Ellen’s Quilt is Finished

I finally finish Ellen’s quilt.

I had a tough time with it though.  At first the design I wanted to do in the green sashing did not look that great.  Though Tom didn’t think it was all that bad.  But need less to say, I had to rip it all out.  I was trying to put feathers in with a simple curved spine.  But I couldn’t execute the feather to look good.   I ultimately used an “S” shaped  spine which worked out perfectly.  As I was quilting those feathers, the thread kept on shredding.  I tried everything from silicone spray, different needle, looser tension.  I never really got rid of the problem completely but I got through.  After attending classes at the Machine Quilters Expo, I realized I should have used a smaller needle.  Oh well, lesson learned.

Once the green sashing was complete I went back to quilt the half square triangles.  Mind you,  I have been working on this for over a week at this point.  I wanted to put a small feather design in the white half of the half-square triangle blocks.  But again, I couldn’t execute it to my satisfaction.  I ended up putting a simple loop design in each half triangle following the diagonal.   As I was going along, I realized I had two large blocks in upside down.  I got out my seam ripper and removed the two blocks, then hand stitched them back into place correctly.  Then I continued on with the loops.   The loop design really accentuated the barn raising setting of the blocks.  For those who don’t know, the barn raising setting is when the blocks are placed in such a way as to create a diamond effect.

I didn’t think I was ever going to get this quilt done.  I was working on a deadline.  I had entered the quilt into the Hannah Dustin Quilt Guild annual show, which was a couple of weeks away.  And I still had to do the binding.

When I got to the first border, my original plan of using a ribbon candy design did not look good. Surprise Surprise.  It seemed like all my ideas for this quilt were completely wrong.  It was very frustrating.  I ended up doing a double crossed loop design.  Which is simple but very ellegant.

By the time I got to the last border I was so exhausted artistically.  Everything I was going to do throughout this whole quilt just didn’t work.  The border is a busy print, so if I did any feathers or other fancy stitching, it would just not show up.  I called my friend Katie for some advise.  As it happened she was up the street and was able to stop by.  We decided the quilt just needed something simple in the border.  With everything else going on in the quilt it didn’t require any major quilting.  I settled on simple wavy piano keys.  Piano Keys is when you stitch lines in the quilt so it looks like a set of piano keys along the border.  But I wanted to give it more life, so I used my wave edge ruler.  It was the perfect design.  When you see the quilt hanging, it just looks perfect.  It brought out the water color look of the print.

For the back of the quilt I found a very pale pink printed with roses in white.  I wanted to break up all that pink so I used a piece of the border fabric as a sash going through a little off center.  I like the way it looks.  It has a whole cloth feel to it.

Well, I finished the quilt in time for the show.  I took a second place ribbon for the quilt.  I was very satisfied.  I had entered a quilt last year which I had made for my sister Paula.  It too took a second place ribbon.  But my overall score for Ellen’s quilt was higher than the score I received for Paula’s.  I was thrilled that I had got a better score for Ellen’s quilt. It shows improvement.  Which is what I was hoping for.

I have entered three quilts into the Lowell show this summer.   I’ll keep you posted if any of them are accepted and if they receive any ribbons.  I don’t expect any.  The caliber of quilters at that show is much higher than at the local guild show.   I’ll be happy to get accepted into the show.

Ellen loves her quilt.  When all is said and done that is what’s most important.

C