Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Feathers make me a happy quilter



 



Ruth has been teaching a class at my LQS on this Eleanor Burns pattern.  I find this kind of traditional quilt fun to do and Ruth wanted lots of feathers so I had a good time quilting it. 





 
 






I did have a terrible time with the backing which was not Ruth's fault at all.  It was a good quality wide backing with plenty of extra length and width.  When I loaded it is was twisted and contorted on the rollers - which would lead to major pleat problems when quilted.  I tried it in both directions with no luck.  I kept measuring it, sure I must have made a mistake but it measured as if it were square.  After sweating and swearing over the darned thing I finally decided the problem was that it must have been distorted on the roll and although the sides measured as equal, it wasn't a true rectangle.   I loaded it one more time and spritzed it heavily with water as I turned the rollers, keeping it pulled taut.  It  stretched it enough that it straightened it out and finally lay flat.   I was then able to quilt it with no problems.









 
 
 
 



I finished Gail's quilt at the absolute last minute and shipped it to her Next Day Air. That left her 2 days to put on the binding and  hanging sleeve, take photos and get it entered online in Road to California by the Oct. 1st deadline.  We made it with a few hours to spare!  I'll post pictures later.


I panicked and was sure I would run out of the weird brown metallic thread I was using in the border so made a rush order to Wonderfil Thread for three more cones, just to be sure I had enough.  I ended up using less than one cone after all.  I'm sure I'll find a use for three cones of weird brown metallic thread!



6 comments:

  1. It's beautiful! I love your quilting. It complements the fabrics and design perfectly!

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  2. It is awesome jaw dropping beautiful. I am not one to point out mistakes but I see it will be entered in the RTC. The flower in the large white triangle of the top right in the photo does not the have beautiful detail that the corresponding one in the bottom left triangle has. Just thought I would point that out before the judges get a chance to.

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    1. Most of the flowers will have buttons and other embellishments in the center. The quiltmaker asked me to only quilt something in the center of 5 or 6 of them. Thanks for your help though! This is actually not the quilt that is going to RD2CA - that is another quilt that I haven't posted pictures of yet.

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  3. Ahhh :D So beautiful. I really love the way you did the feathers in the areas around the medallion.

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  4. What a fun quilt, and your quilting is really beautiful!

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