Hello friends! We hope you've been doing well - things have been pretty busy around my homestead, so I haven't been doing much blogging. But wait until you see what I've been up to! Long-time readers may recall that earlier this year I was hired by Dear Stella Designs, faboo fabric design company, to make a quilt for their Spring Quilt Market booth. You can read about that adventure in my post about the Masaai Mara Quilt.
So, fast forward to fall Quilt Market. Dear Stella contacted me again and asked if I would do a new quilt for them - this time they had a pattern by the awesome Elizabeth Hartman so I was pretty excited to do it! If you do not have any of Elizabeth's books, you owe it to yourself to get one (or both!). The pattern I used was from her book Modern Patchwork, which features intermediate and advanced modern quilts.
Next up, fabric! The collection I used is called Ostara, which has a floral print and some really cool geometric coordinates, in navy, blush, taupe and white. Very pretty! This English-garden-inspired group seemed very different from the grooviness of the quilt pattern, so I was interested to see how it would work.
Finally: the finished quilt!
Shazam! Okay, I know that sounds like I'm bragging but come on! It's pretty cool. Lots of loops! I love this pattern, it's so fun and funky.
Here are a few close-ups.
I like how the rings are different widths, and that some blocks have a circle in the middle and some have a small ring. There are three different blocks in the quilt, so there is a lot of variety! It made it fun to cut out the pieces. You can also better see the quilting in these pictures. I did a wavy line between the rings and then did free-motion stippling in the background. (My coworker gave me that idea!) I really like how it turned out - a little more fun to do than just stippling the whole thing. Plus, it looks cool from the back!
It's especially easy to see on the white fabric - you can see where the rings are on the front since there is no quilting on them.
Here's a full picture of the back so you can see this awesome pink and black paisley!
If you've ever finished a big-ish quilt (this one is 63" x 63"), you know that quilting is hard! Those quilts get heavy and difficult to maneuver through your machine, and it's tiring work. I had some problems working on this and I was really worried that the finished product would, well, suck. It got me thinking - no one ever really tells you about the stupid things they do while sewing. So in the interest of full disclosure, here are just a few of the dumb things I did while working on this quilt.
- I left a lot of backing fabric around each of the edges, and didn't notice that the excess fabric had flopped over to the back side so I ended up quilting through two layers of backing fabric, and I had to take out a ton of stitches. This was especially irritating since it's not the first time it's happened! When instructions tell you to only leave a few inches extra on each side, there is a good reason for it!
- Have you seen Machingers? They are gloves you can wear to help you grip the quilt. I really like them; I find it makes it easier to move the quilt than using my bare hands. However, at one point I got my fingers a little too close to the needle and the tip of one of the glove fingers got sewn into the quilting. (At least my actual finger didn't get in there too!) Still, it was super frustrating because I had to take out those stitches to get the glove fibers out of there.
- I had to do the free-motion quilting in sections, and I realized after I had done a section that the scale of the quilting was a noticeably different size than the stippling I had done earlier. I was a little concerned that it would be really obvious on the quilt, but after it was all done, I had a hard time finding that area.
This is all to say that everyone makes mistakes or just does a less-than-perfect job sometimes, but in the end you have to look at the whole project and see all the things that turned out great (or at least good). Maybe you'll have some weird quilting areas, or seams that don't match, but don't worry about it - you made a quilt, for goodness' sake! Not everyone can do that. So focus on what you like and remember that every quilting and sewing project helps you learn and do better the next time.
ANYWAY, enough of my lecturing. Thank you Dear Stella for this awesome opportunity! I don't think I would've tackled the Looptastic quilt on my own (or I would've put it off and never finished it), so this was a good experience.
See you soon!
Becca
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