This is the final part of the Design Case Study I’ve written up to show how I approached the design process on LeAnn’s Amish sampler quilt. You can find part one here, part two here, and part three here.

In the last part of this case study I showed you the motifs used in the two outer borders and the cornerstones. Let’s take a look at the center of the quilt. Be sure to click on these photos to see them larger so you can better see the quilting lines. Also, the colors are wonky in these photos. I have to dink with the colors a bit so you can see the stitching lines better.

This photo shows how I extended a double line to define the diamond frame the piecing brings out in the top. The frame goes up into the inner border and a natural pace to place a motif. I used a formal feather in a triangle setting that matches the formal feathers of the center motif. You can see this motif better in LeAnn’s design notebook. It is labeled “Feather Fan Flying Geese“.

Since I’d decided to use place a large motif on point in the center of the quilt, it had to be a dense and intricate design. I thought about using the “Jamies Feather” block but I was concerned about how few quilting lines were in the center of this block. I really felt we needed to highlight the star in the center of the quilt with some quilting lines and the “Romancing Feathers” block  used the center area better.

Finally, since the center block is on point, we needed a design for the corner triangles. Fortunately there is a beautiful companion design to the Romancing Feathers block that is made for triangle settings and worked perfectly.

You can see in this photo how the diamond frame didn’t extend into two of the sides. That is because the quilt top isn’t a perfect square layout, it is a rectangle. I chalked a straight line to mark the center and did freehand feathers that just kiss that center boundary.

Thanks so much for following along with this design case study. This quilt will be hanging in the APQS booth at the Lancaster quilt show. Please stop by if you are going and take a look at the quilt in person!