The Quilt Skipper

quilting makes me skip for joy

Jenny K Lyon

Quilting makes me skip for joy

A Finish! I think.

I have written about this fairly diminutive piece in no less than SIX previous posts , here, here, here, here, here, and here! Three of those posts were about that dog gone border. I began this piece in a Barbara Blanton Appliquick class with my guild. It is a fairly complicated block for a 6 hr workshop and quite frankly, I doubted I would ever finish; it was just too much work.

But life intervened and I NEEDED some hand work, so I idly began to work it bit by bit. Then I got into it and LOVED the block. Then the block was done and I thought, hmm, might as well trapunto that sucker. Then I thought, well, let’s put it on point and make a little wall hanging. But, I have lots and lots of silk, so let’s just add a wide silk border. It just grew on its own and told me what to do.

Aaaand finally, I think I have a finish:

It has been quite the journey, with lots of missteps. After literally at least 8 different tries on that border, I settled on Aurifil 28 wt, which was perfect. I really, really wanted to use 12 wt, but it was way too heavy of a statement. I also did not want to do a border with all the feathers the same, so I did this combo thing which I like.

I love, love the triple stitched lines in 12 wt Aurifil for definition and division. Please note the PERFECT miter that runs from the border to the binding turn. It’s the only one of the 4 that is good😊

Trapunto was a very good choice for this piece and look at the tremendous dimension it added!

That radiating quilting for the huge half square triangles was also a very good choice. Another detail shot here:

The back ain’t too shabby either:

Love me a pretty back!

When I had finished my quilting, it badly needed blocking; the center pooched up at least an inch and a half and one corner was quite janky. I love silk, but one problem you will have with silk is that it is not malleable like cotton. To get that one corner in line I really had to tug, tug, tug and pin the dickens out of it, then steam, steam, steam. It lays flat as a board now and that corner is mostly behaving.

I did a somewhat crude video of blocking my quilt on my design wall using my LAURASTAR system (the one I have is discontinued but basically it’s this one):

I hope that link works for you. If not, I may need to load into YouTube.

And by the way, there is a lot of opportunity for the judges to be entertained with this quilt. It started out as a “what the heck” practice piece and some of my decisions reflect that. I was tempted to correct some of my significantly-less-than-perfect work, but ultimately decided not to. Leaving them in it honors the learning curve nature of the quilt. There still is a little voice that says “you could fix that tiny little thing that bothers you”… But I think I’ll leave it as is.

I should be able to post next week, but the week after is Houston, and the week after that is a trip to see a guild in SoCal.  My postings will be sparse for a while, followed by a firehose of posts from Houston and my SoCal travel. I never create posts ahead to post while I’m gone. That’s just my thing, of-the-moment content.

I’ll be linking up:
Nina-Marie’s Off the Wall Friday
Finished or Not Friday

 

 

 

Comments

  1. Hooray and congrats, Jenny! I would definitely call it Finished. The border looks just right…doesn’t overpower but has presence and is stunning. I didn’t even notice the perfect miter! Your perseverance certainly paid off. What a beautiful work of art. Congrats!

  4. It’s lovely, Jenny. Your hard work paid off. If you don’t point out your “not so perfect ” areas, no one will notice. They will just be looking at the beauty of the piece. Congratulations on the finish.

  8. Jenny, when I saw the first image of the quilt in this post two “choices” caught my eye. First, the fanned lines that radiate in the beige triangles. Second, that you opted not to go with the traditional feather border, but a more relaxed and variable feather that echoed the leaves of the appliquéd block. Brilliant choices I thought. As I read further down the post, I was delighted to see these choices highlighted. Funny how a simple project can take on a life of its own.

  10. Lovely piece, fabulous work. I appreciate your explantions of your process – good teaching.
    Good wishes for Houston. Del