Slopes Finish

 

Ta-dah! An actual quilt finish, now presenting a completely finished: Slopes. 

I started this back in 2023 when I did the Color Collective with Tara Faughan. She would choose the fabric palette which would be sent to us from Sewtopia, and then she would present them in a video class being used in a pattern. In this case, a diagonal half-rectangle design.

The brilliant thing about these color palettes was mixing the Kona solids with Robert Kaufman Essex Yarn Dyes. That combination of the true solids with the textured yarn dyes is really visually striking. 

I really enjoyed making this one, and I'm very pleased with how it turned out. Even the back!

Halfway to Binding

I sewed the blue binding onto the Slopes quilt.

I always like this step of quilt binding. Getting to turn the sewn on binding over the edge of the quilt to see it in its nearly final form is so fun. Something I really anticipate.

Now to hand sew down the edge. That’s what baseball games are for.

 I think the slightly different blue that I used will be fine. Close enough for me.

Slopes Binding

 

Time to make some time for some binding making. I didn't have enough of any of the fabrics used in the Slopes quilt, so this blue will have to do. It's very very close to the other blues, so hopefully it will blend in well enough. Or at least be not too different or remarkable to be noticeable.

My Binding Betty is all ready to sew on the binding for Slopes!

Slopes Quilted

 

I finally got to sit down at the sewing machine late yesterday, and I finished the diagonal quilting on Slopes. But first I sat in the rainbow-ness of the sun setting in the window.

It was really quite bright but it made for good light on the quilting left to be done.

Well-illuminated indeed.

I turned on some music (X-Wild Gift and The Blasters-Live 1986) and finished off the diagonals going in one direction. And then flipped it around and did the other direction too.

I think I like it. 

And now I'm done quilting it. Now for the finishing! But what color of binding? I do have small-ish pieces of all the colors left over, but that might be too much variety for a binding. I think one of the darker blues might be nice. I'll have to see if I have enough of one of them to make the binding or not.

Diagonal Slopes

 

Trimming all the extra backing off of the Slopes quilt. I love this step.

I did some diagonal quilting in the upper right-hand section. 

It's not too noticeable in the overall view.

And closer up, I think I like it. Time to stay diagonal.

Slopes Rows Quilted

 

Here's how Slopes is looking now that I've done the columns and the rows, in-the-ditch style. This is plenty of quilting for this one, at least I think it is for now.

But maybe, I should do the diagonals as well. I think I'll quilt a few and see how it looks to me.

Rows of Slopes

 

The walking foot machine quilting is going well so far.

Slow and steady and kind of racket-y. I'm blocking the sound out by listening to a very good library audio book on my headphones (Weyward by Emilia Hart)

I pinned it up on the wall to see how the light grey quilting lines look now that I've done all the rows.

It looked well enough to me, so now I'm doing the other directions of each column.

Slopes Quilting

 

I'm finally going in---getting the machine set up for walking foot quilting Slopes. 

Got the quilt sandwich all re-ironed and re-sandwiched. It had been folded up for a while (May 2023!), so it took a little fussing around.

Looking forward to getting this beastie quilted.