Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Debbi's 4-patch Kaleidoscope

Here's another great Kaleidoscope quilt. If you liked Melinda's kaleidoscope yesterday, you'll also like this one made by Debbi Lamb. She took a class at her LQS to get her started on this one.


You can see in the closeup that it's a take on the Stack n Whack technique. You stack repeats so that if you put a pin down through them, the pin will land at EXACTLY the same spot on each repeat. You then make a simple 4-patch with the 4 exact same pieces. Debbi said that the class taught her how to cut the fabric to make the most of the yardage and get the most interesting cuts.

If you are attempting a Kaleidoscope quilt, you want the busiest fabric you can find. Just one fabric made all of these wonderful 4-patches. Look at Melinda's quilt (yesterday's post) and Debbi's quilt and you can see that they used vibrant, busy fabrics. Debbi told me that she really didn't even like the fabric she used, which is why you don't see it in the border on her quilt. But she loved what it did when it was turned into a kaleidoscope! Also notice that both Melinda and Debbi took care to use "quieter" fabrics for borders, cornerstones and sashing. If you give your eyes a place to "rest", it really makes the busy patches "pop".

OK... now that I've seen both of these quilts, I just HAVE to make a kaleidoscope!

Thanks for sending the pics, Debbi! And thank your photographer (aka DH) for us for taking a photo with you in it! I'll put another entry in the giveaway drawing for you.

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