Quick Quilt Tops 2022: Help us pick a quilting design

For our last installment in the “Quick Quilt Series,” you voted for your favorite layout from 10 different settings for one-round Log Cabin blocks. Design 8 was the winner! (If you want a reminder of all 10 quilt layouts, click here.) The top-voted pattern looks like radiating diamonds.

Now that we have a quilt layout, we’re sewing up the quilt in bright batiks, pulling from the Summer Garden collection by Jacqueline de Jonge for Anthology fabrics. Next, we need your help choosing a quilting design for the quilt top.

“Quilt as desired.” We often see this phrase in patterns. Just do what you want, right? How hard can that be? These words can send some people into a tailspin.

Straight lines, curvy lines, edge-to-edge, custom. Oh, the possibilities are truly endless! Where I like to start is actually at the end—thinking about how the quilt is going to be used. If I’m making this quilt for a child and my goal is that they use it and drag it through the mud, then custom quilting or excessive quilting is not the way to go. But if the quilt is a masterpiece that will be displayed in my home for everyone to see like a piece of art, then perhaps extra time and money spent on custom quilting is appropriate.

Once the end result is determined, I start to look at designs. Edge-to-edge quilting offers motifs for every theme and every need. Look to your fabric for inspiration. For example, one of the fabrics we are using to create the finished quilt has butterflies in it, exuding spring and happy thoughts. For Design 1, we selected the Butter-Fly panto by Anne Bright Designs to complement the fabric choices.

Design 1

Or let’s consider the straight lines in this design. Do I want to accentuate those straight lines with my quilting? I could certainly do easy straight lines back and forth on my Millie and produce what is often referred to as matchstick quilting if my lines are close together. Or simply stitching wide lines through the center of each unit would create a more simple, straightforward design.

Personally, I like to soften all those straight seam lines with curves. We used the Feather Pinwheel Panto 2 from One Song Needle Arts for Design 2.

Design 2

Lastly, I often try to look at the entire quilt, not the individual blocks when thinking about the quilting design. In the chosen layout, the blocks form a final design that starts in the center and radiates out. For Design 3, we selected a custom motif (Log Cabin Feather & Flower by Judith Kraker) that combines both curves to soften the straight lines and an overall design that accentuates the final layout of the quilt.

Design 3

Choose the quilting design that is most beautiful to you below.

We’ll tally the results, sew up the quilt and quilt it with the winning design, then give it away to one lucky winner, along with some great APQS goodies! Voting ends Friday, March 18 at 4 p.m. CST.

Voting is now closed. Stay tuned for results…