Every month on the Quilted Joy Clubhouse, I select an unquilted top from all the pictures that our group posts on Facebook. I then design a quilting pattern for their top and present it at Clubhouse. In October of 2021, I chose Charmaine's quilt. This stunning top was designed by Sharon Blackmore at Prairie Quilt Militia. It has such a nice balance of classic blocks and modern aesthetic. I particularly liked the large sashing pieces that give you so much room to quilt in. That empty space is just begging for something lovely to be stitched on top.

Cornerstones on Charmaine's Quilt

As I said the sashing jumped out at me first so that is where I started. I noticed that the cornerstones along with the corners of the blocks created a square that framed out the on point square in the cornerstone. In order to help with cohesion of the sashing to the blocks, I decided that I wanted to bring in the hourglass units from the blocks into the center of the cornerstones. So after outlining and filling in the hourglass, I then outlined the pieced part of the cornerstones. I included phantom corners to really pop that square effect.

Moving out from there, I echoed that center square out into the sashing where it lines up with the piecing of the blocks. That makes the outermost square of our cornerstone. I would have stopped there, but I was afraid the space just inside the outside square was too large, so I decided it needed one more time around with an octagon shape. Those additional diagonal lines also help with cohesion as I used them again in the sashing and blocks.

Sashing

The sashing was simpler. I stitched inside the seams along the top and bottom and then created longer diagonal lines from each corner across to the midpoint of each line and back to the corner. This created an argyle look that I further enhanced by filling in the outer triangles. Here I would have to break my thread. I try to make designs that flow from one end to the other without too much backtracking, but sometimes it just can’t be helped. And on Charmaine's quilt, it couldn't be helped.

The Blocks

The blocks are much of the same design as the rest of Charmaine's quilt. I didn’t know what to call these lines, but maybe we can refer to them as diamond cuts, because they do remind me of the facets that are cut into diamonds and create a diamond shape. By putting these diamond cuts in all the triangles, I was able to wrap around the entire block and touch every square. In the center square, I added another hourglass block. In the outside squares I created, with filler, a suspended corner that lines up with the three other squares to frame the larger square on point square in the center of each block.

How she did it

I had a lot of fun designing this quilt for Charmaine and she did use a big part of what I came up with in her finished quilt. She decided to do her sashing a little differently, which also looks really pretty. It makes more of those diamond like facets in the sashing. She also decided to do fewer diamond cuts around the outside of the block which kept the quilt from being quilted quite as densely as I had originally thought. It turned out absolutely lovely. You should be very proud.

If you want a chance for me to design your quilt, post your tops in our Quilted Joy Clubhouse Facebook group. I’m always on the lookout for the next top. There are so many of them out there that it is hard sometimes to pick just one. We’d love to see what you are working on in any case, and the feedback from your fellow quilters can help you decide how to quilt it even if I can’t. Happy Quilting!