My Entries to the 2026 AVQ Show

I entered four of my quilts into the Amador Valley Quilters 2026 show. In the following sections, each quilt with the text of its descriptive story card is shown along with a link for further details. To see many of the other quilts in the show check out my blog post dated 5/2/26.

1_OhDeer 41"x 40" (#32A)

Changing borders and colors from Coriander Quilts pattern #206 Deerly Loved, I fussy cut the antler fabric to center the medallions. I added black triangle pupils to bright blue eyes. A narrow blue border strip ties into the eye color. The quilted upside-down clamshells symbolize garlands. Be sure to check out the fun backing fabric. (For more details see my blog post dated 12/2/24.)

2_Spooky_Sweet 30.5"x 34.5" (#121D)

Spooky & Sweet, is from a four-week quilt-a-long project by the Fat Quarter Shop with free pdf pattern downloads. The soft colors, all solids, attracted me to this kit. The gray background played nicely with the Coral, Clementine, Pesto and Violet hues, toned down from the typical garish orange, green, and purple for Halloween. (For more details see my blog post dated 10/3/24.)

3_BinThereDoneThat 55"x 55" (#124)

Blocks I’d made from JoAnn Fabrics' 2006 Block of the Month series Spice Meadows resurfaced in one of my project bins, hence the name. These colors were popular nearly two decades ago. Striped Noah's Ark fabric as a backing makes the quilt more contemporary. The colors went well with the front. I had a generous amount of this fabric in my stash. (For more details see my blog post dated 9/14/24.)

4_ChemoChaos 48"x 48" (#51)

Quilter-blogger Karen Brown, at her website Just Get It Done Quilts, posted a technique on how to use layer cake pre-cuts to advantage with symmetry about two axes. This is my result from one layer cake with a sewing theme. The final arrangement of the blocks confused me, but I was undergoing chemotherapy at the time… hence the name Chemo Chaos. (For more details see my blog post dated 11/20/24.)

Chemo Chaos Completion

This quilt top has remained dormant since July. The post for 7/5/24 looked at the contrast of the layer cake fabrics from the Bobbins and Bits selection in Sept 2013 by designer Pat Sloan. The post for 7/6/24 displayed the block designs for the layer cake fabrics and explained my choice of the name Chemo Chaos. Then the perfect batik fabric for the backing went on clearance sale at my local quilt shop. It is a whimsical orange batik with stylized ladybug images. There was enough of the backing fabric to use it for my binding as well. I set those glasses on the piece of fabric for scale. In retrospect, probably a ruler would have been a better choice to show scale.

Since the quilt top is 48½" wide, greater than one width of fabric, I needed to add an insert or edging. I placed four remaining 10" squares from the layer cake in a column onto the back interspersed with more ladybug batik. Three of my these leftover squares have words. Batiks do not really have a right and wrong side but I found an exception. I did not notice this detail until they were sewed into a column. I had to remove one and flip it so that the phrases such as MAKE DO AND MEND and  STITCH ON! were not reading backward.

My idea was to have the FMQ accentuate the secondary patterns in top...  small and big diamonds and perhaps that octagon with maybe some smaller squares. I've shown my scribbles in PowerPoint although the actual decision would be finalized in real time. Those four-petal motifs are a go-to pattern of mine so perhaps setting them on point in the bigger diamonds might add interest. How to handle the zig-zag fabric remained an unknown. Maybe a large scale wave at the outer edges... ?

Here is how that center square of sixteen four-petal motifs came out, followed by how one of those orange pointed diamonds looks with four three-leaf motifs in the center bordered by parallel lines.

Quilting this top was a true adventure. I used King Tut 40 weight variegated thread with the recommended #90/14 needle with a side-spooling rather than an end-spooling spindle, and yet the thread periodically shredded and broke, even when loosening the top tension... frustrating to say the least. I muddled through by changing the needle (in case there was a burr or I had installed it incorrectly) and rethreading in case there was something I had overlooked. I then threaded through only two of the three top holes; doing that did not eliminate my breakage but it did reduce it.  I would do a trial on a practice sandwich and all would go fine. Then I'd switched to the quilt top and, not immediately, but eventually, the thread would shred and break once again. Bad thread maybe? Top and backing were batiks, maybe they are tougher? Also twice I managed to catch a corner of the quilt under the quilting area that cost me some remedial tear-out time. Grrr...! Maybe the quilt's feelings are hurt by my proposed name of Chemo Chaos? If so, that moniker is well deserved! 

My envisioned variety of FMQ patterns became less and less ambitious; I just wanted to get it done! I wound up with a combination of parallel lines in the secondary pattern of smaller diamonds and my go-to four petal motif elsewhere. 

I kept the Chemo Chaos name. Here are my grosgrain ribbon labels stitched on the two lower back corners.

The following two images are the front and back of completed Chemo Chaos.

This quilt is a lighthearted reminder of my battles and triumphs with my surprise diagnosis and treatment of lung cancer per my brief 6/13/24 post on the topic. As it says on the back inserts, MAKE DO AND MEND. Yes, indeed!

Layer Cake Quadrant Symmetry

 Four Quadrant Symmetry

Per a Just Get It Done Quilts links, for Stashbuster #6, one of the key techniques in a layer cake quilt design is to employ symmetry to help construct four mirror-image quadrants. The number of blocks should be divisible by two in in both the vertical and horizontal directions or four in total. Karen does a better job of explaining symmetry by way of example anyway in her YouTube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k35lnxpIyWc.

My layer cake had 40 squares so I removed four and only worked with 36 squares; each quadrant will have a 3x3 array of nine blocks. I first wanted to distribute four scissor squares and, since I only had one of each, I would need to put a quarter of each square in each quadrant. I picked three other fabrics that I would use to make up the remaining three-quarters of each block. In the following photo the folded fabric is will be quartered and will be distributed into four blocks - sixteen blocks in total - that will distribute evenly among the four quilt quadrants.

These are the 4 blocks from the the lower right pile with the orange scissors on the lime background. The blocks have a symmetry about the horizontal axis and about the vertical axis. I did the same arrangement for the remaining 12 blocks from the other three piles.

Here is a second example for a distribution of the mottled background with the orange scissors. Thus I get four axi-symmetric blocks from one feature fabric print.

For prints for which I have only two squares, I make four half blocks as shown in the following photo.

My original intent was to make zig zags going only horizontal, but then I goofed and cut one square in half in the orthogonal direction. I corrected by cutting it again and making some four patch blocks. I could have kept all zig zag horizontal if I should so choose. (But I didn't.)

Then came the arranging of the 36 blocks. I thought I could do just one quadrant at a time, nine blocks, and save myself the work of moving and changing 36 blocks. Here are nine blocks, one of my later compositions. My first few attempts were awful, a cacophony that looked like random junk, not artful improv. These tries were even too hideous to photograph. During this time period I was undergoing infusion chemotherapy (6/13/14) and my thinking was pretty cattywampus... so much so I contemplated naming the quilt Chemo Chaos. 

It turns out I just could not bring myself to visualize the quadrant repeated in the other three orientations. I did have to lay out all the blocks at once to see it. They do look improved once seamed together.

It is then the secondary patterns emerge: four small orange diamonds, one large central green diamond, and an encircling red octagon.

It will be a while before I back and quilt this. But I did test out Karen Brown's theory of two-axis  symmetry for layer cakes. I was initially a skeptic but I acknowledge now that it can work. It worked even with my layer cake that displayed very little value difference in its components. I am even rethinking the name Chemo Chaos.

Layer Cake Evaluations

I follow an online quilter-blogger, Karen Brown at her website Just Get It Done Quilts. Recently I watched one of her YouTube videos on how to use layer cake pre-cuts to best advantage. Since I have several of these coordinated 10" square stacks of fabric in my stash, I looked forward to a type of formula guidance to sew up those that I have. I decided to practice with this Moda layer cake called Bobbins and Bits that dates back to its release in 2013. I think I was drawn in by the feature fabric with scissors and buttons on it; otherwise I am not an avid fan of batiks. Karen's post deals with 1) color value evaluation, 2) symmetry placement, and 3) cost premium of the fabrics. I will deal with color value and cost in this post and leave my symmetry placement for a future post.

Color Value Evaluation

There is a saying that "Value does the work and color gets the credit". Before selecting fabric combinations, Karen Brown suggests determining the value of your fabrics in order to best decide how to combine them with each other. She proposed an approach to determine the relative value of your fabrics using the camera and photography edit capabilities on your cell phone. I decided to learn this skill.

My Bobbins and Bits layer cake had four print genres of fabrics. A feature genre with scissors had only one only fabric square in each colorway (A). There were two of each colorway for a genre of  swirls/dots (B), a genre of zigzigs (C), and a genre of marbleized blenders (D). Per Karen's suggestion, I dutifully laid out my prints in what I perceived to be increasing value. I then learned to take a cell phone picture of them and use a filter to modify the photo to black/white and remove color to better discern the value. I learned a lot about camera controls and the value concept. Here are my results for each of my layer cake's four genres.

A1

A2

B1

B2

C1

C2

D1

D2

The fabrics did not display a great deal of contrast. So much for that helping me in my color placement... But this process made me aware and gave me a tool for other fabric pairings in other projects.

Evaluation of Premium Cost of Layer Cakes
So what is the magical allure of layer cakes? Is it all the pattern variations? Is it the convenience of the assortments all in one place? Is it the challenge of having that many fabrics to wrangle? Is the layer cake on sale? Be aware that satisfying those preferences actually costs about a 30% premium. Here is a sample calculation showing that cost difference.

How much yardage is in a layer cake?

42 squares @ 10"x10" each = 4200 sq in.

Divide that by ~ 42 WOF = 100 in = ~2 ¾  yd

Layer cake price ~$45: 2 ¾ yd @ $11.98/yd = $33;  $45/$33 = 1.36

Sample Moda premium  36%

Layer cake price ~$40: 2 ¾ yd @ $11.50/yd = $32;  $40/$32 = 1.25

Sample Riley Blake premium 25%

Alternatively, buying  ⅓ yard will yield four 10" squares in one colorway of choice.  The option exists to buy only those colorways that appeal or that blend well together. I am  not intended to make you feel guilty, just aware. That ~30% premium cost has not stopped me in the past. Here is a quilt I made from two layer cakes bought on clearance sale. I did not know about the symmetry method at the time and struggled with the block placement. Note there is over a year from start to completion.

Quilt By Number 3/5/2021 and 5/12/2022

https://dianeloves2quilt.blogspot.com/2021/03/quilt-by-numbers-solution-pending.html

https://dianeloves2quilt.blogspot.com/2022/05/quilt-by-numbers-finishing.html

I was made aware of layer cake cost and contrasts nuances in the  Just Get It Done Quilts links, for Stashbuster #6. I also learned of a symmetry method formula for deploying layer cakes. I will show my use of that trick in my next post; but truly Karen does a better job of explaining symmetry by way of example. Until I've published my post, watch Just Get It Done Quilts' YouTube video, near the end,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k35lnxpIyWc.