Sparkling Winkel Complete

 Remember this?  It's the toy that inspired the colors of the Sparkling Winkel Quilt.

 

 Here is a shot of the quilt that shows the binding off. Can I say it again? How much I really like the way it works.                         

I finished the quilt after sunset, so I couldn't take it outside for a beauty shot, although with 14" of snow it would have been lovely!



If you want to make a scrap slab quilt, you can get my tutorial here, at my Etsy shop. It's an instant download, so you'll can get it right away.

On the Couch

Last night I sat on the couch sewing the binding on the Sparkling Winkel quilt. I have one short side and one long side done. My Mom told me over the weekend she was glad I didn't use the light blue on the binding of this quilt. Me too! This fabric is perfect in so many ways.

Millie sat beside me, on a quilt my pal Julie made for me, Obsolescence. Yes, she is always that alert.


I don't make a big fuss about the number of views my blog posts get, but I was astounded when I saw the number of views of the Tickled Pink flimsy in this post. It was over 3,600, which is staggering. I knew I hit it out of the park, but I guess I had no idea the impact it would have.

Tuesday Toss Up

This is a view of the short side of the Sparkling Winkel quilt, showing how the backing fabric looks like it rolls over and surrounds that end of the quilt. I am really happy I didn't go with the light blue.

This is Marie's barn. Marie took the Barns class at QT in February and worked all day on the main part of this barn, then took it home and added the side shed, the overlapping trees on either side, the wavy sky and all the other details. I think she knocked it right out of the park. This barn is OUTSTANDING, especially for her first one!

A friend of my gave me a gift certificate to Home Goods for Christmas, and I finally got around to spending it. I bought this summery wreath for my front door. Gosh, I'm tired of winter.

This is the maintenance building of the community I live in. I was taking beauty shots of the Snow Day quilt when I turned to the right and really saw it. It isn't a barn, but I like it a lot.

Wrap Me Up!

Adding the binding to the Sparkling Winkel quilt the way I wanted to meant I'd have to position the binding just right to align the print on the backing to the binding.

It also meant some fussy cut joins.

Fortunately I am always up for a challenge.

A few evenings of hand sewing and I'll be ready to enjoy this beauty.

If you want to know more about how I sew the binding to the front of the quilt, you can read this post.

Changed My Mind Again

If there is one thing I have learned in my creative life it's that if I am not sure about something I am doing, I should stop and let it sit.

This does NOT mean "put it in a drawer and let it become a UFO", oh no! It means I put whatever it is I am working on where I can see it BUT NOT where I can do anything about it. It's important to have to LOOK at it and NOT touch it. I need it to haunt me, to get under my skin, to imprint itself on my brain so when I am not thinking my brain will figure it out for me.

I was not really 100% convinced about the binding for the Sparkling Winkel quilt. So in the spirit of not-doing-anything-that-could-be-bad-or-mediocre, I decided to do a little bit more to clean up the studio. 

Since I had picked up two quilts from Janet Lee over the weekend, I had the excess backing fabric lying around.

 Hmmm... might you see where this is going?

I have enough fabric that I can just cut the binding and sew it onto the quilt to make it look like the backing is rolling over onto the front. From the back, the binding would be invisible, and since when you are cuddled up in a quilt the edges flop over anyway...  And I liked the idea that all the colors on the front of the quilt would surround it. It's darker than the light blue, and I find that doesn't bother me at all. The fabric has a lot of bounce and energy that is consistent with the front of the quilt. I think it's cool and fun.

Yeah I know what I said last time, but I changed my mind. I said there were no wrong answers, and that means there are a lot of good ones. I think this is one of them.

Pale Blue

It's funny. When my son was in grade school, he learned Phonics. I didn't learn to read that way. He said something once, about a word that had a silent "e" at the end of it. "The E tells the A to say its name." (The word "name" is a good example of this, although I am sure many of my readers will be happy to correct me if I am wrong.) It connects to something I have long believed about the binding of a quilt.

"The binding tells the quilt what color it is."

When I wrote yesterday's post I was pretty sure I would use the light blue binding on the Sparkling Winkel quilt, above. After all, it has the greatest number of diamond shapes. I don't like any of the cream or white variations. I thought the yellow was too bright, the orange too brash and the dark blue too dark. I thought there wasn't enough red in the quilt to make the binding red.

But during the day yesterday I had my doubts, and started leaning toward the RED.

I do want the quilt to have an outer edge, to stop the design from falling off the quilt, so the light colors are out. And I don't want more busy there, so the busy cream colored fabric with the bright colored squares is also out. I wondered about the red, and thought it would be a good choice.

Now here's the thing. There are no wrong answers. I think either of the blues and the red would be good choices. But looking at the WHOLE quilt, as in the photo above, it's clear to me that the dark blue and red would be too dark and hold the energy too tightly IN. The light blue wouldn't do that. It's just dark enough to stop the design, but it almost isn't a FULL STOP. I think it would hold the design in, but tenderly.

The Sparkling Winkel isn't a RED quilt, and it isn't a DARK BLUE one. It isn't YELLOW and it isn't ORANGE either.

A LIGHT BLUE binding tells us what we already know. That the quilt has more LIGHT BLUE than any other color.

And that works for me.

Bind the Winkel

I drove out to Janet Lee's house yesterday to pick up the Sparkling Winkel and Dark Majesty quilts. What will I use for the binding of the Sparkling Winkel?

 Light blue maybe?

 Orange?

Yellow?

 Dark Blue?

Or red?

Well, I'm leaning towards one of these, but I want to try some other options.

Here's a fabric with a lot of colors, but it disappears.

This is a cream, but the quilt disappears too.

This is a black and white and when cut will look sort of like piano keys, but these disappear too.

This fabric isn't in the quilt at all, and that's usually a no-no for me, but it has a lot of the colors in the quilt. But the edges still disappear, which I don't want.

Any of the colors would probably work well, but I have made up my mind. What do you think?

Backing for Sparkling Winkel Quilt

I've got the backing ready for the Sparkling Winkel quilt and it doesn't have a bird. Oh well.  I sewed two lengths of this fabric together with the red edges together so the backing will have that red down the center. It's more representative of the colors of the quilt itself.

I've got three quilts ready to go to Janet-Lee for quilting. The studio is clean and I'm ready for something new.

The Sparkling Winkel is a Flimsy!

Except for looking tidier by being all sewn together, this doesn't look much different from what you've all been looking at for the last three weeks.

But check this out:

 See? Too short.

Really and truly!

Here's the inspiration for the quilt. Just goes to show you can find inspiration anywhere.


If you want to make your own Scrap Slab Quilt, you can get my tutorial here, at my Etsy shop.

Nine Rows

This is where the Sparkling Winkel quilt was when I went to bed last night. Only the rightmost vertical row is not sewn into blocks. The other nine rows are sewn into vertical rows and I'm hoping to sew them together this weekend.


If you'd like to use up your scraps and make a scrap slab quilt like this one you can buy my tutorial here, at my Etsy shop. It's an instant download, so you can get started right away.

The View

I like waking up to fresh snow outside. Everything is clean looking and sparkly.  There is the view out my studio.

The other day I showed the fabrics for the new quilt, based on Little Man's Winkel and today I want to show all the fabrics I have chosen: the pinks, oranges, and lime greens.

Before I jump into that quilt though, I've got to finish the Sparkling Winkel top. Half the rows are sewn together.

Twinkle Winkel!

This is the toy my granddaughter tossed in my direction when I was visiting earlier this year. I've just discovered it is called a Winkel.

This is the Winkel toy that my belongs to my friend Julie's grandson. I love that the colors are different!

The last time I was at Quilted Threads these lovelies hopped into my arms. All I have to do is add a bit more orange and lime green. I guess you can tell where THIS is going...

The Sparkling Winkel

I have three and a half vertical rows sewn together. I really like this. It's bright, fun and happy.

Where did "The Sparkling Winkel" come from? Well, I thought it looked like it was twinkling, so I was thinking Twinkle. My pal Julie suggested "Sparkle".  Turns out the toy is called "Winkel"

and the toy comes in different color combinations.  So I think "Sparkling Winkel" is the perfect name for this quilt. 

If you want to make a Sparkling Winkle quilt of your own, you can get my Scrap Slab Tutorial here, on my Etsy shop.