No. 24

No. 24

60" x 35"

Affectionately known as Rainbow Sherbet, because of the colors, ha ha!

Conceptually, this one is about moving forward together, the joy of being together, walking hand in hand, side by side. Forces in the universe propelling forward two individuals into We. Community or family often starts with just two people.

A few images of the construction:

I don't usually stack the rows while waiting to press the seams, but this time I did. I found the vaguely architectural vibe really interesting!

After the top is finished, it is time to baste the backing and batting layers together to make the quilt sandwich. I found this cute "love letters" fabric for the backing and just knew it was perfect for this quilt! I did not realize that it had this lovely message on the selvage, really perfect!

Next up, the machine quilting. I planned to do much denser quilting on this one, but when I saw this emerge from the beginnings of the quilting, it felt complete to me, so I stopped. Sometimes more does not mean better....(note: many quilt judges will disagree with me on this point).

Either before or after quilting, I will check my paper template on the background. I do this to both check for scale, and to check the placement. There is still time to make my paper templates larger or smaller, or opt for a larger background by adding another row or column of blocks. 

The paper I use for the templates comes in a big roll from a home construction store. It is a little bit thick and I usually press the paper first in order to make it lie flat while drawing and cutting the shapes. The neat part is that the paper give me a nice edge to use while pressing under the 1/4" seam to make the shape ready for applique. 

Here are two of the humps, edges pressed under and basted, and pinned in place.

I like these flower head pins to hold the large applique shapes in place mostly because the pieces will lie flat together while hand sewing. My FAVORITE applique pins are the super tiny ones. Unfortunately, those are incredibly hard to use when pinning the applique to an already quilted quilt. It is too thick and too many layers for those tiny pins.

They are also very sharp and pokey while hand sewing. A lot of care is needed to avoid small stabs...

The last step is the hand quilting. I had significant difficulty with the thread choices on this quilt. I picked the perfect colors, and then after quilting, they mostly and unexpectedly disappeared. So I pulled them all out and tried white thread, which also did not show up. Ultimately, the black thread was the only thread that I could still see after quilting. It is interesting that even when I make the best choices, I am still wrong sometimes. Sigh... However, with the black thread, I noticed the option to make a less obvious choice for the binding fabric, which I loved!! (look back at the first photo!).

This is also the first quilt in this series where the hand quilting lines extend beyond the appliqued shapes. I kinda dig it!!