A Pre-Christmas Quilting

I cut way back on the customer work I accepted to be completed before Christmas. I was feeling tired, and busy with finishing up my last class for a while, and just need a break to work on my own quilting things. Vanessa sent me this last month, and I agreed to quilt it for her so she can give it to her son for Christmas. Vanessa has done a couple of the swaps I did previously, so I could hardly not do this!!
It is very nicely pieced, rather simple, and a perfect canvas to do some creative quilting. The only glitch is that it is for a male, and boys and men are SO much harder to quilt for. I like to look for blank spaces when I get a quilt - spaces that can represent something. As an example, this quilt just screams with those square-on-point or diamond areas.

I did throw in a very little bit of feathering just to add variety to the quilting. The beadboard striped outer border is a simple type of quilting (simple to see, not to be confused with simple to quilt since it is timeconsuming ruler work), that seems suited for the busier fabric and males. I also did the freehanded curved-crosshatching as the background of the quilt to help the diamonds to show. The stars are all quilted the same with curves.

There was a lot of ruler work in this quilt, but it does look masculine. The backing of this quilt is also a CW repro print. It has to be the roughest quality Marcus fabric I have ever seen. It reminds me more of a civil war tent material than a quilting fabric!

I am embarking on my last Thermo class tomorrow before next week's finals. Do I hear "Yea!!"??/ You betcha! I am on course to do much quilting next week while all kids are still in school - nobody is allowed to be sick before Christmas!! I have my Italian floor quilt nearly on the frame. I have the backing, batting, and the pre-quilting jitters. It's just like the night before getting married. Oh, boy the nerves :-)) It's not perfect, but I have kept telling myself that I can quilt it despite it's small imperfections (like the fact that the center does not lay perfectly flat...DOH!). Hopefully I am right- I have about 50-60 hours invested or more in the piecing alone!

I ordered backing for this quilt too which arrived today. Too bad I made a calculation mistake. Sigh,....I ordered about a half yard too little. Rather than ordering more and having a solid beige backing, I am doing as Tim Gunn would. Make it work! Stay tuned.