Reproductions

This started as a week of edge-to-edge quilts, but on Tuesday I was stymied when I discovered a client sent two large ones with insufficient backings. I quickly regrouped, and dug into the next quilt on the list - this light custom.

The fabrics are reproduction prints and have a ton of texture. That outer border is Di Ford. Anybody who can make quilting show on these fabrics deserves my paycheck and admiration!

 I first looked at my stash of mustard colored threads to see what might work on the outer border, and perhaps the entire quilt. Here are the options...(L-R) Omni, SoFine, YLI Polished poly and Superior's newest 100wt thread MicroQuilter.

I had yet to use the Micro Quilter, but did not want to quilt feathers on all those prints in a heavy thread. Micro Q won out! This post is partly to show what I did, but I think we as quilters can learn as much from the errors of others as we can the successes. This post is a little of both of those.

Now this client is a nice lady, and she sends me lots of wonderfully pieced tops. I don't fault her for the suggestion. I bemoaned to her that I didn't know what I was going to do on the outer border - it is relatively wide. Apparently this quilt is quilted somewhere with feathers up the outer border through the columns, and a line pattern on either side, so she suggested this. Students that have had me in class have heard this before, so I don;t know why it didn't scream through my subconscious. I have this thing about putting showy motifs in places where they don't stand a snowball's chance of actually showing. But...yes, I went ahead and feathered on that crazy column fabric anyways.

The choice of feathering there coupled with the lovely ultra-fine thread I chose was a double whammy of stupidity -- a mistake I won't likely make again soon. Now, don;t get me wrong, this looks fine, what you can see of it. It was like quilting with a blond hair with your eyes though. On the bright side, backtrack errors are more forgivable with super fine thread...which is good because I had no clue where I was backtracking!

I didn't make that same mistake twice, and feather that inner reddish border though!...Learned my lesson the first time. This inner border got 1/2" lines. Use geometric textures in places with dense print.

The center medallion is simple. It has a mottled dot print that would probably not show an interesting filler any better than it shows the stipple. I opted for the easier one! Gold star for me.

Here's the outer border. The feathers and lines don't look bad, but they are definitely non-descript feathers, just a happy little bit of movement there.

 The back is that column fabric in a different colorway. In the right lighting, the quilting is pretty.

Jean has more quilts in the mail heading my way...Cannot wait to see what fun she's sending this time!

Tomorrow I return to a huge applique quilt that took a short side-trip back to California for some border repairs. It will likely be on the frame close to a week. No rest for the weary!!