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Finished Maxim quilt (Quilt studio diary)

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You may have read about my quest to find the perfect binding for this quilt – if not, here’s the post. You may not agree with my choice, but I’m happy. Here she is: the Maxim quilt sewn of X blocks: The finish makes me even happier than identifying the binding fabric! I keep track of all my quilty makes and it is so satisfying to be able to add the entry when an item is finished. The sunny pictures of the Maxim quilt make me happy too: it feels that a quilt doesn’t get properly represented if the celebratory finishing photos are shot when the sun isn’t shining. And summer sun makes the colours look perfect, don’t you think: This quilt is the 98th that I’ve finished since I made my first quilt in 1995 (note that I didn’t make another quilt until 2009 when I launched into quilting for real). It is the 641st quilted item that I’ve finished since I started blogging in November 2009, and the 54th whose name begins with the letter ‘M’. You can see I’m a sucker for s...
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Desperately seeking binding and 5 binding tips I’ve learned

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It’s great that I got my X blocks quilt back from Töölön Tilkkupaja's longarm quilting! If you thought that the quilt top looked nice, you will love it now that it’s been quilted! The next thing that a quilted quilt needs is a binding. I always make my own bindings, so my next step started with a search through my sizable stash: I was sure that I would find the right binding fabric easily. Not so! I ended up auditioning at least a dozen choices. This picture shows two picks that I was pretty sure about: I thought that the dark grey fabric would be perfect, but it was only “nearly right”. The uppermost, barely visible fabric is a pale purple Kaffe Fassett. Again, almost there but just a little blah. The middle one I picked because it looked weird enough for me to hope that it would surprise me and be great – but it wasn't. Here you can see a peek of a peach-coloured fabric that I was also hoping to prove surprising: Instead, it was the worst fit of all the fab...
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Looking back: the Winter Apples quilt from 2009

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Today, I will share some of my “quilt thinking” and reflections on one of my earlier quilts. This is one of my first quilts, and it’s called Winter Apples / Talviomenoita: I was inspired by a quilt-along that Crazy Mom Quilts started in the spring of 2009. The quilt-along made me wonder if I could make a quilt if I followed her lead and sewed one block per day until I had enough for a quilt top? Turns out that I did! Though I did not sew one block per day along the quilt-along. This is the first picture of this quilt project, and one of the few that I took: I didn’t have a blog or a proper digital camera, and quilt photos were thus a rare thing for me back then. When I look at the quilt blocks now, I would like to re-do some of my nine-patch blocks so that they would all have enough value contrast. Especially the ones that look more like a “square-in-a-square" blocks! The centers of the nine-patches are of an extremely long piece of fabric that I bought in 200...
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Splendid colour tips for quilters: Beige colour in quilts

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This post is one of my Splendid colour tips series, where I share information to help you choose fabrics and colours for your quilts with more confidence. Today’s quilt colour is beige, and I’ll be sharing the following: My thoughts and helpful tips about using beige colour in quilts What to watch out for, and ways to use beige effectively in quilting Practical examples from my own quilts and quilted items Beige is a calm, balanced colour, and it can make us feel comfortable. Quilters usually categorise beige as a “neutral”. What to watch out for when using beige in quilting A quilt with an abundance of beige, especially if there isn’t much contrast may look and seem boring or drab because the colour is probably the most neutral of the colours that quilters call neutral. Because beige is a neutral, it will go with pretty much any colour as long as you remember value contrast: make sure that your colours are clearly lighter or darker than the beige fabrics next to ...
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