Wedge Rulers in a Workshop

On Saturday, I taught 19 members of the Jacksonville Modern Quilt Guild @jaxmqg (Jacksonville, Florida) how to make a modern wedge quilt following my Carousel Quilt pattern.

This is the second version of Carousel that I've made. It's pieced with Emma Jean Jansen's "60s Scrapbag" as the focus print, and Painter's Palette Solids: pencil yellow, and white. With 40-weight YLI variegated thread I quilted a spiral in the center (see my spiral quilting tutorial here), quilted concentric circles in the wedges (traveling between seams to get to each circle), and used a Westalee ruler, and a Sariditty ruler to quilt the background.

I always learn something when I teach. This time I learned that my Marilyn Doheny 9-degree circle wedge ruler - with a copyright date of 1989! - is no longer the only Doheny ruler being made!

Thinking that the 25"-long one, like mine, was the only one available, I was surprised when students came to class with several other lengths of 9-degree rulers. 

(I'm not being compensated for sharing the following information. I just want to provide info to those of you who might ever be interested in making a wedge quilt.)

Here's the link to the 9-degree wedge products on the Doheny website. Besides the 25" length, the 9-degree wedge ruler comes in an 18" length, a 14" length, and a 9" length.

To make my Carousel quilt, the 25", 18", and 14" lengths work. But, by my way of thinking, if you're at all interested in wedge quilts, and hundreds of possible designs, why wouldn't you choose the 25" length to have all quiltmaking options open to you?

Students were attentive when needed, and managed to sew and chat too. Big surprise? No?

The quilter on the far right used Alison Glass prints for her Carousel quilt.

Most of the JAX quilters used a 9 degree ruler, but a few used a 10 degree ruler. Both certainly work beautifully. For me, the fun was seeing each quilters' fabric combinations.

This quilter took time to cut gradating color wedges from Ombré Confetti Metallic, appliquéing the wedge circle onto an ombré background. She completed her quilt top during the workshop!

Robin fussy cut her focus print to capture movement from the sections of orange print.

Candi has an interesting color combo. She pieced on a Featherweight

Katealicia used a Jennifer Paginelli print as her focus fabric.
Katealicia is friends with Jennifer, who named the print after her! It's "Katealicia" fabric!

This quilter's subdued brownish batik and green combo really pops with the addition of orange.

This quilter opted to make extra wedges and plans to turn hers into a "snake"-type layout.

Laura decided to piece some wedges...

...and then make only a half-circle that she plans to turn into a pillow.

This quilter's print has a watery pattern that appears to flow around the circle.
She's thinking of quilting the same movement around the quilt. 

My set of 1" to 12" Quilter's Rule nested circles came in handy for marking to make sure the quilt center is round.

On Wednesday, June 19, I'm teaching this workshop again to members of Quilting Guild of The Villages. Members can get more information here. 

Thanks to this really positive experience with the Jacksonville gals, I'm looking forward to future wedge-making workshops! Linda