After taking a long arm class last Fall, I quilted 2 quilts in order to get a little practice in. I also gave a top to a friend from the class so she could practice - what a treat to have her hand it back to me so all I had to do was put on the binding!
Swapping Stars was a top that was ready for borders. I had a few extra blocks and decided I'd make a pillow tuck as well - they weren't my best blocks but they are made from some of my favorite fabrics and I decided they weren't THAT bad, particularly since I'm keeping this quilt.
It's a very bright quilt, made by me and my quilting friends on a Yahoo group as a row robin. I went for a pretty simple block called Swapper's Star from Quilters Cache but I redrafted the instructions since my friends would be making 7 individual blocks instead of strip-piecing several of the same fabrics. I also asked the ladies to do something unusual - set it on point. I drafted instructions for this and they did a terrific job of pulling it all together for me!
I made one row - 7 blocks - to start it off, then mailed background fabric and instructions to them. In a few months, I had my top back and I knew right away that I was putting lime, pink, and purple borders on this quilt! I had a very small amount of lime left from one of my blocks and so I decided it would go on first in a 1-inch border. Then the hot pink tie-dye as a 2 inch border. And finally the purple/turquoise/silver dots as a 4 inch final border.
Got my pillow tuck on, and decided on putting a border separating the tuck from the top. This is where the fun really began as I do not like borders, I'm not good at borders. It was getting late at night the night before I was scheduled to quilt. Thankfully I only had to rip this off once before I learned my lesson and pinned it.
By 3 AM I had all the borders on. Don't say it...I already know.
About that time, I pressed the top and really looked the backside over. It was shedding horribly, so I spent the next 45 minutes trimming strays so they would not show through the white. Can you see the threads? I've never had a quilt fray this badly.
By 5 AM I had the backing made and the batting measured & cut. I slept for an hour before I had to get the kids up and get us out the door to school. In order to do my quilting, I have to take a day off from work and rent a long arm (LA) machine from my local quilt shop, Quilt Expressions. They opened at 10 am - perfect! Plenty of time to drop kids at school, run into the office to check my email, and grab a cup of coffee before I headed over.
This quilt is 111 inches long due to the pillow topper, and 96 inches wide. It took me just under 8 hours to quilt it.
My friend came to help me pin, saving me about 30 minutes, bless her heart. I used a all-over panto-graph design with flowers and leaves, a bit more complicated than what I'd tried in the past, and quilted it with lime green thread. What else?
When I get the binding and label on, I'll post a full-size picture of the completed quilt. Until then, it doesn't count in my total, but I think the hardest part is behind me. I like to hand-stitch down my binding, so I'll be cutting/making it and getting it attached this weekend, so I can start stitching it down in the evenings. I'm really pleased with how it turned out and I'm definitely keeping it.
Hours to complete top: Unknown, since most of the blocks were done by others
Hours to put on borders: 6
Hours to quilt: 8
Hours to bind: ?
Ready to move on to the next one!
Comments
Post a Comment