Back again with a progress report and more pictures. While summertime isn't the ideal time for me to get quilting done, I was proud that I made time to finish up this top and get it quilted. It's hanging from the railing at the top of my stairs waiting for binding...queued up right behind Star Mountain and Pioneer Braid. Someone is getting this for Christmas and it looks a whole lot better than this now!
First a little backstory.
First a little backstory.
When I first started quilting, back in the dinosaur age of computers, I really wanted to improve my skills. As I read through the quilt.alt.net newsgroup (among others) I learned that a great way to practice and perfect basic skills was to join a block swap. So I joined a 9-patch swap, purple I think. I learned all about perfect quarter inch seams, which way to press, making the patches butt up to each other nicely, etc. I did red, a couple of variations on blue, pink; I did yellow, green, more blue, black. And eventually I even did brown, though brown was probably one of my least favorite colors ever. And so I used up many of those 9-patches in baby quilts and charity quilts and fillers for other quilts. Except for brown. There they sat, so sad.
Then one day I decided my brother-in-law needed a quilt. He's extremely tall, so this quilt would have to be very long, but I didn't want it to look weirdly disproportioned. I needed a cohesive plan. And so I came up with the idea that I would group the browns to make a simple secondary "circle" type pattern, and add some blue as another "circle" type pattern around it and it would be like Burgoyne Surrounded. Here is what a real Burgoyne Surrounded looks like:
So not so much, right? Oh well, the pattern I'd made was growing on me and besides that, it turns out that this quilt was much longer than it was wide, EXACTLY what I was going for! Yay me!
I threw in the yellow because the brown and blue, while deliciously scrappy, were still a little boring to me. I mean, you saw my Swappers Star quilt, right? That's the palette I love. Here's a look at the cheddar yellow I used.
Those borders kept me up all night, literally, the night before I was scheduled to quilt. I had originally just kept going with the brown 9-patches but it never seemed "finished" to me. So I ripped off the miles of border 9-patches, made some additional blue and cream, and put a truly finished border on it. Much better.
When I got it on the machine to quilt it, my mind went blank. Part of this exercise in LA quilting is to help me learn and improve my skills. One thing I've never done was attempt to quilt straight diagonal lines. I figured it can't be that hard, I'll just give it a try. Ha ha, famous last words! I'd also never attempted a meander, so I decided I'd do a mid-size meaner in the cream sections and straight diagonal lines through the chains of blue and brown to accent the "circle" feel. Here's the first corner meander and you can see my first attempt at a diagonal straight line isn't really all that straight. Oops. This is why I'm doing it, right? To learn.
It took me a nearly 8 hours to quilt it because those straight lines are very time-consuming...and because this quilt ended up being 82" x 110"! That's a very long quilt!
I'm so pleased to be one step closer to crossing this quilt off the UFO list - and very glad that it turned out as well as it did. Now I just have a few random leftover 9-patches of various colors and of course the ripped off border browns...and I can kiss the 9-patches from the 90's goodbye! I am going to bind it in scrappy cream - I like that sort of old-fashioned feel to finishing this - so this weekend I'll make and put on the one side of the binding so it's ready for hand-stitching this Fall.
Later taters!
Hours to complete top: Probably about 20, give or take (it was a long time ago)
Hours to remove, remake and put on borders: 9
Hours to quilt: 8
Hours to bind: ?
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