Friday, January 09, 2009

One Last Christmas Quilt Gift

Here is the finished queen sized bed quilt made from Moda's Simplicity charm squares. I gave this to my in-laws for Christmas. I can't say with certainty that she/they love it, but at least I feel good about giving something that is nice.
I gave it a test-run on my bed to see how it fit. My bed is high-posted, so it looks as though the quilt is not long enough on the sides. On a normal bed, it is plenty long.
Here's a closeup of the quilting in the squares...
I knew before it was sent to be quilted that I wanted the scalloped binding. Boy, this was a mistake!! What a big job it was to get all of those inside points hand stitched down well. I'll think twice before doing this type border again :-)
The bobbin thread is a pale yellow. The quilting shows up very nicely from the back. Gotta say it, I hate all those stupid swirls in the sashings. i had no idea there would be so many of them. It is just another difficulty of machine quilting. If I used my local quilter, I could preview what she does. If I use another one somewhere else, I just kind of have to go with her judgement. I also wish that the rose boxes had been outline stitched, but she didn't really want to do this without adding more cost. I can't really complain, the quilting looks fantastic.The machine quilting was done by Carla Riggs, mother of Ginger (aka Paisley & Polkadots). I was somewhat disallusioned with the lack of creativity of the machine quilter I have used that is local to me, so Ginger recommended her mother. She's a blessing, as she also recommended the Amish quilters that hand quilted my mother's quilt.
After receiving the finished quilt on December 1st, I decided I'd make coordinating pillow shams. These were fairly simple (after ordering another charm pack!), and I got to practice my machine quilting. I think that what I did matched the quilt really well.




6 comments:

  1. Beautiful! And even if it was a pain, I love the scallopped edges on the quilt. The pillow shams were a great idea, a good finishing touch!

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  2. Wow, this is beautiful. What a special, thoughtful gift. I can't imagine how anyone could not love this!

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  3. Its lovely! i see John commented on it...i thought of him when you posted...i thought, "those are done in colors and fabrics he would love" hehehehe!
    I hope the response from your in-laws was not disappointing...but it sounds like it was :(
    Im sure, once its on their bed they will love it! Handmade gifts are the best in my book!!!

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  4. I just saw an ad in a catalog for a quilt kit/pattern that looks like your pattern. I really liked it and thought how easy it would be to make. Love the colors in yours. It is sad when the response is not as high as anticipated when giving a gift. I have finally learned that when I gift something like this then I am releasing it into the wild and it doesn't belong to me anymore.

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  5. What a beautiful quilt!

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