The Golden Pineapple

The Golden Pineapple is a paper-pieced quilt that grew organically and finally found it’s way to the (sort of) Dallas Quilt Show in 2020. Unfortunately, the public was not able to check it out due to the cancellation because of the Covid 19 Virus. I am confident that there will be other opportunities coming soon enough.

Pineapple Inspiration

As many of you know, I adore paper-pieced blocks. Their sharpness and precision create so many wonderful patterns and sub patterns. In this situation, I fell in love with the Pineapple block.

As you can see, I also incorporated a Fleur De Lis design embroidered in every other block center. At this point, I really had no idea how to quilt this, but knew that I wanted to emphasize the stair-step look where all the gold intersected.

The image above shows how I envisioned the layout . Here you can see some of those secondary patterns emerging. As I said, the Golden Pineapple was an organic project. If you look at the fabrics in the block view above, the gold has an amazing directional aspect about it. I made sure to cut all pieces so the darts went in an outward manner.

Unfortunately, I ran out of this fabric and could not find more 🙁 I tend to use stash fabric so this is not an uncommon occurrence. Luckily, I had a gold that really worked well so, that is what I did.

Custom Quilting Decisions

As with the rest of this quilt, I let each section tell me how to quilt it. Some portions, like the corner treatments and square feather fill in alternating blocks was provided by electronic patterns, and others were hand-guided. The most exciting parts for me are the additional secondary patterns created by the quilting near the embroidery.

I began by isolating the embroidery with an outside star point design. The trapunto effect is made possible because of the batting used in the quilt. I used a combination of Linda’s Electric Quilters Linda’s Choice and Hobbs 80/20. I adore the weight and feel of this quilt because of the batting choices.

As you can see, the pebble background proves to showcase the gorgeous gold embroidery design. I couldn’t be happeri with this decision.

The borders included all hand-guided custom feathers so fed the need for my own creative mark as a final element.

What’s Next?

I have already designed my next – fresh – project. I love to try new things and I have had a box of ties in my sewing room for years. Now is the time to create something that combines these ties and a modern design. I can’t wait!