Kantha Quilt

Another finish. Yay! Last year I joined Alison Glass's Kantha Sew Along. I don't often join group sewing events, preferring to go my own way, but I find Kantha quilts quite beautiful and the unfussy hand stitching seemed like something I would enjoy. I am thrilled with the result!

If you aren't familiar with kantha quilts, they are a traditional Indian craft, made with a front and back, but no batting on the inside, held together with simple running stitches.

I pulled a collection of golds, pinks and blues out of my stash and pieced them in random sizes and orientations rather than in the long parallel strips that many other participants used.  I quilted each section in a specific color or pearl cotton with a specific stitch size and arrangement. I also embroidered simple paisley designs using chain stitch on a section of solid blue fabric. I suspect my stitching was more dense than is typical. At least, that's my excuse for it taking me until almost the end of 2023 to finish the 2022 sew along! 

I also pieced the backing, starting with a length of a traditional French fabric that was handed down to me from my husband's stepmother. The variety in stitch colors and styles makes it look like it is made from multiple different fabrics.

I finished the edges in the traditional way, turning the front and back fabrics under and stitching x's to hold them in place.

I am glad to know this technique and expect I will be making more of these in the future. The resulting texture is lovely and the weight really practical for Texas's hot climate. Plus, the hand stitching is easy and fun to do.

Courthouse Steps Log Cabin Quilt

I was about to ship a fairly recently finished quilt to its new owners when I realized that I hadn't taken any photos of it. Now that I've done that, I thought I'd share them.

The quilt is a modern take on the classic "courthouse steps" variation of a log cabin. It has a modern feel to it because each block, at eighteen inches square, is unusually large. It took only twenty blocks to make a full-size quilt!

My fabric choices, a combination of contemporary graphics, batiks, stylized images and low volume backgrounds, further contribute to the modern feel.

I quilted it on an APQS long-arm machine (thanks once again to everyone at Over the Top Quilting for their help), using the block by block feature to ensure the quilt design perfectly aligned with the pieced blocks. The resulting secondary diamond pattern turns out to be more prominent than the original star design. I added circles between the stars to fill in a large open space and to give a little relief from all the straight lines.

I finished it off with a crisp blue on blue striped binding.

I hope this quilt's new owners are as pleased with it as I am! It's making me think it might be time to start yet another log cabin quilt.