Thursday, September 23, 2010

Pinwheel Party

This is a sweetly colored Valentine's Day quilt made by one of my customers. It's the Pinwheel sampler from here. Many of the fabrics have the words "love" hearts on them. The owner wanted it to be warm, and to show the quilting definition. I suggested wool, which is delightful quilted, but this particular package of Hobbs Tuscany wool was disappointingly thin. Plus it only comes in a cream color, so I added a white muslin liner underneath the top. The white faric on the top of the quilt is not overly heavy so the ivory batt made the white look not bright. It, unfortunately, also makes any intrimmed threads or seams a touch visible too. That is just one of the reasons I truly hate working with whites. You have to get very good quality material and be ultra vigilant about pressing away from the white.
I think that the customer will be pleased with how the quilting shows. To offset the thinner wool, I added a layer of white Hobbs 80/20 underneath of it. This was to increase the weight/thickness, but also because the back of the quilt turned out to be half white too (and I didn't notice that initially. With the heavy quilting, the two layers don't seem overly bulky. The wool just gives fantastic definition to the feathers and pebbling. The thread is all Superior So Fine, 7 bobbins of it! That's 1750 yards to be exact! Here's some closer-up shots of several blocks...

And a look at the entire back. Yes, another pinwheel...
And a couple of my more favorite blocks from the backside.
dontcha just love the gentle ribboning around the pinwheel?
Aren't you ready to have a Pinwheel Party now?

7 comments:

Kate said...

What an absolutely fabulous job you have made of quilting this beautiful quilt!!! You should be very proud of your work because it takes great God given talent to achieve such a high standard of creativity. And all that quilting thread!!! At 1750 yards, isn't that nearly a full mile???
Very well done to you. I'm amazed and in awe.
love
Kate
Shetland Islands

Crafty Girl Creations said...

Beautiful!! You did an amazing job!!!

Yvette said...

OMG! It is FABULOUS!!!!
I wish I could just send you everything I sew together.

Tatkis said...

Your quilt is absolutely beautiful and sweet! Colours are so nice!

Best wishes,
Tatyana

Katie said...

I would LOVE to know just how many hours it took you to complete this one quilt. woowee!

Tina said...

Just AWESOME!!!!

Litamora's Quilt & Design said...

I just found your blog, looking on Google for inspiration. OMG!!! You do sooo wonderful work!