Category Archives: kaleidoscope quilts

Silver Threads Among the Gold

by Dawn Posted on September 27, 2025

The piecing of my current project, a holiday wall quilt made from my Season to Taste pattern, is complete:

Here’s a close-up of the top block with the accent strips added above and below:

You can probably tell that most of the fabrics in the kaleidoscope triangles have gold metallic accents but what you can’t see is that the background fabric also has a touch of metallic. This particular shade of white “Grunge” by BasicGrey for Moda Fabrics has a slightly yellowish cast in places that looks like gold but there are also silver metallic threads running all through the fabric that add even more sparkle. The effect is subtle but sophisticated.

I’m eager to get a backing made and get this quilted. Inspiration hasn’t yet struck on a name. The fabric line is “Enchanted Christmas” by Makower UK Fabrics so maybe I should name this small quilt Enchanted Forest in honor of the majestic reindeer inhabiting it. Just look at those gold filigreed antlers!

 

 

 

Posted in home dec, kaleidoscope quilts, snowball blocks, stitch-and-flip corners, table runner, update, wall hanging | 3 Comments

“Season To Taste” Update

by Dawn Posted on September 15, 2025

The latest version of my kaleidoscope pattern Season to Taste is coming along, albeit at a snail’s pace. Carving out time to spend in my sewing room when the garden is in full swing is a tough row to hoe. How’s that for mixing metaphors?

Here’s a shot of the first block, with my pattern shown for reference:

Finally I got the second and third blocks put together. It took an inordinate amount of time (i.e. a ridiculously long time) to settle on the final placement of the triangles in each block, especially the triangles containing the reindeer. Even though I envision this as a wall hanging with a definite layout from top to bottom, I couldn’t help but consider what the blocks would look like in a table runner. I wanted the reindeer to be well placed no matter whether the quilt was viewed as vertical (as in a wall hanging) or horizontal (as in a table runner). Crazy, I know!

So this is where we are:


No turning back now. I’ve sewn the white corner triangles on the blocks. They’re slightly oversized so I can trim them to exact size before sewing the strips between the blocks.

Here are close-ups of the other two blocks, first the middle one . . .

. . . and then the bottom one:

 

So close now! Let’s hope you won’t have to wait too long for the next blog post showing the completed quilt top.

 

 

 

Posted in home dec, kaleidoscope quilts, snowball blocks, stitch-and-flip corners, table runner, update, wall hanging | 2 Comments

A Near Finish and a Fresh Start

by Dawn Posted on August 20, 2025

My fractured image quilt, now officially named Fractured Ferns and Flowers, is all done (except for the label, that is):

I’m in a hurry to show it to you because I’ve already jumped to the next project (more on that below). Here’s a closer look at the quilting on my fractured image — random wavy lines stitched diagonally from corner to corner with a walking foot:

A close-up of one corner:

Can you tell I used two threads, a pale green and a medium blue? That wasn’t intentional. I started with the light green and quilted two curved lines. Then I tried a green variegated thread that I really liked but took out because it was a heavier weight thread and showed up on the fabric more than I wanted. I decided to test the blue thread after removing the variegated thread. I really liked the look of that and probably would have quilted the entire top in blue if I’d started with it. That’s when it occurred to me to use two different colors. Why not? Every third curve is stitched with blue. Not exactly random but the effect is random. By the way, Fractured Ferns and Flowers measures 31½” x 36½”.

I vowed to finish this project before starting another but . . . my resolve slipped and over the last several days I have been stealing up to my sewing room, cutting 45 degree triangles from the holiday fabrics I showed you in my last post . . .

. . . and playing around with their positions in kaleidoscope blocks:

There is one change from my original fabric pull: I replaced a dark green print with a medium light green print after discovering that three dark green triangles overpowered the block. Sometimes you just have to play around with color, scale, and value to get the right balance. That’s part of the fun — and for me, the challenge — of quiltmaking.

I’m still playing around with placement possibilities but I couldn’t resist going the next step: adding the sashing strips and sewing the the triangles together:

How festive is that??

 

 

 

Posted in fractured image, home dec, kaleidoscope quilts, single-fold binding, table runner, update, wall hanging | 4 Comments

Christmas in July

by Dawn Posted on July 30, 2025

If you’re a quilter who subscribes to quilt shop websites or has been in a quilt shop recently, you probably know that July is the month that holiday and Christmas-themed fabric lines hit the quilt shops. It may seem funny to be thinking about such things at the height of summer but when dazzling arrays of holiday prints start appearing in shops and flooding your phone and tablet screens — well, let’s just say some of those fabrics can be mighty hard to resist any time of year.

I’ve been tempted by several new collections but it’s a line of fabric from 2024 that caught my eye: “Enchanted Christmas” by Makower UK Fabrics. The Dear Husband and I took a little road trip to Walla Walla, Washington in June, which is where I came across these lovely fabrics at a quilt shop called Stash:

I could visualize these prints in a kaleidoscope quilt with the reindeer fussy-cut to show them off to best advantage. But I needed a few more fabrics. Back home in Portland I raided my stash and added these to the mix:

And then just a few days ago I found the perfect background fabric at the quilt shop where I teach, the Lake Oswego branch of Montavilla Sewing Centers:

That’s a creamy white Grunge from BasicGrey for Moda Fabrics — and it has gold sparkles in it!

And the kaleidoscope quilt pattern? It just happens to be one of my own:

I’ve already made a version of Season to Taste with holiday fabrics . . .

. . . but I wound up giving it as a Christmas gift to my twin sister Diane in 2021. Funny, I didn’t remember until pulling up the photo just now that it also has reindeer in it.

By the way, the name of my quilt pattern is a reference to making wall hangings or table runners that reflect the four seasons. Here are my four:

You can probably tell the order of seasons in the photo above is spring, summer, fall, and winter.

I’m so looking forward to cutting into my new fabrics but I won’t allow myself to begin until I’ve finished my current project. And just so you know, quilting has commenced!

Posted in family, home dec, kaleidoscope quilts, table runner, update, wall hanging | 4 Comments

Berried Treasure Is A Wrap!

by Dawn Posted on June 1, 2025

Finally, a finish to report: Berried Treasure, the quilt I started at the beginning of this year:

You can read my first post about it here.

Have a look at the back:

As you can see, I made my trademark round label using a compact disc as a pattern and added a contrasting ring of the bright blue tonal fabric:

A close-up of said label:

Even though I used the “natural light” function on my camera phone to take the indoor pictures you see above, there’s no substitute for the real thing to capture the true colors in the fabrics:

Berried Treasure measures 68″ x 81″ but will shrink a bit after being laundered. After being dragged around the back deck, it definitely needs a trip through the washer and dryer.

Given that today is the first of June, I hope to be more productive during the remaining months of 2025. My mind is already racing with possibilities for my next project.

Posted in 4-Patch Wonder, faux-kaleido quilts, kaleidoscope quilts, update | 6 Comments

Berried Treasure Is Back from the Quilter

by Dawn Posted on May 15, 2025

A heartfelt thank you to all my friends and followers who responded with words of condolence and comfort following my last post about our beloved cat Coco’s departure from this world. So many quilters are also pet owners and they love their furry friends as much as the Dear Husband and I loved our Coco. We want you to know how much we appreciate your messages. We miss her so much.

Last week I picked up my Berried Treasure quilt from longarmer Karlee Sandell at SewInspired2Day. Karlee sent me a teaser shot of the quilt while it was still on her longarm quilting machine:

As usual, I am thrilled with the result!

I chose “Embellish” by Quilts Complete as the quilting motif. It’s the fourth time I’ve asked Karlee to use this quilt design; it seems it is becoming my “go to” motif. At my request she used a pale green thread to blend with the outer border. It also blends well with the yellow background in the 4-Patch Wonder blocks and looks good against the vibrant blue in the sashing strips and setting triangles.

Here are a few shots of the quilting:

Notice in the photo above how the quilting goes beyond the raw edges of the quilt top? I always ask Karlee to do that. The main reason is that the quilting stitches hold all three layers together after the quilt is trimmed, making it much easier to apply the binding. There’s another reason: I often cut my outer borders an inch or so wider than my planned border width. That gives me the option to keep that extra width in the final quilt, trim the excess batting and backing right at the raw edge line, or trim the borders to make them a little narrower. I like to have options.

Here’s a look at the back of the quilt with the focus fabric on display:

You can see that I have the binding ready to go. It’s the same green floral print as the outer border. With Berried Treasure I didn’t have enough border fabric to cut my strips a bit wider because I needed to save a few inches for the binding strips. I used up every last bit of that green floral fabric!

Now the quilt has been trimmed . . .

. . . and the binding is ready to go:

Oh, how satisfying it is to pen the words “Binding has commenced!”

 

 

 

Posted in 4-Patch Wonder, cats, family, faux-kaleido quilts, kaleidoscope quilts, update | 3 Comments

Backing for Berried Treasure

by Dawn Posted on April 19, 2025

Here is the very simple pieced backing for my recently completed 4-Patch Wonder quilt top, Berried Treasure. The quilt back measures 77″ x 91″ — four inches more on all sides than the quilt top measuring 69″ x 83″. That’s standard for a quilt that’s going to be quilted on a longarm machine by a professional quilter.

The bottom half of the quilt back came from my stash and was chosen because it was the perfect shade of green. The design is a map of Manhattan. (The Dear Husband has been fascinated by maps since he was a small boy and as a result I have acquired several fabrics in my stash that feature actual maps.)

Whenever I make a kaleidoscope quilt (or in this case a faux-kaleido quilt), I like to include a piece of the original focus fabric on the back. Why? For the simple reason that people always want to know what fabric design created such an amazing diversity of blocks. The floral fabric you see above (an older piece of Lakehouse Dry Goods’ “Raspberries and Hydrangea” fabric line in the blue colorway) was stacked and cut into identical squares and then rotated to create the individual blocks, which you can see on this photo of the quilt front before the borders were added:

I’m hoping to deliver the quilt and backing to my longarm quilter early next week. It would be lovely to get this beauty quilted and bound by the end of the month. One can hope!

 

 

 

 

Posted in 4-Patch Wonder, family, faux-kaleido quilts, kaleidoscope quilts, update | 3 Comments

Cause(s) for Celebration

by Dawn Posted on April 11, 2025

Happy Friday! I have two causes to celebrate today:

Number one: I’ve completed the top of Berried Treasure, based on my own 4-Patch Wonder pattern. The Dear Husband obliged by taking this photo of me with the top late this afternoon:

The top measures 69″ x 83″ at the moment. I made an error in calculating the length of strips for the outer borders. They’ll still finish at a generous six inches wide but the quilt will be a couple inches smaller all around than its fraternal twin Framboise, made years ago with the same focus fabric in a different colorway.

Number two: The DH and I are celebrating our 44th wedding anniversary today — woohoo! We just returned from a lovely dinner at A Cena, one of our favorite restaurants in Portland.

It’s been a good day!

 

 

 

Posted in 4-Patch Wonder, faux-kaleido quilts, kaleidoscope quilts, update | 7 Comments

Turning the Corner

by Dawn Posted on April 10, 2025

Here’s a peek at the first mitered corner on my current WIP (work-in-progress):

The inner border finishes at 1/2 inch and the second one at one inch. The inch-wide border is one of several pieces I have in my stash of “Spin Dot,” a lovely blender by Timeless Treasures Fabrics. It’s from the same line as the royal blue blender I used in the corner and side triangles (as well as the 12 inner blocks you can see in this post from Feb. 23).

You may not be able to see from the photo above that the blue border is lightly metallic. Normally I would have chosen a bolder fabric but nothing in my stash seemed just right and I felt that the pearlized effect would complement the luminous light blues in the focus fabric.

My first mitered corner went together beautifully. Let us hope the remaining three do as well!

 

 

 

Posted in 4-Patch Wonder, faux-kaleido quilts, kaleidoscope quilts, update | 6 Comments

The Case of the Vanishing Blog Post

by Dawn Posted on April 7, 2025

No, I haven’t dropped off the face of the earth. I even posted an entry on March 16 that mysteriously vanished along with its comments after I had agreed to a month of website design services – for a fee, or course — provided by my website host, GoDaddy.com.

Here’s the backstory:

In late February I notified GoDaddy that some of my readers reported they couldn’t leave comments on my blog posts, and my latest post wasn’t showing up unless I rebooted my computer. GoDaddy convinced me to pay for a month of website design services to address these issues and make my website even better. Much to my dismay, the marketing team introduced a series of errors in the appearance of my website, including extra spaces between blog titles and text, missing spaces between words in random blog posts, and weirdly enlarged and cropped photos replacing my standard logo at the top of every page and post.

At the end of the month of so-called design services, my blog was back to its previous normal look – but the blog post of March 16 and its comments were still missing, despite my repeated requests to GoDaddy to restore them. The comments on my post of Feb. 23 also mysteriously disappeared, never to be seen again.

When GoDaddy emailed me on March 27 that “we’ve completed your request,” I immediately responded that it had NOT been completed and I wanted the missing blog post restored. This is the message I got in response: “Thank you for reaching out to us. Your email has been received and will be responded to on a first-come-first-serve basis.” That was well over a week ago. As you can imagine, I’m not holding my breath waiting for a response.

So what was in that March 16 post that disappeared? It was titled “Website Woes” and included a brief description of what was happening to my website posts. It also included a photo of my current Work in Progress, Berried Treasure, taken after the blocks were sewn into rows, the rows joined, and the setting triangles added. Take a look:

Yesterday was the first time in weeks that I’ve spent a significant amount of time in my sewing room. I’m working now on the borders (three of them) for Berried Treasure and should have something to show you very soon.

 

 

 

Posted in 4-Patch Wonder, faux-kaleido quilts, kaleidoscope quilts, update | 4 Comments