Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Winter Wonderland

It's Day 4 of our Winter Quilts Series! We're excited about today's stunning quilt by Leah Day of Free Motion Quilting Project fame. Let's explore a winter wonderland of gorgeous snowflakes along with a clever technique for snowflake construction. This quilt won Best Machine Workmanship at the AQS Quilt Show & Contest 2011 in Knoxville, TN.  Leah says: "This wall hanging quilt looks intricate and advanced, when in actuality, any quilter could make it!"

Winter Wonderland 50 x 50" by Leah Day, pattern at Day Style Designs (North Carolina)


The key to the snowflakes lies in Leah's Reverse Shadow Trapunto Technique. This technique involves layering felt over fabric, stitching the motif, then clipping out the motif design.   Using a quilt-as-you-go technique, each block is first created, fully quilted, then put together with the other blocks to complete the quilt; you can read about all the steps at the links at the bottom of this post.  Here is a detail view of the quilting that won the award (this is not done on a long-arm machine):


In addition, here is an interesting and fun beginner sampler quilt that allows you to practice 30 different beginner level designs from the Free Motion Quilting Project:


At The Free Motion Quilting Project you can find 365 *free* FMQ designs. For more information on Leah Day and the Project see Frequently Asked Questions and Start Here.  Leah's instructional DVDs and other supplies can be found at the Day Style Designs Quilt Shop.

Image credits and links:  Images are shown with the generous permission of Day Style Designs.  You can read the fascinating story of the snowflake quilt at Leah's blog: Winter Wonderland Part 1, Winter Wonderland Part 2, Winter Wonderland - Finished, and Whoo Hoo for Winter Wonderland.

2 comments:

  1. I enjoyed seeing your winter quilt series. I too have a snowflake quilt I made a few years back that is very different from these. I love the versatility we get in quilts and their patterns.

    You can see my snowflake quilt here:
    http://dreamworthyquilts.blogspot.com/2009/06/two-finished-projects.html

    The snowflakes are made from very tiny pieces cut out of blue and white fabrics and fused on. They are secured with invisible thread in the quilting. It took hours to do each snowflake.

    I design many of my quilts, but these snowflake blocks were taught to me in a quilt class. I am the only one who chose to put them into the attic windows pattern.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wow that's gorgeous! And the sampler - i am running a Qayg FMQ QAL - but hadn't seen this! http://quokkaquilts.blogspot.com/p/fmqaygqalfmqml.html

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