Amish quilts have a wonderful modern look with their bright colors and geometric design. Thse five small designs (about 1.5″ square on 18 mesh) use a variety of Silk & Ivory threads to make projects that can be quickly finished and put on a variety of items. These are so fast to stitch, you could make a couple in an evening.
Bars
This strpied quilt has three borders. The inner and middle borders are in Gobein. This design shows an important aspect of Amish quilts, one that arises out of their regious beliefs. For the Amish being apart from the vanity of the world is important. The shun worldly things and that’s why they don’t use electricity or drive crs. In quilting, they use only solid fabrics for their own quilts and do not use mitered corners.
Corners still need to be handled. One common way of doing this is putting squares of contrasting fabric in the corners. You see this here.
Triangles
Triangles quilts are made from half-square triangles that are patches made by cutting a square along the diagonal. In needlepoint these are made by stitching half a square stitch in one color and half in the background color. This project used five shades of pink with navy blue for the background.
In order to get the gradation of color you see here, arrange your triangle colors by value. start with the darkest shade in one corner and stitch one row in each shade. Go from dark to light and then back to dark.
Triple Irish Chain
Diagonal lines of squares, Tent Stitches here, are a patchwork pattern called Irish Chain. When you have more than one of these the pattern becomes Double, Triple, etc. When this happens checked squares emerge. The high-contrast combination of blue and red means this project attracts attention. The central square and the whole design have deep purple edges and the border is three stitches wide, nicely setting off the center.
Split Bars
Bars is another name for these simple striped quilts. Here burgundy stripes are paired against a blue-violet background, below. It’s all Tent Stitch, which makes it simple for even beginning stitchers.
Bricks
This quilt has Cashmere Stitch rectangles in diagional rows. It has a single Tent Stitch border in a contrasting color. For the threads, if you want an Amish look, pick red, violet, blue, and green for your colors.
The chart shows everything as Tent, which you can do. It will look more like Bricks if you use Cashmeres, however.
Finishing
Needlepoint is sturdier than you think because you are actually creating a fabric as you stitch. This means that you can cut the canvas and unravel the threads to make a fringed edge, below.
Just cut one or two threads beyond the finished edge of the quilt. Unravel the edges. Then you can use archival double-sided tape to put them on a variety of items.
Using mostly items from the chain crafts store I created a bookmark, two gift tags, a Post-it pade, a bookmark, and a birthday card.
About Janet M Perry
Janet Perry is the Internet's leading authority on needlepoint. She designs, teaches and writes, getting raves from her fans for her innovative techniques, extensive knowledge and generous teaching style. A leading writer of stitch guides, she blogs here and lives on an island in the northeast corner of the SF Bay with her family
Charlotte Wells says
Had you thought of a sampler-type larger piece using these lovely designs as blocks? When I get a spare moment, I think I would like to try it. Thanks for a great blog, I have been enjoying it immensely. Best, Charlotte
Janet M Perry says
That is a fantastic idea. I’ll have to work that out for the ebook of them I’m planning.
Keep stitching,
Janey