Jacob’s Ladder Quilt Along with the Fat Quarter Shop

Today I get to share with you a project I’ve been working on for the last month or so – Jacob Ladder Blocks!  These actually worked for two purposes for me.  First – today the Fat Quarter Shop is launching a quilt along which features Jacob’s Ladder blocks!  I think these would be fabulous for making a scrappy quilt … perhaps one you could enter in the scrap quilt challenge? I used them in a little bit of a different way.  I made six blocks all using the same two fabrics – one of Bari J’s newest line Sage – Ruby Prickly Pear and Tula Pink’s Strawberry Kiwi Hare from her line Slow & Steady.  With these six blocks I created six different borders (I did add a few other fabrics for the borders but if you look, the main blocks are all just the two fabrics) and then quilted them all in different ways.  This was the second way I used these blocks – it doubled as an exercise for a class I’m taking.  It truly is amazing what borders can do to a quilt/block. This Jacob’s Ladder Mini Quilt I used the fabric to create the Border.  BariJ’s Ruby Prickly Pear is a border print and by strategically cutting it a super cool border was made. Sometimes all that is needed for quilting is wavy straight line quilting.  I rarely quilt in actual straight lines … by adding a slight wave you eliminate all the stress of making sure your lines are straight.The look of the Jacob’s Ladder block here was changed completely by extending the half square triangles into the border with a couple of flying geese.  I used an XO ombre STOF fabric and I love what that did for the depth of the borders.   I free motion quilted this one using inspiration from Christa Watson’s book “Machine Quilting with Style.” I just adore what skinny variegated borders did to this block!  And of course – this one was just screaming for Continuous Spiral quilting which Christa shares some great tips for  in her book “Machine Quilting with Style.” I had the mot fun making the borders for this one – they’re a bit crazy.  I used the corners from the flying geese I made in the mini quilt above and made half square triangles.  I then pieced a few little flying geese too and randomly pieced everything into the borders.  Since the borders are random I decided to randomly quilt this one with swirls and a feather here and there. Next up – some pieced borders using a green hand-dye that coordinates with one of the greens in the Tula Pink Fabric. I was inspired by Angela Walter’s book “Free-Motion Quilting” for this quilt and the one below.  I thought I would do a geometric pattern to mimic the borders.  I definitely didn’t do this perfectly but I did enjoy it.  I also used two different colors of aurifil thread just to create a bit of a “pop” in the quilting. And for the final mini quilt – I put the Jacob’s Ladder Block on point.  Before I added the corners I put in a thin lip of fabric to create a bit of dimension. The Jacob’s Ladder Portion is free motion quilted in raindrop swirls. And this may be what I’m most proud of … I did a plume feather!!!! What does one do with six miniature quilts?  Oh why yes … I make them into pillows! Head on over to the Fat Quarter Shop’s blog the Jolly Jabber to see how you can join in the quilt along fun AND see what other blogger’s did with their Jacob’s Ladder blocks!