Prickly Pear Quilt

I made the blocks for this Prickly Pear quilt (pattern by Karen Stone) at least 12 years ago I think. Then they sat for years. A couple years ago I sewed the blocks together with the aqua triangles and it sat again. Well finally a couple of months ago I quilted it and now it is hanging in our bedroom. I don't know why it took me so long to finish.

These are positive, negative like blocks where you fuse the applique shapes and cut out each color and then mix up the colors onto the background squares . The background squares are black and purple. All the applique is batik fabric and the aqua triangles too.

The applique pieces here and below are different cut out shapes to give the same pattern in a positive and negative. It was a fun pattern, but a lot of blanket stitching!

I quilted free form flowers and swirls in the aqua sections.

I could only find a website for Karen Stone that is coming soon it says, but her email is there if you want to contact her and a link to buy her books too.
Pin It Now!

Prickly Pear Quilt Top

I made the blocks for this top several years ago. I actually made an extra 2 blocks for some weird reason (maybe I can't count, lol!). These blocks got buried in a pile of UFO's for years. I have no idea if I had a plan with the extra blocks or not. I decided these blocks needed to be put into a top and the extra blocks I can use for something else. This is a pattern by Karen Stone, called Prickly Pear, which is perfect since prickly pear cactus grow here. I think this pattern must be out of print now.

I used batik fabrics for the prickly pears and a commercial black cotton and purple cotton for the background fabrics. I machine blanket stitched with variegated threads on some of the shapes and solid colors on others, to sew the applique pieces in place. This is a positive/negative quilt block. You have to be careful when cutting the shapes out, because you mix the shapes up so that you have different fabrics on each block. I found this to be fun, although a lot of work too. Now I just need to quilt it.

Pin It Now!

Prickly Pear Appliqué Blocks

The pattern for this (Prickly Pears from Karen Stone) called for making 12 blocks, like I made above. For some weird reason that I don't even recall, I made 14 blocks (below). So I need to take 2 away and do something else with the extra 2. Problem is I don't know which 2 to remove. Or I may end up doing this setting below, with all 14 blocks? I doubt I have enough fabric for the corners though. While I figure this out, it will go back into the UFO box. *sigh* Pin It Now!