QM Scrap Squad: Christa Marcotte’s Majestic Garden

The Scrap Squad is a select group of eight QM readers. They take one pattern from each regular issue and make scrappy versions to inspire others.

The featured Scrap Squad quilt in Quiltmaker’s March/April ’13 issue is Majestic Garden, below.

It was designed and sewn by Monique Dillard of Open Gate Quilts in Rockford, Illinois. It was quilted by Sue Glorch. The fabrics are Monique’s own Royal Gardens for Maywood Studio.

Today’s quilt was conceived and made by Christa Marcotte from Torquay, Saskatchewan, Canada. Christa blogs at Second Story Quilting. You’ll hear from her in her own words below.

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Christa Marcotte

For the Majestic Garden,

I started with some flannels I have had for six or seven years!!

I ended up using only the four middle fabrics.

After some cutting,

and chopping,

I was ready to begin!!

There are a lot of half-square triangles in this quilt but with a little marking

and some thinking ahead

the dogears can be cut off

and the half-square triangles sliced to produce some fast work!

It wasn’t long before I was making great headway.

It was an easy pattern to follow with only a few components.

This pattern offers a multitude of possibilities

such as this…

or this….

or even this!!

I was going for a Southwestern look.

This was my ‘final’ answer!

I liked what I was seeing.

With some inset triangles

and a photo hound named Dawson

it was ready for some borders.

Originally I was thinking about doing some kind of fancy border

but

I realized that the faux log cabin fussy cut would do the trick.

My outside border ended up being a wood grain cotton.

I vowed to use only what I had on hand.

I think it works.

I mitered the corners.

So it was off to be quilted

by

Terry Whitman of The Meandering Star

while I went to Florida for some R&R!

Terry did an incredible job as always on this quilt.

Her stitching always seems to bring out the life in a quilt.

I love how the twisted lines resemble barbed wire.

This quilt is perfect for snuggling under on a cold winter’s night!!

Christa

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You just can’t go wrong with a palette of earth (the browns) and sky (the blues). Christa’s quilt is a good example of how this project looks with just a few controlled fabrics. She got the Southwestern look she was after—another job well done!