Bid Me Goodnight
Topic: Quilting
Once again, the entry title is the name of my latest quilt - a kind of inside joke because it will be 'bid' on at auction and it is a queen-size bed quilt. This is only the 5th time I have made a queen quilt (also have done 1 king) - not a big percentage out of 202 quilts!
This quilt was made by request, for a fund-raiser auction, but I used mostly fabrics I had on hand.
The initial plan was to use a panel I had with 18 units of paintings of Alaska wildflowers. I had picked this up on a vacation cruise some years ago and was waiting for the right pattern to come along. When I saw a tutorial on Missouri Star Quilt Company for using 2" blocks to surround 6" squares I knew I had the right pattern for me. Only problem was that the floral centers were 6x12, so I had to adjust the pattern. Done.
That tutorial used a 'jelly roll' of 2 1/2" strips to create the surrounding blocks. I happened to have a kit, given to me as a gift, with beautiful batik fabric strips. I never liked the pattern in the kit so these had sat languishing in the stash. Eureka! The colors were perfect with the flower portraits.
Then I got the request that the quilt be queen sized. Hmmm, I had enough for a lap quilt! So I rummaged through my stash and found some florals that I could add in, even if they were not the portrait style - same color ranges, though. I had to add in some other batik fabrics (cut into strips) so there would be enough to surround all the blocks. This gave me the opportunity to weed out some of the original batiks that were red or black or navy blue that really did not suit the pallette.
SO - I laid it all out, sewed together in a 7 across by 4 down grid only to realize I had the mattress dimensions backwards! AAAAAaaaarrrrgggghhhh! Now, what to do? Take off one column from the side, cut and block-border two more of the fabrics and create an addition row at the bottom. Now I had a grid layout of 6 across and 5 down with the exact dimensions of a queen mattress. Whew!
I calculated what borders I would need to create a drop on three sides. From my stash I added a 2 inch border all around, a 4 inch border to the sides and bottom (plus a 2 inch top border) and an 8 inch border to the sides and bottom. At the corners of the 4 and 8 inch borders I put in cornerstones of 2" blocks left over from the block bordering. This gave me a 14" drop.
This was quilted with 'bountiful feathers' from Urban Elementz with a 'silver' gray thread, yellow backing and Hobbs Heirloom cotton/polyester blend batting. Binding is one of the batiks that has a color blend from grayed green to red violet.
Throughout this process, with all of its changes, someone commented "You are truly creative." My response, "You mean, 'you really make it up as you go along'!" (More than you know)
When I was truly all done I had big chunks left of the yellow backing fabric, the widest border fabric and another of the border fabrics. So I made a set of matching pillowcases to go with it. By placing these at the top of the bed it will make up for there not being a lot of quilt at the top edge to enclose pillows like you would with a bedspread.
After all that, are you ready for some pictures?
The only place tall enough to display it was on pant hangers hooked to the house gutter. It still drags at the bottom.
Look how well those batik blocks pull out the colors from the flower panels.
A better view of the floral fabrics:
A closeup of one of the wildflower portraits. You can see how this one has a dragonfly. Others have butterflies which will play into the outer border.
Here you can see the quilting pattern as well as the sequence of the three borders (2", 4", 8"). The colors in the butterfly print were a perfect match for the florals and it was already in my stash!
Here is a view of the pieced cornerstones in the borders.
And a peek at the backing and binding.
I didn't get a photo of the pillowcases. They are yellow with a butterfly cuff and a 1" flange of the teal border.
Ddd
Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net
at 12:01 AM PDT
