from Marta with Love

Circles! Or balloons. Bubbles? No… MARBLES!

I am happy to report my first finished quilt of 2012. I don’t really have a cool name for it, I just sort of call it The Marbles Quilt. (Keep scrolling–I’ll explain.)

Most of these fabrics are from Amy Butler’s oh-so glamorous Lark collection, with a couple other basics thrown in there. The background fabric is Kona Ash.

The idea for this quilt arose from my desire to do something with circles. With the help of my circle cutter (holy COW this thing is awesome—it’s like a compass you used in grade school to draw circles, except it has a blade instead of a pencil), I sat and watched the Golden Globes while happily cutting dozens of fabric circles.

I painstakingly arranged, gathered, then rearranged my circles probably seven times before I settled on this.

The final circle layout reminds me of someone holding a bunch of small marbles in their hand over ocean water. When they start letting the marbles stream out of their hand and into the water, the marbles fall slowly until they hit the sand and eventually spread out and settle there. I realize these photos are exactly that, just upside-down, so use your imagination!

After attaching the circles one-by-one to my background fabric using spray adhesive, I FINALLY got to my sewing machine and used a zigzag stitch to sew around each circle (there were 54, I think).

The top was actually easy to maneuver through my sewing machine arm since it was only one layer (no batting or backing). I had so much fun sewing around these circles!

Here it is all sandwiched and pinned and ready to rock.

I free-motion quilted in a wavy/swirly pattern to sort of enhance that feeling of being in water.

The backing fabric is also from the Lark collection, and the binding is Essex Cotton/Linen blend in Carrot. I wasn’t crazy about the binding at first, but after a few extra looks and some helpful reassurance from a dear friend, I decided I’m in love. Funny how that works.

Overall, I’m really happy with the finished product and indeed feel beachy and cheerful when I look at it, which is exactly how you should feel when you think of, um, marbles and water.

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Finished Quilts
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9 Comments

  • Melissa

    I love it! I love how it "became", how it "evolved" into the gorgeous quilt that it is. Way to listen to the fabric! 🙂

    February 11, 2012 at 4:37 am Reply
  • Teje

    Hi Martha! I'm happy to meet you and your beautiful blog! I'm amazed that you just started your blog and it looks already lovely and professional with all the details! I love your quilt! Perhaps you would like to see my 'Ripples' quilt (just few posts before)which I made with a similar technic.I am looking forward to follow you!Sunny wishes from Greece! Teje

    February 11, 2012 at 11:23 am Reply
  • Anonymous

    This quilt is incredible! I love the backing fabric and your idea of marbles in water. Its so …modern-retro Wildwood, NJ (wink, wink, hint, hint ;). Love your blog and will follow. PS. as you can see I figured out how to post a comment. Monika

    February 12, 2012 at 12:25 am Reply
  • audreypawdrey

    It turned out so beautiful! I love the binding fabric, too!

    February 13, 2012 at 1:13 am Reply
  • Spontaneous Threads

    Very pretty and congrats!!!!! Love the FMQ you used. Took me years to branch out from stippling.

    February 13, 2012 at 8:58 pm Reply
  • Traci

    I love the binding–totally the perfect choice–makes the whole thing pop!

    February 13, 2012 at 11:38 pm Reply
  • Marta

    Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!

    February 16, 2012 at 3:02 am Reply
  • Molls

    SO cute! I cannot get over how talented you are. Seriously. I totally get when you mean about falling in love after getting some reassurance from someone. This is why I take my sister with me shopping 🙂 Love Amy Butler and I am OBSESSED with her husband's new fabric line. xoxo

    February 16, 2012 at 8:05 pm Reply
  • marion

    You found my marbles!!! 🙂 I love this quilt 🙂 Great job!

    August 21, 2012 at 5:54 am Reply
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