 by Scott A. Murkin, Asheboro, North Carolina
After evolving through a number of label styles for my quilts, from the simple to the elaborate, I hit on a style that allowed me to personalize the label to the quilt with minimal effort. My basic method is to take one of the lightest fabrics from the quilt (so that the writing would show clearly), surround this with triangles of a medium or bright fabric from the quilt top and then finish off with strips of one of the darker fabrics, often the binding fabric. I sew the pieces on quickly, squaring up at each stage and adding the frames around the on-point squares makes them much easier to appliqué to the quilt backs (fig.1).
 Having made many, many of these labels, it struck me that my "Framed Diamonds" have a lot of appeal as actual quilt blocks. They are quick and easy to sew, allowing lots of variations in a short time and encouraging play with color and value. The frames result in no matching points except at the corners of each block and because they are so narrow they can be used to introduce small bits of accent colors without having them overwhelm the dominant colors. You can have as much or as little pre-planning and variety of fabrics as desired.
"Harlequin Romance" required some planning as to the placement of triangles and frames to create secondary designs, some more subtle than others. "Summer Haze' on the other hand had very little preplanning. The centers were kept consistent at two alternating fabrics, but the setting triangles and frames were literally thrown into brown paper bags and pulled out at random. While I selected what fabrics went in the bag, I made no attempt to control their placement. Once the blocks were all finished, I played with the arrangement until I was pleased.
Framed Diamonds are a great way to set off novelty fabrics or orphan blocks. When you get blocks from a yard sale, inherited from your family or in a guild exchange, they often are not all exactly the same size. The Framed Diamonds technique is very forgiving, allowing the blocks to match up after they've been framed. "Striped Garden" started with half-square triangles pieced from striped fabrics that reminded me of flower buds. "Sunny Days" started from a novelty fabric of various sun motifs - remember that these motifs will end up on point and can require some precise cutting to get them to land correctly in your block. The block illustrated in the techniques section started from one of a set of basket blocks purchased at my guild's silent auction. Because these blocks are meant to be seen on point, no additional effort was required.
Continued...
(The rest of this story can be found in your issue of The Quilting Quarterly. Not an NQA member? Click here!)
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