are
they offset? Are the pieces uniformly
sized or are there small patches
mixed with larger ones? Is the quilt
full of piecework or are there large
blank spaces? Is there a focal point
to the design or does the pattern
repeat across the quilt? With these questions
in mind, read through the steps that follow and
think about how you can customize quilting
designs for your quilt.
Break down the composition into smaller elements.
(Image 1) Most patchwork can be placed
into one of several categories:
1. Blocks made of small simple shapes;
squares rectangles, triangles and
diamonds.
2. Blocks with a focal point; stars, leaves, and
baskets.
3. Blocks with a large over-all design; log
cabins, crazy patch.
4. Pieced borders.
Plan a design using a unified theme when quilting
these different elements. This will give your
quilt a cohesive appearance. I love to use swirls
and spirals but for this sampler I selected leaves
as my quilting theme. (Image 2) I was able to
incorporate this theme into each section so there
were no areas which looked like an afterthought.
I used the same basic shape for all my leaves but
varied their size and orientation. I let the size of
the space they needed to fill dictate the size of
the leaf. Choose a theme that compliments not
14 Machine Quilting Unlimited | Special Edition Winter 2011
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