Wednesday, April 13, 2011

big wheels for the wedding quilt, and some experimentation

I had an appointment cancelled this morning, and took advantage of the freed-up time to stitch like mad -- assembling all 6 of the (really big) wheels for M & T's wedding quilt.


One of the great things about working in a quilt-along group (I'm racing to catch up with Lily's Quilts Dresden QAL) is that I can offer up photos of my work-in-progress to a group of smart and helpful quilters.  Case in point: yesterday I stitched up and then posted on Flickr a photo of my first "wheel" for this quilt:


I had read that before stitching the inner circle and outer sashing, these blocks rarely lie flat -- but I was wondering if mine was perhaps too ripply.  Luckily, one of the eagle-eyed QAL members rescued me from my own stupidity: I had sewn together 22 leaves instead of 21.  Time for the seam-ripper.  All is now well, and I feel better about putting aside this project -- now in decent shape -- while I finish grading a set of portfolios. Phew.

One last little thing: fresh from the dryer, a quilt I started 6 months ago when I wanted to experiment with the FMQ on my (then new) Janome Horizon.




I pieced the top from a Moda scrapbag bought 18 mos. ago at Fabric Depot in Portland, OR.  I had been lured in by that particular scrapbag because a lovely strip of Kate Spain's "Fandango" (Alhambra) was visible -- but I opened the bag to discover that most of the fabrics were from Sandy Gervais's "Awesome" line.  Now these are not my favourite fabrics -- they're a bit too "Olive Garden" for my taste -- but they were perfect for a quilting experiment!  (And I have since discovered that many people like them, so this experiment will soon be given to a family member!)




What I really do love about this quilt is the way the free-motion quilting -- which I did with a light green cotton thread -- looks against the backing fabric, which is pieced from a beautiful Kaffe Fassett shot cotton (dark brown with a green cross-weave). The stitching doesn't photograph very well -- in reality, it looks like a flock (?) of butterflies, and it feels like buttah.  You'll have to take my word for it!





1 comments:

verykerryberry said...

Your free motion quilting is beautiful- it really flows and the design looks really natural