Today I’m sharing a personal favorite, Gotham Clamshell. Back in the Before Times, a trip to New York City wasn’t complete unless I made a trip to Gotham Quilts. I was visiting several years ago when I picked up a kit for the Glam Clamshell quilt.
Curved piecing has intimidated me for my entire quilting life, so I thought this would be a great quilt to really practice and tone down the fear. The kit came with a specialty ruler that made cutting really easy. It also had marking notches in it, so matching everything up was also pretty easy. The only real challenge I had was piecing in the bottom row. In the future, I might just keep making regular rows and then cut the bottom off in a straight line. I know that’s cheating, but I need something to make me jump into curves again!
One of the things that really impresses me about kits from Gotham Quilts is whoever picks the fabrics. Seriously, they are a master of color theory! Every single kit in the store is impeccable. The way this quilt goes from cream through green, teal, and then blue is just perfect.
I quilted this with wavy lines using my walking foot. I learned this from a tutorial from Christa Quilts. You really just decrease your presser foot pressure and move the quilt ever so slightly back and forth while your walking quilt takes it through the feed dogs.
As I was finishing this quilt, I really didn’t know what to do with it. It’s too small for a lap quilt and too big, I think, for a wall hanging. That’s when Sir told me that a very dear friend of his was about to have a baby boy. Done and done! Gotham Clamshell is now happy in its new home getting burped on and being drug around the house.
I’m actually looking forward to my next project with curved piecing!