Ta-Daa!!!

A few nights ago now, as my son bathed, I sat and watched him and put the last stitches into Escapees.  I tacked down the hang tabs, and then threw it in the wash with my laundry.  I was a little nervous - this is the first quilt I've done without pre-washing all of my fabrics first, in forever

Not the  best picture - I'll have to take another when I've got a proper wall display set up.  Escapees is a bit too large for the three meager pins holding it up at the moment, so it's a bit saggy.

I'm very pleased with the quilting.  I straight line stitched throughout the piece, which nicely emphasizes the simplicity of the shapes as well as the floral print - if I do say so myself, lol.  Actually, the floral panels are done in a diagonal cross hatch pattern.  I'd originally planned on doing those panels with free-motion flowers, but a test run showed that free motion flowers detracted far too much from the print itself.

I outline stitched around all of the triangles, 1/4" in from the seam lines.  I used two different colors in the top thread:  a burnt umber to match the sky and a blue that matches the floral print.  The burnt umber thread was used in the robin's egg blue geese.  The blue thread was used in the burnt umber sky triangles. For the green and black sashing strips, I stitched 1/16" away from the seam lines to out line the black.

Throughout the quilt, I used black thread in the bobbin, giving the back what I think is a really cool graphic quality.  I'm really enjoying playing with my threads, so it's a theme I'm sure I'll continue with future quilts.

And now that I have this one finished, I might have a second quilt finish to show off soon-ish.  I'm prepping the backing for Flying Geese II, and I'm hoping to get the works on the quilt frame tonight.

Process Post - Asterisks

I know!  Four posts in a single weekend!  *gasp*  But, I promised to show off more of my process, and there's no time like the present, particularly when a sweet, but demanding two year old is off with Grandma!

Well, this is invariably the beginning of any quilt (that involves any real planning) for me: a basic black and white sketch, with notes about what colors I want to use, some basic size ideas, and what inspired this particular sketch.

                        

As clearly stated by the second image, I was inspired by a purchase of Omnigrid's new Flip-N-Cut Magic Templates.  The link leads to Set 4, but all the sets are the same templates, just in different sizes.  I think I bought Set 3.  

Once I cracked open my templates, I realized that the scale of my vision would have to be reduced drastically, if I didn't want to buy another set of templates, which I don't, teehee.  Nor do I really want to go exchange the things, mainly because I no longer have the receipt.  I've also become quite content with the idea of this becoming a mini-quilt, anyway.  I need some pretty stuff to put on my walls.

I was also inspired by the colors I used in my Modify Tradition Quilt, Modern Beauty: aqua, orange, yellow, lime green.  I wrote in to add pink, for a little more in the way of brightness, to contrast against the (intended) gray of the asterisks.  

I intend on recycling the borders I had planned on using on Modern Beauty, but I have to take them apart, so that I can intersperse the other colors.  The borders are comprised of the yellow and aqua fabrics from the arcs of the New York Beauty blocks, sized 1" X 3".  It's a nice size, perfect for the templates I have (I think).  

The color of the asterisks may morph into a cherry red...  I dropped the red fabric that I've been using in Japanese Disco on top of the borders, and really liked the way it popped off the blue and yellow, so I'll be doing some test pieces.  Who knows?  This could work out to be a whole series of asterisk based quilts.

And now, just to give myself a sense of perspective, so that I'm motivated to clean my sewing room before I get to sewing some more...  My list of quilts in progress:

• Sandi's Family & Friends Baskets
• Japanese Disco
• Asterisks
• Flying Geese III
• Blockade Scrap Quilt (from my LiveJournal Birthday Block Swap)

Yup, definitely time to tame the sewing room before I start up my sewing machine.  I won't show off pictures - I'm too ashamed.  Between my creative fits, and and Zeb playing, it's a disaster.