An Artful Sampler

I wish to share with you this unique quilt pattern by Sarah Whitney, called Marmalade and Jam, An Artful Sampler. Here is the whole quilt top before I figured out how to quilt the piece. Do you “see” the two large Bear's Paws in the lower corners?

Often I will take a photo of a quilt top, print it out and doodle over the piece. Stumped at first, I figured if the designer sees it as a “sampler” then why can't I quilt it as a quilting design sampler, too? I spent a whole day designing the many different treatments I used for the blocks of color.

You will see free motion designs, as well as ruler-work and the use of commercial stencils and templates. And, of course, I stitched in the ditch (Yes, that dreaded SID!) around the main areas for stability. The SID is done in clear nylon thread. To keep the quilting from overwhelming the whole piece, I used three colors of thread and matched them to the fabrics as much as I could.

The clamshells came out great. I used a stencil to set down the design and then utilized a small circle template to keep my curved lines in order.

The last picture was taken with the machine's fluorescent light on, which is why the lighting looks so strange. That design is all free motion.

For a small piece (less than 40 x 50 inches), it took a good amount of time to do. But, it was so worth it! My customer was pleased.