Happy Flower quilt - finally hand quilted!
Hi! Happy New Year!
As much as I love having a house full of people at Christmas, and enjoying the holiday with my children, it's nice to be back to a routine. I sit down at the start of each month and write my list of what I hope to achieve - usually a mix of large/small and short/long term projects. Getting back to my blog is also on my list! At the end of last year, I had a chance to have a stall at my children's Christmas school fair, so I spent months planning and making for that and neglected my other quilting projects and blog.
I have realised that I didn't share the final photos of my Happy Flower quilt, once I had finished the hand quilting (which took me months and months!). My friend Tracy and I had fun draping the quilt around one of my favourite RHS gardens trying to take fun shots in the gorgeous autumn light in October (and slightly embarrassing our boys in the process!)
This quilt was almost entirely made from Lecien fabrics, using ranges such as Retro 30s Child's Smile and Flower Sugar (plus many older ranges too). Most of the fabric came from Sarah at Pretty Fabrics and Trims and Kate at The Homemakery. Kate also helped me choose the sweet blue gingham that I used for the outer border, which I am really pleased with.
I used a variety of Aurifil threads for this quilt. I used my usual 50 wt thread (colour 2021) to piece all the patchwork blocks. I gave a spool of 80wt Aurifil thread a try for the appliqué blocks right at the start of the sew along, and never looked back. It is fabulous for the tiny appliqué pieces and the stitches just disappear. It's my favourite for all my EPP now too.
When it came to the hand quilting I was worried that using the 12 wt threads that I often use for hand quilting would be too thick for these already very detailed and busy blocks. I was definitely set on hand quilting it though. In the end I decided to try the Aurifil 28wt thread (the grey spool) in colour 2311. I am so pleased with the result - the stitching is thick enough to be seen but not so thick as to distract from everything else going on in each block.
After months sitting with this quilt on my lap in a hoop each evening (during the hot summer too!) I was getting a bit fed up with the quilting by the end! I then had to decide what to do with the border. I was so tempted to leave it blank or just add the odd row of stitching, but realised that after all the effort so far, it would be a shame to rush the last part. So I then started the pretty long winded task of hand quilting the border in a crosshatch pattern. Once again, I was so pleased with my border fabric choice - the bias gingham pattern meant that I didn't have to mark out quilting lines with my Hera marker, I just followed the lines of the fabric.
One thing to point out - in case you ever contemplate hand quilting a border like this - make sure your knots at the end of each row of stitching are well within the space that the binding is going to be. One or two of mine ended up slightly too far out, and were cut off when I trimmed the quilt before binding it, meaning that I had to re-do a couple of lines of stitching.
I think it was well worth the extra effort doing the border too, as much as I was cursing my decision as I sewed each evening!
I'm so happy with the finished quilt. It had pride of place on my guest bed ready for my parents to visit at Christmas - my Mum had been admiring it as I made it, so I was glad she was the first to enjoy it.
I turned a small Dresden plate into a quilt label and is now ticked off my list as officially finished.
My other quilt finish just in time for Christmas was my Fancy Forest quilt - I'll be back soon with pictures of it.
As much as I love having a house full of people at Christmas, and enjoying the holiday with my children, it's nice to be back to a routine. I sit down at the start of each month and write my list of what I hope to achieve - usually a mix of large/small and short/long term projects. Getting back to my blog is also on my list! At the end of last year, I had a chance to have a stall at my children's Christmas school fair, so I spent months planning and making for that and neglected my other quilting projects and blog.
I have realised that I didn't share the final photos of my Happy Flower quilt, once I had finished the hand quilting (which took me months and months!). My friend Tracy and I had fun draping the quilt around one of my favourite RHS gardens trying to take fun shots in the gorgeous autumn light in October (and slightly embarrassing our boys in the process!)
This quilt was almost entirely made from Lecien fabrics, using ranges such as Retro 30s Child's Smile and Flower Sugar (plus many older ranges too). Most of the fabric came from Sarah at Pretty Fabrics and Trims and Kate at The Homemakery. Kate also helped me choose the sweet blue gingham that I used for the outer border, which I am really pleased with.
I used a variety of Aurifil threads for this quilt. I used my usual 50 wt thread (colour 2021) to piece all the patchwork blocks. I gave a spool of 80wt Aurifil thread a try for the appliqué blocks right at the start of the sew along, and never looked back. It is fabulous for the tiny appliqué pieces and the stitches just disappear. It's my favourite for all my EPP now too.
When it came to the hand quilting I was worried that using the 12 wt threads that I often use for hand quilting would be too thick for these already very detailed and busy blocks. I was definitely set on hand quilting it though. In the end I decided to try the Aurifil 28wt thread (the grey spool) in colour 2311. I am so pleased with the result - the stitching is thick enough to be seen but not so thick as to distract from everything else going on in each block.
After months sitting with this quilt on my lap in a hoop each evening (during the hot summer too!) I was getting a bit fed up with the quilting by the end! I then had to decide what to do with the border. I was so tempted to leave it blank or just add the odd row of stitching, but realised that after all the effort so far, it would be a shame to rush the last part. So I then started the pretty long winded task of hand quilting the border in a crosshatch pattern. Once again, I was so pleased with my border fabric choice - the bias gingham pattern meant that I didn't have to mark out quilting lines with my Hera marker, I just followed the lines of the fabric.
One thing to point out - in case you ever contemplate hand quilting a border like this - make sure your knots at the end of each row of stitching are well within the space that the binding is going to be. One or two of mine ended up slightly too far out, and were cut off when I trimmed the quilt before binding it, meaning that I had to re-do a couple of lines of stitching.
I think it was well worth the extra effort doing the border too, as much as I was cursing my decision as I sewed each evening!
I'm so happy with the finished quilt. It had pride of place on my guest bed ready for my parents to visit at Christmas - my Mum had been admiring it as I made it, so I was glad she was the first to enjoy it.
I turned a small Dresden plate into a quilt label and is now ticked off my list as officially finished.
My other quilt finish just in time for Christmas was my Fancy Forest quilt - I'll be back soon with pictures of it.
Just wonderful. A delight to hear this quilt's story.
ReplyDelete