Black Diamonds are a Girls Best Friend…
Black Diamonds is done!
So the subject for today’s blog post is another one I’ve been waiting for a while to share. This is Black Diamonds, made from the Sew Kind of Wonderful Pattern Diamond Daze. Yes, this is from Sew Kind of Wonderful, even though it has no curves in it. Not a one! I pieced it, and it was longarm quilted by Terry Burris Quilting Services in Merrimack NH. I’ve worked with Terry on several pieces, and she and I quickly settled on a plan to emphasize the linear shapes of the background. You can see it better in this picture.
The background quilting referenced the lines in the diamonds.
These are the leftovers from the layer cake pieces - I now have a Tula scrap bag. I’m not sure what they will become, but they are pretty.
When I went to my first post-covid quilt show (in person), I came home with a beautiful, bright layer cake from Tula Pink with me, which is where the beautiful bright shot of color comes from. The black on black is scrappy from my stash. If you’ve read my blog posts in the past, you know that I have a soft spot for scrappy backgrounds to a quilt; to me, they add a bit of sparkle (which, no isn’t a technical term) to a quilt. In this quilt, I wanted to see whether it would work with black the same way it does with creams and pastels - and yes, yes it does. I actually think it pops the color a bit.
The Diamond Daze pattern shows the quilt with a lighter background, and I’ve also seen it in rainbow colors. To make this pattern, you use the Quick Straight Ruler.
This pattern is made using the Quick Straight Ruler, and it’s one of the first times that I’ve used this ruler, or attempted the block to make the quilt. They are called Half Square Rectangles, and this ruler makes them very easy to make. The blocks are cut oversized and then trimmed to fit the pattern. I found that if I cut each block out, then assembled the pieces without cutting the threads apart, then it was easy to keep things organized. Each ruler from the brand comes with a sample quilt for you to practice with, and I have done mine for this ruler - it’s just not quilted yet!
This is the sample - and it’s on the list to get quilted. This was a super easy way to get comfortable with the block - and it would be a great scrap based baby quilt as written. Either pink or blue - or neutrals!
WIth so much color (and energy) in this quilt, I had a piece of Tula’s Pandamonium fabric in my stash, and it’s the perfect pairing (IMHO) for the binding. I just cut the pieces lengthwise so the stripes look like stripes.
Last year, as a follow up to a class I was teaching, I asked my students for their feedback as to what they wanted in future classes, and one of the comments was that they wanted projects that looked harder than they are. This project fills that request easily. Black Diamonds has now been added to the Workshops page on my website for Guilds, and I’ll be hosting a zoom class for this pattern in January.
Until next week!