February Journal Quilt

This quilt was inspired by a game of croquet. While I was cleaning up our equipment several years ago, I liked the criss-crossed wires that I made as I threw the stakes in a pile. When the Art Quilt Workbook asked us to work from a photo, I scanned my notebook and found the photograph and used it to create this small quilt. I'm still loving hand stitching, so I had to add some in the foreground.

The lines are bias tubes, but though I have a 1/4 bias tape maker, the fusible web I have doesn't fit, so I had to glue it down and it didn't work as well as I would have wanted it to.

I used fusible binding for this quilt, too. I love that technique. I do it a bit differently, using two pieces of 1/4 inch tape, one on the front and one on the back. I iron the front in place first, then fold the back over, remove the tape, and iron that down. I feel like that gives me more control than one larger piece of tape.

I also made my 6x6 frames out of 1x2s this weekend, and hung my weekly journal quilts. I'll post a photo of the quilts on the wall with this week's journal posting. I really like the technique, and I'm exploring some other alternatives to the sewn sleeve on the back. I'm not sure what to do with the monthly quilts, but I think I might use stretcher bars there, too. They're easy to make and they give a polished finish.