I finished the cathedral windows quilt for my swap partner in the DQS11 flickr swap. It's amazing how heavy this little quilt is for being only 10 1/2" square. Turns out that it took just a little over 1/2 yard of fabric!
My favorite blocks are the brown and hot pink ones ... they remind me of raspberry chocolates and add a bit of a nice accent to all that orange.
I still needed a label so I took a cue from the broderie perse quilt label that Marisa of Quilt Otaku made and used a piece of lemon fabric and some DMC floss. It's an interesting technique that I'll try again. This hasn't been mailed out yet and we're supposed to keep our swap partner a secret, so the name has been photoshopped. I can't wait to find out what she thinks about it.
A few things that I've learned about sewing cathedral window blocks:
- Use lots of Mary Ellen's Best Press to keep the fabric nice and crisp
- Spend the time to iron your blocks well - it's worth it in the end
- Clover's Black Gold Needles size 10 Applique/Sharps work like a dream for hand sewing!
- Solid fabrics work better than prints for the blocks
- Ladder stitch gives a nicer finish than whip-stitching the blocks together
- Sew a 4 block sample first - later you can make it into a pincushion
Lynne Edward's book, Cathedral Windows Quilts, has great ideas for variations. I used one called the Secret Garden for my accent blocks. Yes it's more hand sewing, but it adds a fantastic punch to your quilt.