I’m excited to show this finish to you. It is a top I quilted for my sister and it finished at 52″ x 62″. It’s a great little lap quilt.
Normally I wouldn’t take a customer quilt outside to photograph. Since it’s Wissa’s quilt though, I thought I could get by with it. Besides, it looks soooo pretty with those blues laying on the green grass.
Wissa wanted a quilt design that would leave the quilt soft and cuddly, and she didn’t want a large meander. We discussed a couple of options, and, after seeing the micro-stippled practice piece I did, she decided she wanted clamshells all over.
Because of the layout of the quilt blocks, I didn’t have to do any marking to start the clamshells. I was afraid it would take a while to do this design because I would be using a ruler, but it went really fast. I finished the clamshells in about 4 hours – this would go a lot faster if you are using a longarm.
I absolutely love the softness achieved with this design.
Here is the back:
I played with the borders some, modifying a design from Angela Walters book “Shape by Shape – Free Motion Quilting with Angela Walters”. A big shout out to Yvonne for recommending this book, it’s been extremely helpful to me.
This is the first time I’ve treated two borders as one. It’s pretty interesting and adds a lot of interest to the overall look of the quilting design – you can see the overall look in the first picture above. I will definitely play with this technique again.
I mentioned that I used rulers to do the clamshell design. I have two that I can use: the HQ Versa Tool, and the HQ 2″ & 4″ Clamshell ruler. While the larger one looks more efficient, I found it was easier and faster for me to use the Versa Tool. It was also easier for me to keep the clamshells even – they kept wanting to migrate to the left when I used the larger ruler.
Those pieces that look like tape on the rulers are actually grippy pieces that keep the ruler from slipping. They feel a bit like sandpaper and work like a charm. I wouldn’t use it on a delicate fabric like silk, but on quilting cotton it was great.
This quilt will be mailed out today. I hope Wissa likes her new cuddly quilt!
Beautifully done. The clamshells make a nice contrast to all the angles in the piecing. Congrats on the finish.
Great quilting! The sandpaper-like strips on the back, did you buy those separately or did they come with the rulers? I have one long arm ruler that has a sticky kind post-it note adhesive on the back that works well but gets linty and has too be washed very frequently. I think that the sand paper type might work better.
Great quilting! I’m glad to hear your perspective on the longer ruler. I have only tried clamshells with the versa tool. I really like how the scallops in the border mimic the clamshells.
What a nice finish and I love that you chose the clam shells. I love all of Angela’s Books, but Shape by Shape is probably the one I use the most. It has definitely got me out of a few quilting pickles before.
I like the soft, roundness of the clamshells with the straight edges of the quilt blocks. Cool idea to treat the two border strips as one. Looks great!
I am so glad you are enjoying the book; I pull it out when I get stumped, too. I really like how you treated the two borders as one, I think it keeps it soft and cuddly per your sister’s request but add a nice detail – my eye went straight there in the first photo!
Thanks for sharing your rulers. I was curious about how they looked! Love the clamshells.