Metro Hoops

I’ve been working on a project since last summer that I finally finished.  I rarely get a chance to work other designer’s patterns, but this was a quilt that I knew I wanted to make time for.  The pattern is called Metro Hoops by Sew Kind of Wonderful.  (images from their website)

I’m always interested in learning or working with interesting techniques.   I have worked with curves before, but that was probably 15 years ago.   My experience with doing curves was making a traditional Wedding Ring quilt.  I thought the Metro Hoops patterns was a way to use that technique to make a more modern looking quilt, using a simplified technique.

The technique uses the “Quick Curve Ruler”.  I’m not generally a huge fan of rulers –  Unless they can do multiple techniques, create many quilts that look different, or save you a lot of time.  This ruler fits the bill and Sew Kind of Wonderful has lots of patterns to support it.

 

I don’t have many photos of the process, but you start out with strip units and cut them using the ruler.  You also use the ruler to cut the background fabric used for the blocks (see above photo).    I really enjoyed the process and I am loving the finished quilt.

 

 

I went a little out of my comfort zone with the machine quilting.  The gals at Sew Kind of Wonderful do a beautiful job of machine quilting and I wanted to try some of the straight line quilting and pebbles that they do a lot of.

 

 

I did lots of straight lines in the border.  It’s far from perfect, but that’s okay.  The overall effect from a little ways away is more important.

 

The fabrics are all from my stash.  The background fabrics is Robert Kauffman’s Yarn Dyed Essex Linen in Graphite.  I am now on my second bolt of this fabrics and have developed an addiction to the colorway Steel as well.

 

I did do a one modification to the pattern.  It is originally laid out like this:

 

This is a poor photos, but you can see that I laid my blocks out on point.  I was all ready to sew the rows together and happened to walk at the quilt from an angle, when I noticed how interesting the quilt was from that direction.  I quickly started making the setting triangles so I could put it together that way.

 

This was definitely a technique that I will be doing again.  In fact, I have already started on their Metro Rings pattern.  I enjoyed the process of making this quilt and machine quilting it – but then again, you are always hearing that from me.  When it comes down to it, I have rarely met a quilting technique that I didn’t like.  Okay – except for paper piecing, but other than that, it’s all fun!

 

All for now – Have a good Tuesday!

Heather