The thing about quilting, is that it's all about shapes. I know I have spoken on this many times, but there is no way around it. A quilt is made up of shapes, colors, and 2 dimensional line designs in the quilting. While the largest majority of quilts consist of standard shapes like the square and triangle, on occasion we do see a quilt with an unusual shape. Sometimes you have to think outside the box, or the block.

Unusual shapes with Colleen

Unusual Shapes with Vickie

I know this is not that unusual of a shape. But honestly, how many blue and green Union Jacks have you seen in a quilt top? Not only is Vickie’s fabric choice fresh and different for the design, but do you see how she oriented the fabric patterns in some of the blocks? I mean specifically the zigzags and the stripes. She really thought this one through and executed it brilliantly.

She chose to free motion quilt this top. Because of the fabric patterns it is a little hard to see what she did, but there is a lot of ribbon candy and stippling. She also traced the leaves in the border.

Unusual Shapes with Erin

Erin brought us these two quilts. This is an original quilt pattern called Squash Blossom, that you can find here. Can you see the flower in this unusual shape? I like the use of the white and black fabrics with a blue background. It’s clean and balanced because the whiter blossoms are in the corners and the darker blossoms in the middle of the sides. But I’ve always been a fan of purple, so I still prefer the colorful one on the white background more. She quilts these with a simple free motion zigzag pattern. Simple and elegant, what more would you want?

Unusual Shapes with Terry

Technically, circles are not unusual shapes. But this is a little beyond a simple drunken path quilt. I think using the same background fabric for all four quarters of the circle makes it more unique. Terry made this beauty and decided to free motion quilt it. I love how she chose to do it. She stitched a square that spirals down to the center at the intersections of four blocks, not the center of the circles. It adds another layer of design that wasn’t there before. I think it looks amazing. And lots of linear lines creates a rippled texture that I think is yummy on a quilt.

Using typical shapes like squares and triangles is a quilter’s bread and butter. But sometimes it pays off to look at shapes that are not so typical to create designs that are unusual and charming. Why not go with unusual shapes to make your next quilt?