Friday, November 6, 2009

I love it!


I am thrilled that I have finished the quilting on this piece, but a strange thing happened on the way to done. I love the fabrics, I love the design, I love the people it is going to. But turned out I literally struggled to get it done. I used different quilting designs in each of the squares and felt tapped out to keep finding new ways to do that. So I repeated some of the things here and there, but tried to add variations throughout. By the time I got to the last row of squares, I was unrolling back to the beginning to see what I did there that I could recycle! This is made using Elisa's Backporch circle templates to make 195 7" blocks, enough to fit a king-size comforter. I pondered quite awhile on how to accomplish turning this into a duvet. I had made one before from a pieced quilt but that was before my longarm was here. On that one I had just done straight line quilting through some of the seams to anchor it to a plain backing, then made the back of the duvet from some other pretty fabric. With this one, I wanted to be able to do some pretty quilting in the blocks so I put a thin batting and solid fabric with the top.
The batting helps the quilting show with a little depth but I didn't want this to be so hot and heavy that it was not practical. The batting I used was new for me, it was a Fairfield product that is cotton and bamboo. I was a little leery of using it because I have come across some Fairfield batts that were not so nice (uneven, weak, way too stretchy) but I liked this one. It had none of those problems, although it did have too many dark flecks to make it workable with a white fabric. So anyway, the gamble paid off and it looks and feels great. Now I have a king size flat sheet to attach for the back of the duvet, and before long it will be done done!

4 comments:

Elisa said...

I think it looks terrific! All of the different types of quilting in each block, wow! I hope the person receiving this quilts appreciates all of the work that you put into it.
Thanks for sharing.
Elisa

Pam said...

It is going to my daughter, Brita, and my new son-in-law, Ben. Married one whole month! I have no doubt that they will appreciate the gift. Once they actually have it, that is!

MissesStitches said...

It's beautiful, Pam! Good work.

Anonymous said...

Yes, I will appreciate this wonderful quilt every day! We are so lucky to be getting it!! Brita