Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Finishing Just In Time For Spring



Finally, finally, finally! The largest quilt I've ever made is getting done.  I posted about this monster way back in 2009, I was ready to try quilting this king-size+ quilt that I'd made for our bed and was struggling with figuring out my Flynn Frame.  I did finally figure out the frame, but decided against quilting this giant quilt as my first try, so it got put away and I'd feel guilty about it every March (I wanted to give it to my husband as an anniversary present!).  But recently I was meeting my friend Jaye for lunch and she was taking a quilt in to be quilted by someone from BAMQG.  I said "hey maybe I oughta just give up on ever quilting this thing myself and have her do it."  And Jaye being the practical, encouraging, get-it-done sort of friend that she is said "Yes, bring it!"  So I did and here it is all quilted, voila'.  


I didn't know what to expect or if the quilter would take a look at this crazy, wonky, raw-edge quilt top and say "uh, no thanks."  But Marci at Lily Street Quilts was up for the challenge of quilting over all those raw edges and it turned out great.   Absolutely worth the cost!  (Thanks Marci!)
Just the binding and label need to be sewn on, and they're already made, I'm sewing them on today, just watch me.  And then I'll have my anniversary present ready in time (pshew!).   When the binding is finished I'll try pinning it up on my design wall and take an official picture which I'll post.

 The green background bullseye blocks in the middle came from a swap that I did waaaay back when with Quilting Arts Forum. The other bullseyes on the pink backgrounds I made myself.   All the rest is sashing and setting and random blocks that I came up with to make the quilt into something big enough for our bed.
There are two corners with a hand-dyed green background with the circles left over from trimming out the bullseye blocks.  Bullseyes are stacks of three circles and you cut out the centers so that the blocks aren't quadruple thick layered.  Lots of leftover circles, and I had to use them for something...
Also, you can see the swoopy, spirally pattern that I chose in this picture here pretty well.  It's quilted allover in this pattern in green thread.  I thought it suited the whole quilt pretty well.

On the whole this quilt is very chaotic and haphazard looking because it was made over the course of many years. Not as planned out or designed as I'd have chosen.  But you know, I like how it turned out, it has a lot of spring, happy energy and it's going to look great on our bed.
Finally a quilt big enough for our bed! This is a bigger deal than you'd imagine.

4 comments:

Susan said...

Yummy! Bright and wonderful vision of Spring!

Mrs. K---who got here via Jaye's blog

MulticoloredPieces said...

Hi, Julie. Really cool quilt--cheerful and just right for spring. Very fun!
best, nadia

Julie Zaccone Stiller said...

Thanks Mrs. K and Nadia. We're really enjoying having such a cheery quilt on our bed, it makes a huge difference in the room.

Jaye said...

It looks so great and cheerful in a springy sort of way. Are you ready for more finishes? ;-)