Asian Pots Quilt

This is one of my favorite quilts that I have quilted in a long time.  It belongs to one of my clients.   A couple weeks ago I did her floral applique quilt, and now this quilt, also appliqued.  This one is wonderfully stitched, and looks like she has really mastered the technique!

The magnificent detail of these fabrics is most certainly lost in the photographs.  They are heavy, beautiful quality, and many have gold flecking.  It's the kind of fabric that just screams "touch me".  She's done a great job of fussy cutting to show the details of the fabrics on the pots.  

Because the pots and the fabrics are the feature here, I chose a background quilting for the gold fabrics that is monochromatic (gold Glide thread), yet with exceptional texture of the free floated feathers.  These feathers are so much fun to quilt, and always look amazing.

The quilt is huge sashings.  If you figured the area of the sashings, I think it is close to 25% of the entire quilt!  With that in mind, I knew that they needed to carry the design.  My client has called this quilt "Dutch Pots", but the fabrics and style of pots just screamed Asian Pots to me.  I have been to the orient as well as to Holland, and although the colors may be Dutch, the style and fabrics are all Asian.  I went with this, and designed the sashings accordingly.

 Whoops...a little geenie pot here (crooked at that!). This is one of my favorites.

 I used the features of the fabric to dictate where I stitched on each of the pots.

This shows how the sashings can become a very integral part of a quilt.  They make the blocks look like they are outlined in circles.

The cornerstones are machine embroidered.  I'm only guessing that she did these too.  They just look so perfect on this quilt, matching impeccably, and really completing the Asian look.  I just gently stippled around them to make the circle pop out a little.

This quilt has significant ditch quilting with Madiera monolon clear thread.  All the pots, details on the pots, sashings and outer borders are ditch quilted to hold the shape.  There's really no point of custom quilting anything if you don't secure the edges with ditch quilting.  The other thread I used is the gold Glide, an ivory Glide on the outer border, and a royal blue Glide on the sashings.  The sheen of this thread works well with the metallic flecked fabrics.  The quilt has Hobbs wool batting.

It's really lovely, and was a fun quilt to stitch.  I an now onto a stack of 4 more applique quilts, with a hope of completing these before I take off to MQX in early April.