My local quilt guild, Ann Arbor Modern Quilt Guild, participates in a mini quilt swap with our sister guild, the Chicago Modern Quilt Guild. This is the only swap I participate in anymore and I love seeing all the quilts made in both guilds and trying to guess who they will be for. Our due date is coming up at the end of the month.
When thinking about what I would make, I flipped through my book, Every Last Piece, and saw this little Nancy Cabot block, Nocturne, that I had suggested would be good for value play. I took my own advice and gave it a try in a small scale block.
Each fabric is used in the background, the fan blades, and the bars. The same fabric is used for all of the block centers. It's a lively little quilt.
The blade and background sections are pieced in a liberated fashion. I layered two squares and "free cut" the curve with my rotary cutter. I stitched one color curve section to the other color background. The remaining backgrounds and curved sections were then paired with different colors of fabric.
This free cut method gives curves that are not identical as you would get with templates. At this scale, even when trying to make the curves different most of them end up looking pretty much the same. There just isn't enough space in the block to make them very different.
I like this quilt so much that I've cut the parts to make another like it. I have all of the squares and bars cut. The new one will probably have different colors matched together but the overall feel of the quilt should be the same.
Now to decide about the quilting.
Finished size 14" by 14".
