Tuesday, May 28, 2013

A new quilt is on my bed


Free motion quilting



Large stipple over the main blocks
Well finally last night I finished the quilt. This was a long time in the making as it languished under my desk for almost a year. Does that happen to you? You almost finish and then for some reason get disillusioned or dissatisfied with it.

But now I am in love love with it. The pattern is so easy to do and when I did it I put a pile of tips on my blog - check out here how easy it is.

I link up to Finish it up Friday - over at Crazy Mum quilts. I love it because it pushes me to finish things. Well I had hoped to link this up as a finish last friday but in my late night haste some things went wrong!!!


scalloped
The gorgeous scalloped free motion quilting
I quilted this quilt over two nights - till about midnight. The main quilt I just did a very large stipple pattern. But my "piece de resistance", for which I am so proud, is the gorgeous scallop which I free-motion quilted around the edge. I am so so happy with it and it turned out so much better than I hoped. I have been trying not to do the same stipple on everything. But more intense quilting takes so much more time.

Anyway the disaster was the binding. I had 0.5 metre of one of the matching materials to use as binding. BUT it was not enough. I cut it all so I had the right amount of length but that left the
binding too skinny (unless I went for a single layer - which I nearly did - but if you do not double over your binding then it wears really badly and frays quickly). So a big rethink and in the end the only fabric I had that was at all suitable was a $6 per metre sale piece from Quilters Quarters in Rangiora.

I link to some of these places

26 comments:

  1. Congratulations!! That's a big beautiful finish! I love it.

    Yes, I often get almost done with something and walk away from it.... You're not alone.

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  2. Replies
    1. Thanks Mel, I adore all the containers you have made over. Gorgeous

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  3. This is the quilt you started when I was there, wonderful to see it finished. You are a very talented lady. x

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    1. Yes it is. My goodness it was almost finished when you were there and then it got parked. You will have to come back so that I get reinspired and start something else

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    2. Hoping to see you all next year. Health and money permitting, Have had problems with eyes and had to pay to sort our gas central heating boiler, but back on track now. x

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  4. Its just beautiful Karen. Congratulations. Do you have a special machine to do the quilting or did you do it by hand? Just wonderful.

    Anne xx

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    1. Hi Anne, I just do the quilting on my little old sewing machine. Sometimes it is great but other times it is difficult. This was not too bad.

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  5. It is beautiful!! I love scallop too!

    Heidi @ handmadefrenzy.blogspot.com

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    Replies
    1. Love your chair cover and the boys shorts are FANtastic

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  6. It looks amazing Karen, well done! And yes I am guilty of getting a project within inches of a finish and then letting it sit. A character flaw of mine I guess!

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    1. Hey you have a good excuse - farmwork and all that!!! Hope the snow was not too harsh on your animals

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  7. beautiful quilt! Your quilting looks great!

    -Kelly @ My Quilt Infatuation

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    Replies
    1. Thanks Kelly, Like the look of your hungry caterpillar blocks ready to go

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  8. This is absolutely gorgeous! Wow!

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    Replies
    1. Thanks so much for having a look. Your feathers you are painting are absolutely amazing!!

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  9. That is beautiful and you must be so happy with it!!

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  10. Gorgeous! I hope you feel really proud of it - I sure would :) xx

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  11. Oh WOW! This is very inspiring....it looks absolutely GORGEOUS!!
    Christine
    ChrisW Designs

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    Replies
    1. Love your new backpack look. Can't wait to see how some of the testers adapted the pattern

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  12. The quilt turned out so pretty. And the FMQ scallops are great!

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  13. Beautiful! I have a scrappy log cabin I've been FMQing, and then just set aside for a while. I'm trying to convince myself to start up with it again...but haven't yet. Great job getting yours finished.

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  14. Wow! You did a beautiful job of quilting it and piecing it! Looks gorgeous on your bed!

    Tanya

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  15. It's awesome Karen! And that scalloping is very very well done! Go you - I'd be happy with it too :)

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Thanks so much for stopping by. I love that you took time out to comment on my blog.

A gorgeous break in Rarotonga

Woo hoo, A holiday with no kids for 11 days. Bliss, relaxing and warm! BTW it was an early 20th wedding anniversary present to ourselves....