Silk!!

Remember these?

Well, I am happy to report that I got to spend a day on that euphoric high after completing Lynette's quilt.  I actually cut into the silk.  That said, I can also say that I must have found some design inspiration as well.  I won't bore you all with the many perturbations I went through to get to this point.  It has rotated a couple times, had some color switches.  In fact, the outer border isn't this shade of blue at all in my final rendition.  It  has the smokier shade of blue.

Aha...here it is.  I found it.  This is just a little bit softer than the one above.  I probably don't have enough of that lighter aqua (as Murphy always comes to visit me), so we'll see when I get closer to that point.

Despite all my efforts to make this be a little smaller, it would appear to be about 60" square.  I was challenged because I really want to include many of the gorgeous shades of the silk.  In person, they are so pettable and yummy.  The beauty of it, however, is that the piecing is larger, and will not take as long.  Unfortunately, it has a good bit of paper piecing, which I really don't love.  I'll get over that.  I am seriously vowing that this WILL NOT take 9 months to complete the top!  So far, I have the 28" central diamond done and stitched together.  The picture below is of it when it was still in pieces, but you can get the idea of how pretty the silk is. 

As beautiful as this silk is (and trust me, it is more pretty when quilted), it's not the easiest fabric to work with.  Slippery, shifty, and sensitive to water spotting (so I am told) - so no starching it to hell and back to whip it into submission.  Before I cut into it, (months ago in fact), I emailed Jenny Lyon because I knew she'd worked with the silk Radiance a bit.   If you aren't familiar with Jenny's quilts, you should be.  She's a domestic quilter and does divine work.   Anyways, she told me about interfacing the silk with Pellon Bi-Stretch Lite interfacing.  It really does not alter the hand of the silk, so the fabric is still soft and thin-feeling.  Other light-weight interfacings can pucker the fabric, but this does not.  My primary feedback is that it is wicked expensive - $7.30 per yard and it is only 20" wide!  I have been lucky to get it at Joann's on a 50% off coupon, but still that makes it more expensive than the silk fabric (which was largely only about $5/yard!).    I predict that it will probably take 12-15 yards of this interfacing to do the entire quilt, assuming I use it on all the borders.  One other drawback is that it makes seams just a little thicker.  I have noticed that on this particular design where the acute points come together, there is more bulk than I really like (or can match to my liking).  I'm getting around this by appliqueing a diamond over the joint, and then cutting out the bulk.  It's just how my pea-brain thinks...I used to be such a meticulous piecer.  Or I should say "I used to be a very neat piecer".  Now with my limited time, I am a piecer who has to spend wasteful time thinking up coverup alternatives to my errors.  Whatever works.  In the end, this will.

Stay tuned...I have one baby quilt to do Monday & Tuesday, and I will work a little on the next 12 blocks this week.