Help / Advice
 

Good morning Everyone,

I am in the process of making two king size quilts for my boys. I found this cross stitch dream catcher quilt blocks. Each kit comes with 6 blocks that are 18” x 18”. I am wanting to make them into a circle with a quilt design around them. My boys decided they wanted shades of blue on the feathers rather than the gold/rust/brown shown on the instructions. I would appreciate any help/advise/info anyone could provide as to what quilt pattern I should use to make these quilts. I am new to quilting and when I start looking at patterns I get lost because so many are beautiful! Thanks for any help anyone can provide! I have tried to upload the pictures, unfortunately I keep getting the upload failed.

click on Home, then Pictures. there are many threads there that will advise on how to upload your pictures.

this is a very primitive drawing, but you might use a hexagon layout. then put other blocks/borders around the outside to get to the king size that you want
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Here is the link to Tobin's webpage showing the dream catcher quilt blocks. Thanks!

http://www.dwcrafts.com/shop/Tobin-S...ku-T288038.htm

Couple of things. How many kits are you planning on purchasing per quilt? To piece square blocks into a circle, you are going to have to deal with angled cuts, and you need to know how many blocks you are trying to arrange. If you are a novice quilter, this might be tricky. Also, you said, "make them into a circle with a quilt design around them" By quilt design, are you talking about a pieced design, or the design made by the quilting stitches? If you are talking about the quilting stitch pattern, you might want to consider appliqueing the completed blocks onto a whole cloth backing. In other words, purchase wide backing fabric (108 - 120") embroider your blocks, arrange in a pleasing pattern on the large fabric & stitch them down then quilt.

Hi PaperPrincess,

I bought 2 kits, which have 6 blocks each. When I say circle it would be keeping the squares and arranging them so it resembles a circle (don't know if I'm saying that right) so no special cuts there. The center of the quilt would have a pieced design with the six blocks surrounding it. I would like to do a design piece for the whole quilt. I've been looking at patterns from many different websites and Pinterest and I am not sure which design would go best. I was hoping for ideas on what design pieces anyone may have that would go with the dream catcher quilt blocks. I am also doing these in shades of blue so I'm wondering what color choices I should use for the design pieces. I appreciate any help anyone can provide. Thanks! :)

Welcome aboard! I just started quilting last fall and this is what I've learned so far.

I really don't recommend a quilt with any curves in it if you are new to quilting and sewing. I discovered this the hard way with my first quilt project. It still isn't finished. Precision may not be absolutely necessary when quilting but if you are precise in your cutting and sewing everything gets much easier to fit together. I found it very difficult to cut or sew the curves on my quilt with any degree of precision and am paying the price now in trying to fit the mess together. It's far easier to get the results you want with straight lines. Can you adapt your circle to an octagon shape or applique it onto another piece of fabric to give yourself a square with straight lines to build from? Either option will make things easier in the long run.

For equipment I highly recommend as large of a cutting mat as you can afford and have room for, a good quality rotary cutter, and a 24x6" acrylic ruler to start with-you'll buy more rulers as the need or want comes up. If you've never used a rotary cutter they're like magic compared to scissors. You'll also want a 1/4" foot or a seam guide for your sewing machine. These tools will make accurate results easy.
If you don't have the cash, don't worry, many beautiful quilts have been made with nothing more than scissors and a needle and thread.

Good luck with your project and please keep us posted on your progress.
One other thing: We love pictures here. :)
Rodney

Thank you both so much for the advise! What quilt patterns do you think would look good with a dream catcher cross stitch quilt block? I look at so many and it's so hard to choose! Here is the link showing the quilt kits I purchased, there are 6 blocks in each kit. I guess I used the wrong word when I said circle. It would look more like a diamond. A design square in the center, one cross stitch above the center and below the center and the remaining for on each side. I guess that would look like a pyramid.

http://www.dwcrafts.com/shop/Tobin-S...ku-T288038.htm

If you google Dream Catcher Quilt and look at the row of images the last one shows a great layout that might work for you. The extra blocks are all what looks like 2 inch squares.