Thursday 17 October 2013

Another Finished Quilt!

Well, I've done it!  Two finished quilts in two weeks!  It helps that I was travelling again, and that the flights were just long enough to finish 3 1/2 sides of the binding.

After my Girly Girl Quilt and all that pink, I really wanted to work on something a bit more boyish.  So I present to you... Boyish Boy Quilt!  (Temporary name, I am sure I can come up with something better!)


I just put the last stitches minutes ago and I was too eager to wait until I could take outside pictures.
 
There are lots of things I like in this quilt, starting with the colours.  They are not colours I work with a lot, but when I pulled the fat quarters out of the stash, I thought the orange, blue, green and brown mix was a lot of fun.
 
I also love the quilting I did on the "bricks".  Most of them are back and forth lines, but I did include some pebbles.  I love the look of pebbles, but find the process quite tedious so I knew I did not want to do too much of those.  I had four bricks of that fish print, so I only quilted pebbles in those four bricks.
 
 
I used thread from Connecting Threads which is a great weight when you want your quilting to stand out a bit.
 
Finally I love the backing, which is mostly in a green flannel print, also from Connecting Threads, and the binding which I think is an Amy Butler print.
 
 
There are, however a couple things I do not like about this quilt.  I debated how to quilt the blue sashing.  I thought the orange would be overpowering and I did not have blue, so I opted for green.  I had the perfect shade in Connecting Thread but for some odd reason, I chose to go with Aurifil instead (50wt).  What a disaster!  Now, I love Aurifil, it's my favourite thread.  It just was not the right thread for this project. 
 

I thought I would experiment with different weights, but by the time I realized it was not working, I was to far into it and I did not want to unpick.  You see, I did not change my stitch length from the default which is good for piecing, but way too small for quilting.  I also used my walking foot, but I think I should have free-motioned the lines to give them a more "organic" look, similar to the lines in the bricks.

Another thing that bugs me about this project is that although I carefully planned the rows so that no two similar bricks would be aligned, I somehow reversed my middle strip and ended up with not two, but three similar blue bricks in one row!  Arghhhhh!


For all its flaws, I am still pretty pleased with the overall result.  Once it's washed and crinkly, the quilting might not look as bad, and I am sure once that whoever ends up being the final recipient of that quilt won't see it with the same critical eye as I do.
 
 
So... what have you been working on?
 
Linking up to TGIFF at Quilt Matters.
 


3 comments:

  1. Looks great! Love those bright colours!

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  2. We are always our toughest critics, eh? I never would have noticed those things, Dom. Fun colour palette too -- way to go, Dom!

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  3. I love the prints you've used there - and you already know I'm a fan of the colour palette. Never would have noticed the three blue bars lining up if you hadn't pointed it out, though.

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