Rocky Road to Kansas
A string quilt
63 x 63
hand quilted
Last year when my string box was overflowing I separated out all the pink and white strings for quilts. Most of them were long quilt back trimmings. I wanted to make a quilt I hadn't yet made of strings so started looking through some bookmarked patterns I wanted to try someday.
I happened to run across a quilt called Chance in the book Making Quilts with Kathy Doughty of Material Obsessions. She constructs the blocks with triangles but I thought I could modify the pattern and use strings instead.
These are actually 31 inch Rocky Road to Kansas blocks and were a great use for long strings. (I used the shorter strings in another quilt). I happened to have enough of that pink polka dot for the centers and then couldn't decide what to use for the background. I finally decided to try some of that red calico with little black and light blue flowers. I bought a lot of it on sale a long time ago to use for quilt backs. I figured a darker background would help the white and lighter pinks stand out.
I hand quilted it with pink perle #12. In the triangles I just quilted across with straight lines with no marking at irregular intervals. In the background diamond shaped areas I quilted concentric diamonds at 1/4, 2 and 3 inches in from the sides and then I put a little tie in the middle. No matter how I tried to take a picture of that quilting it just didn't show up.
In the center I used an old cardboard template my daughter picked up for me at a garage sale, marked around it with mechanical pencil and hand stitched.
I used a gray calico with pink flowers on the back and filled in with some pieces of pink gingham. With the light shining through from the front you can kind of see all the hand stitching.
That light shining through was the result of a beautiful sunrise.
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14 comments:
Love the colors in this one. The reds and pinks look so good together.
Wow! all that hand work, it looks great! I like your adaption of that pattern to. I was trying to figure out if the original was pieced the same way as your quilt?! It was a good picture but those kind of seam details get lost. Beautiful pic of your Barn and the Sunrise!
Great job changing things up. The photo is PERFECT! Did you plan it, or just in the right place statue right time?
Very good use of your strings. And very clever of you to use them as you did. The quilt turned out really nice.
I love seeing string quilts, several years ago I made a red string one very similar to yours. It was really fun.
Love seeing all your photos out in the snow! We are still having warm temps here in NZ, slowly slowy inching towards Autumn!
Beautiful use of strings.
Another outstanding quilt. I always like your quilts better than the inspiration quilt!
A clever use of your long pink strings . Love the contrast of the red fabric.
Very striking!
This is beautiful!!!! I love the colors, and agree that the red sets off the pink and white really well. I love the use of the string blocks as the triangles in this block!!
I remember a time when we would have never thought of using reds and pinks together, in clothing or quilts. However, the pink and red table topper my DIL made for me is beautiful, and so is your pink and red quilt! ---"Love"
Great way to use those strings. I have been wanting to make this quilt design for years. Maybe I should pull some fabric and get started!
Beautiful use of your strings and you are right - that background fabric really sets them off.
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