Roundabout Bend 18x40
I hope you are having some wonderful holiday time! We had a nice visit with our daughter who came from Portland for a few days. We also got together with my parents and sister and her husband. It was a beautiful white Christmas too! We've had so much snow this year. I'm pretty sure this is the most we've had since we've lived here and definitely the most for Christmas. Unfortunately, I came down with a bad cough on Christmas day, so the past few days I've been laying low and missing out on some of the fun stuff that the rest of the family did. I think I'm on the mend now, so I want to get these last few QuiltCon posts done before the New Year.
Today's post is about Roundabout Bend. It's a couple of years old, but one of my favorites. It lives on the wall just outside my studio door so I see it everyday. This one was made for our local SAQA group's challenge called "A View from Above". I did an improvisational look at the traffic roundabouts in my city. We've got lots of them and I just love them!
This was the first time I've done free pieced quarter circles which turned out to be super easy. I will do more in the future. My only recommendation if you want to try is just cut bigger than you think you'll need. I did it just as I do gentle curves. They'll end up uneven on the ends, so you'll need to trim before moving on. You'll notice that in this case the green piece that is attached to each quarter circle was itself pieced from many scraps of green before adding to the quarter circle.
While this quilt is mostly made with solids and chambrays, I added a couple of small bits of a print that captured the nature of curves. I machine quilted in straight lines with various colors of thread.
I entered this quilt because I wanted to have one that fit firmly into the small quilt category. I'm sort of disappointed it didn't get in and I'll never be sure why, but it's okay. I know it's a great quilt and it makes me happy. It's been exhibited in other places, including just recently at QuiltWorks in Bend. I think it will probably be retired from this point which means I'll get to enjoy it even more.
