No Longer a Slave to this Massively Sized quilt

Last week, I finished up a monster 112" Civil War Chronicles quilt.  I quilted one of these 18 months ago, and this client wanted this one done basically the same.  I tried hard to convince her that I really think that a nice Baptist fan pattern all over would look very appropriate and effective, but she didn't want an edge-to-edge.  While I kept much of the design like the previous quilt, I did make some slight modifications when I felt that they were warranted.

The quilt is made up of many 12" blocks -- 28 I think plus a center, and 16 more smaller blocks.  Custom quilting every one of the 12" blocks was beyond the budget of either quilter, so a loose feathered pattern was done instead.  I can quilt this like it is an E2E pattern, thus saving time and cost. 

The lighter colored (less printed) areas received prettier feathering patterns.  The stitching is more likely to show on the lighter fabrics.  There is also some straight line work to help frame the center diamond.  Multiple parallel lines tend to show considerably better than just a single line.  I think I used triple lines.

This quilt has a QD wool batting.  This is great batting, and gives the details a better poof than cotton.  I used a single color taupe/tan Superior Omni thread on the entire quilt.  Except on the darker fabrics, it barely shows over the prints.  Omni is a 40wt polyester, but it has a dull finish similar to cotton thread.  I felt this was a good choice because traditionally this quilt would have been stitched in cotton anyways.

The setting triangles next to the outermost border received pretty feathers.  You'll note that even though I used a combination of E2E and custom quilting, there is a LOT of ditch quilting.  It keeps each border and block looking crisp.

The backing of this quilt is not really what I might have chosen, but it is fine since this is a bed quilt.  It's a solid tan batik.  After having issues on a couple of recent quilts with batik backings, I am kind of getting on the "no batik backings" bus.  It is just too unpredictable if I will have a problem or not.  On this quilt, it is somewhat "out of period"; I think a CW repro would have been better.  It does, however, show the quilting, which for me is that double edged sword in that when it really shows, I have to be more careful with stitching  and stops and starts, etc.

 There are definitely some pretty patterns to see on this backing :-)

Three weeks until I will be delving into that increasing pile of backlogged custom quilts.  I can not wait!!  I have a few edge-to-edge jobs for the remainder of the month, but I really look forward to the return of being able to quilt 6 hours a day!  I am receiving many inquiries at present.  If you are curious, I am always taking new clients.  I am taking quilts with an approximate October delivery unless they are simple jobs.  If you are thinking about Christmas/holiday deliveries, I will need these within the next 6 weeks, or before.

This past weekend I went to the Images 2013 Lowell Quilt Festival in Lowell, MA.  My Zen Garden quilt took the top Best of Show award.  It is a very nice relatively local show, and the town of Lowell does a fantastic job of getting into the show, with a shuttle bus taking you to several other venues having smaller quilt displays.  I hope to post some highlights of this next time.