Tag Archives: machine quilting

Quilting and Binding the Berenstain Bears Quilt!

Two tries, and I finally got a binding fabric that ties the Berenstain Bears quilt together!  I love it!  I realized I hadn’t posted photos of the quilting I had done on this quilt, so here’s a photo-heavy look at the quilt with the binding attached (but not completely stitched yet).  This was my first attempt at more modern quilting, breaking out of loops and stars and flowers.

I love the binding!

Textures!

Quilting those diamonds is a lot tougher than it may look.

A better view of the loops in each patterned square.

On the ironing board.  I love the texture this shows!
Another view of the binding and quilting from the front.  And some random hangers.

Closer look at the wavy pattern on the border and the binding.

I tried to frame each center block a bit with the quilting.

And here’s a look at the back!

I really love the little frames all over the back of the quilt!

You can see each “frame” from the back and the squiggles between each frame.

I find quilt backs like this just as fascinating as the quilt fronts.

The binding is attached on the front, and will be hand-stitched on the back.

Super Geeky (Not Sci-Fi) Quilt Idea

A friend of mine commented that when he read the title to my last tutorial on hemming napkins, he thought it actually read, “Hilbert Napkins,” referring to the Hilbert curve.

 This is a Hilbert Curve:

Attribution (also cool use for Presidential Candidate travel map)
I laughed when I saw the pattern because it reminded me of a free-arm quilting pattern known as a stipple.  Stipple can be large or small, depending on the scale to fit the item being quilted.  The Hilbert Curve is known as a filler curve; so appropriate for quilting, don’t you think?
Talking this over with my husband, he then mentioned the Sierpinski Triangle.  Here’s the logic to the Sierpinski Triangle in quilting terms:
Start with a 9-patch comprised of only two fabrics, white and a patterned fabric.  That is the base to work from.  Now, consider a 9-block wall-hanging.  Using the same pattern as used in the single, 9-patch block, wherever you used the patterned fabric, in the 9-block wall hanging, you would use that 9-patch block.  Let’s say your original block had this:
White – White – Pattern
White – Pattern – White
Pattern – White – White
The blocks would be laid out like this:
White – White – 9-patch
White – 9-patch – White
9-patch – White – White
Get it?
Expand that to a larger quilt, comprised of 9 wall hangings, and you’d see:
White – White – Wall-hanging
White – Wall-hanging – White
Wall-hanging – White – White
That makes for a LOT of white, right?
Here’s the thing:  you could really use ANY 9-patch pattern, just repeat it per the Sierpinski Triangle logic and you’d have a HUGE variety of quilts that would be very cool (not to mention very simple to put together).  In the example, I used white, but you really could use ANY fabric setup, as long as you chose one of the original 9-patch fabrics to represent the location in the grid where that pattern would repeat.  
Below is an illustration I found on Wikipedia that immediately made me think quilt.  Not only did it make me think quilt, it made me think quilt using different values of the same color wherever you see red, so that it would start with a strong color in the upper right corner and fade into the white, so to speak.
Quilt it using a stipple in the form of a Hilbert Curve, and, my friends, geek your heart out over that.

From Wikipedia article on Sierpinski Triangles