This is a static export of a blog I put on ice many years ago, that still has personally relevant content. No promises can be made around linkrot, styles, or working functionality.
The embellished fabric bin I made two years ago has been taunting me to use the remaining fabric from Thomas Knauer’s Savannah Bop line that was sitting inside of it. Even after using strips to make the 1 + 1 = 4 charity quilts and the bin, I had about 1/3 yd. of each print in the line in my stash. Finally, the need for another baby quilt gave me reason to pull it out.
“Puzzle Bop”, Rachael Arnold, February 2015, 48″x56″. Photo by Carl Pfranger.
I settled on the idea of a puzzle—because what is quilt pattern design if not a giant puzzle to solve? As tempted as I was to throw in solids and a yarn-dyed once again, I decided to use up most of the prints in the line and only added in the Michael Miller Kryptonite solid for a bit of contrast. (Here’s my tutorial on how to make the puzzle block.)
“Puzzle Bop” (detail), Rachael Arnold, February 2015, 48″x56″. Photo by Carl Pfranger.
Then, because the design needed a little something more, I appliqued on a few extra puzzle pieces to fill in the negative space. I especially like the one on the top corner that wraps to the back of the quilt over the binding. (I posted a description of my process back in February.)
“Puzzle Bop” (detail), Rachael Arnold, February 2015, 48″x56″. Photo by Carl Pfranger.
I free motion quilted this all over in a loose meandering pattern, using a Gutterman green that matches the Kryptonite. The back is Minky Cuddle Pine Ridge in Olive. I tried out Pellon’s Eco Batting this time, a 70/30 cotton/poly blend. It’s bound in Kona Sunflower.
“Puzzle Bop” (detail), Rachael Arnold, February 2015, 48″x56″. Photo by Carl Pfranger.
This has been a slow year for me, quilting wise (at least considering I don’t have wedding planning to blame). I finished the quilt in February, but just now got around to photographing it and dropping it in the mail. It’s my only finish yet this year, but that should change soon.
“Puzzle Bop” (detail), Rachael Arnold, February 2015, 48″x56″. Photo by Carl Pfranger.
At least spring finally decided to grace Vermont!
“Puzzle Bop” (detail), Rachael Arnold, February 2015, 48″x56″. Photo by Carl Pfranger.
My latest quilt needed something more than piecing for me to love it, so I decided to add a few applique pieces to it after it had been quilted. Then, I decided to step it up a notch and wrap one of the appliques from the front to the back (full disclosure, I’ve been planning on doing something similar on one of my long-term works in progress, so it’s not a terribly new idea of mine).
The trick is that the applique was added after the quilt was otherwise finished. I sewed a backing to the applique piece, turned it right-side out through a slit in the middle of the backing (for clean edges), then topstiched along the edge to secure it to the quilt. When I reached the part that would wrap, I just kept topstitching without the quilt underneath, so that it looks the same as the top.
Once I was done, I wrapped the piece around, and used a ladder stitch to secure the piece to the back by hand.
It also served as a good place to put the label for this quit.
I’ll be back with more info about the completed quilt once it reaches its destination!
I’m working on a new baby quilt that looks like a very large, squared-off puzzle. It boils down to a bunch of 8″ blocks, but I haven’t yet found a way to batch process them—I have to make each one individually to make sure it has the right fabrics to match up with the next in line, as a piece of each block’s fabric needs to end up in two different adjoining blocks.
But, I did sketch out the whole quilt with fabric placement, so it’s moving along steadily without too much ripping. Here’s a blueprint for the blocks.
