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!

Split Sunburst

If you've been around for a while, you may remember the Sunburst quilt pattern I created for McCall's Quilting Magazine many years ago. It was also published in the book Best Wall Quilts and you can see it here.

It's actually an old design that I found in Barbara Brackman's Encyclopedia of Quilt Blocks, and right next to the original is a version where all of the diamonds are split. I've had in the back of my mind that I would love to try that some day - but wow - it cannot be strip pieced and there are tons of points to match and try not to chop off!

A few months ago, I decided to give it a try when I spotted Ruby Star Society's Speckled fabric at my local quilt shop. I knew I had the perfect fabric for the design and also that it would be either a big win or a big fail!

And it turned into a win in my book!

An interesting note: my original plan was to use a white background (instead of the navy) and have the half diamonds "float" on the quilt {which is actually very pretty}. But as I was coloring the binding in EQ8, I accidentally clicked on the background and turned it navy. I texted my friend, Cheryl, to get a second opinion and we both liked the navy better.

It was a lot of points to match! But, I took my time and most of them turned out pretty well :)

For the quilting, I decided to do a spiral, using the width of my walking foot for spacing...

I'm so glad I gave it a go!

Camden Road

Camden Road is a new pattern by Cheryl at Meadow Mist Designs. I got an early look at the pattern and I knew immediately that it was the perfect quilt for a stack of fabric that had been sitting on my shelf waiting to be sewn up!

I started with this great print from one of my favorite fabric designers, Leah Duncan. It was easy to pull colors from the print and I found blacks, greens, yellows and coral-y oranges in my stash to compliment the print. I used Kona Ash and Snow for the backgrounds.

This is a block based quilt, so it was simply a matter of finding great fabric combos and stitching up the blocks.

For the quilting, I sewed straight lines vertically and horizontally through the center of the blocks. I framed the gray "pluses" with some ruler quilting and free motion quilted within the frames.

I splurged on a backing and used this great Leah Duncan print from the same line.

It's really a pretty Fall quilt - so I guess I'll have to wait until next Fall to appreciate it!

And some fun news! Cheryl and I will be hosting a Quilt Along for Camden Road starting in January. It would be  a fun quilt to start off your year of sewing and I can envision it in so many color combinations. Stay tuned for more details and see Cheryl's version here!

Garden Fence Variation

Garden Fence is a block I originally shared here on the blog and then provided the full pattern in my book, Simply Modern Christmas.

I thought it might be fun to play around in EQ with the quilt design and this is what I came up with.

Here is the book version...

And my original...

I used the method, Subtracting for Minimalism that I learned in a workshop from Cheryl at Meadow Mist Designs. By using the paintbrush tool in EQ I "erased" portions of the quilt.

It's quilted with straight lines that radiate from the offset center block.

I'm pretty pleased with the experiment!

2019 Quilter's Planner Sampler Quilt

First of all - thank you for supporting my quilt sale and fund raiser last week. I raised $965 for Fostering Great Ideas. Quilts doing good again!

I recently finished quilting and binding the Sampler Block of the Month Quilt that was featured in this year's Quilter's Planner. This is a block-of-the-month that is included in the quilt pattern magazine that comes with each planner. The quilt was designed by my friend, Cheryl Brickey from Meadow Mist Designs. She created a very interesting setting for the sampler blocks, but of course, I had to do something different.

I used 5 of the blocks from the Sampler Quilt and set them diagonally, adding some negative space to square it up.

The fabrics are all blues and blue-greens, mostly prints from various Alison Glass lines.

The center block section is quilted with a grid, with diagonal lines in the striped and solid white areas. In the white, I spaced my quilting lines to mimic the spacing of the quilting in the striped sections.

The backing is a white with gray Alison Glass print and the binding is the same solid used in the stripes.

I've been waiting for the perfect quilt to photograph in front of this beautiful mural in my home city of Greenville. It was done by local artist Joseph Bradley. My friend noticed the cute bird peeking around the quilt on the right. I wish I was clever enough to have planned that, but I got lucky!

It's quite large and makes such a statement! I think I need to make another quilt to photograph here :)

Modern Fans Quilt

I have a new finished quilt to share today!

This one has been in the works for a while - not difficult - but a little time consuming with all the curved piecing. The pattern is Modern Fans from Suzy Quilts.

There are several variations of the design in the pattern. They're all very similar and this one is the "Calm Lagoon" version which uses blocks 1 and 3.

Suzy hosted a Sew Along on her website and has many helpful posts for the curved piecing and the trimming.

I had a hard time coming up with a quilting design for this one, typical for me. Circles would have been a great choice, but it seemed too obvious. I went with a simple stipple in the background, back and forth lines on the circles and echoes in the back curved diamond shapes.

The batting is Hobbs Silk. I won it in an online giveaway and it was my first time trying it. It's definitely nice and light and shows off the quilting well as it has a bit more puffiness than my usual cotton. The back is a lawn from Bonnie and Camille's recent line "Little Snippets".

Happy to add this one to my finished quilt inventory!