Bear Paw Log Cabin Quilt + some changes

Let's start with my latest quilt finish! This inspiration for this quilt was Fabric Mutt, Heidi's Big Bear Cabin quilt . I drafted a smaller block and set them on point with some background sashing and cornerstones. It was a great quilt to use up some scraps and fit my planned scrappiness style. I quilted it simply with vertical straight lines.

In other news, I've joined the Alison Glass Stitch Club. It's a 6 month program where a new hand stitching technique and project is featured each month. It came at just the right time for me. I'm enjoying the slow hand work and learning new to me techniques.

The first month (June) was Kantha stitching. I turned my piece into a pillow.

And finally, some changes. I've decided to continue using Instagram to share my quilting process and projects and stop blogging. It's something I've thought about for a long time and although I love all of you who have followed me here, Instagram seems to provide an easier and more engaging platform.

Did you know I've been on Blogger for ten and a half years? I also blogged using Apple's platform for almost 2 years prior. It's been such fun sharing my work with all of you here. Thank you, thank you, thank you for following along. I have enjoyed this space tremendously.

I hope you'll follow me on Instagram - @clammon. There's such a great and supportive quilting community there!

All the content will stay up and who knows? I may pop in if the need arises. I will leave comments open for about a week - then I will turn them off (I've had lots of spam not filtered out recently). Feel free to email me any time - cindy@hyacinthquiltdesigns.com

Keep quilting!

Iceland Ice ~ An Asterisk Quilt

Are you familiar with Brigitte Heitland from Zen Chic? She has a wonderful, modern, clean aesthetic that reminds me of Scandinavian design. She designs beautiful fabric for Moda and has many very cool patterns available.

A couple of years ago I purchased her book, Zen Chic Inspired. It's all about creating quilts that are inspired by interiors, both in color and design. It's a really interesting concept and fun to think about when you're  making a quilt to be used in a particular room in your house.

"Iceland Ice" is one of the patterns in the book and reminds me very much of the Asterisk block that was popular several years ago.

This "Iceland Ice" version caught my eye because it repeats the same fabrics in both the background and the Asterisk. 

My version uses shades of bright blue, blush pink, rusty gold, grays and white which were all inspired by the floral print from the Aviary Collection by Ruby Star Society (which is also on the back).

Once the top was finished, there is always the dilemma of how to quilt. I posed the problem on Instagram along with a photo of the top and 2 commenters suggested a spiral. A spiral was really the perfect solution, but I really had to think about turning this 60" x 72" quilt round and round and round....

My solution was to off-center the spiral. I started it 2 blocks from the top and 2 blocks from the left. This allowed me to reach the edges sooner. I spiraled around, spacing the lines a bit less that 1". By the time about 1/3 of the quilt was quilted, I had already reached 2 edges and quilted the echoing curved lines from edge to edge.

So happy with how it turned out!

A drive around an empty city provided this perfect dark gray wall to photograph the quilt. But I couldn't help snapping one in the beautiful sunshine!

Night Stars

I'm back today sharing a second quilt that I finished a month or two ago. It's Night Stars designed by Emily Dennis from Quilty Love.

The color inspiration was this strawberry fabric from Ruby Star Society. I had some Kona Teal and Kona Lingerie that worked beautifully with the colors in the print. 

I pulled teal and pink prints from my stash to make the star blocks. You'll notice that one block uses Kona Raisin instead of the light pink Lingerie. That's because I was short on yardage and decided to work with what I had on hand.

I backed the quilt in the cute strawberry print and quilted it using straight lines.

I cut the leftover teal for the binding, but again ran short on yardage, so I inserted bits of the RSS strawberry print in the binding.

It's a nice big quilt and I couldn't be happier with how it turned out!

Fresh As A Daisy

I have a quilt to share today that has been finished for over a month! With the weather and the upheaval in the world right now, I hadn't taken the time to photograph it until today. And I'm kind of glad I waited as our world is turning green and Spring has sprung :) It brought me some joy this Easter weekend - hope it brings the same to you.

The quilt is "Fresh As A Daisy", a pattern by Lindsey from Pen and Paper Patterns.

I used some of the brightest fabrics in my stash and quilted it with organic lines. The adjacent quilting lines criss-cross creating a ribbon effect.

The backing is an Anna Maria Horner plaid and I used another AMH print in purple for the binding.

Wishing you good health and happiness!

Free Wheeling Single Girl Quilt

I have a couple of quilt finishes to share - they've actually been done for a month, but the weather hasn't been very conducive to taking pictures.

Yesterday I took advantage of a nicer day to snap a few photos of my Free Wheeling Single Girl Quilt, a design from Denyse Schmidt.

This pattern's been around for years and I've had it on my to-do list for years also. A Quilt Along on Instagram last Fall got me motivated.

The background is chambray, a light weight cotton with a denim look. I love how soft and drapey it made the quilt.

I decided to hand quilt it this Winter and enjoyed every minute of the slow stitching.

I used the quilting design provided by Denyse to the QAL participants. I transferred the design to the quilt by perforating the paper pattern on my sewing machine (stitch on the lines without thread) and using a Pounce pad to transfer the chalk lines. I used Aurifil 28 weight thread in a light gray. It has the look of traditional quilting rather than big-stitch quilting.

The backing is one of my favorite prints by Rifle Paper Company. I thought it complimented the quilt so well that I used the excess backing to bind the quilt.

A combination of the light-weight chambray, the hand quilting and Quilter's Dream 80/20 batting made this one so soft and cuddly. I think it will be used again and again!

Camden Road QAL Link Up

Visit Cheryl at Meadow Mist Designs for all the info on linking up your Camden Road quilt!

You have until March 23rd at 11:59 PM Eastern - plenty of time to be eligible for a prize!

Camden Road QAL ~ Finish Your Quilt for Prizes!

We have 3 more weeks before the Quilt Along ends, so there's still plenty of time to get your quilt top done and to be eligible for prizes!

You may remember, I made a small quilt and I'm happy to report that it's finished!

I used the Serpentine stitch on my Bernina to quilt squiggly lines diagonally across the quilt. It's machine bound using the fun aqua plaid that I used in a couple of the blocks.

Those points are tricky to match up when assembling the blocks, so be sure to pin at that point and you should be good. I also pressed those seams open to distribute some of the bulk. Once it's quilted, it flattens right out!

I hope this encourages you to finish up your quilt! You have until March 24th to post your quilt in the linkz party at Meadow Mist Designs. Good Luck!