Whew, after last week's craziness, my stash is a wee bit smaller (hah!). Anyway, congratulations to the winners. If you want to see who won, I posted the winners on each giveaway post.
Today I have a finish to share and some things not to do when making a quilt like this.
So here is the finished quilt. It is a wall hanging, finishing around 28" square.
It started out like this. I free hand drew a shamrock on the background fabric and started cutting out green circles. I realized I didn't like the green on the orange, so I cut some white circles to create an outline.
Once all 800 (not really) circles were cut and placed I was ready to quilt. Learning moment: I had been placing the circles by swiping them with a glue stick. Not enough to get them really sticky, just enough to hold them in place. Great for placement. Not so great for quilting. See pictures below.
My quilting foot caught on every stick up edge. So there was lots and lots and lots of starting and stopping and pushing fabric under the foot with my fingers.
Ironically I had just gotten a book called "Serendipity Quilts" by Sarah Carlson and she uses a similar method of construction, but says if she isn't going to put tulle over the pieces, she goes back and glues each piece down all the way. I thought taking the time to do that was insane. Now I understand why!
Lots of FMQ squiggle/meander/stipple.
Here is a back shot. The green is a little more olive in real life. The discoloration is true, though. It is a sort of weird thicker batik, I believe I got in a 'left overs' bag from the LQS. I think it spent too long on a bolt somewhere. But hey, for a back against the wall, no big deal.
A variety of threads used in the constructions and quilting of this one. The variegated ones were used on the top quilting. The orange is a shiny poly from Signature threads, the green is Sulky. Emptied an orange Mettler for the bobbin and then used green and orange Aurifil for bobbin. The white Coats and Clark was used top and bottom for the white circles.
I'll tell you that the asymmetry of the leaves bothers me. A lot. I'm really tempted to throw the whole thing in the wash. I figure that might fluff up all the raw edges and tone down the asymmetrical shape. What do you think?
3 comments:
Now see, if you hadn't mentioned the asymmetry, I would have not noticed! Washing always adds a cozy feel. I like this little gem.
You are very creative! When I saw the pic of the foot under the piece of fabric I immediately thought of tulle also but I think it would mute your circles too much, next time glue to the rescue!
I think it's great! What a cool idea to come up with. And I see all the circles are cut by hand. Madness, woman! That must have taken forever. Well worth the effort.
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