Because I’ve been busy making a quilt for my bed! This is by far the largest quilt I’ve ever made, the first time I’ve pieced diamonds, and the first time I’ve done set-in seams.
Some background information – I decided around the time of the Wisconsin Quilt Expo that I wanted to finally make a quilt for my bed. I used the quilt show for some research and determined that I wanted a modern medallion-style quilt with a white background and bright colors. I looked through a stack of quilt pattern books at least a foot thick, and when I saw this pattern I immediately knew it was the one. Fabric purchasing and piecing started in October. I’m hoping to finish while it’s still bed quilt season here. I’m currently working on machine-quilting, but may need to put that on hold to work on some time-sensitive projects.
Some details:
Pattern: Over the Border by Kathy Doughty from Material Obsession 2. Here’s the quilt from the book. Note to anybody making this quilt: the materials list in the pattern doesn’t include the outer border fabric.
Fabric: Various prints from my LQS, stash, and an online store. Backing is an Amy Butler print from another LQS. Pet peeve: the horizontal pattern repeat on that backing fabric is such that it’s not possible to match the pattern across widths without wasting a ton of fabric, so I had to accept that it’ll just look like there’s about 1/2″ of pattern missing at each seam along the backing. So close to being able to align, and just not there.
Batting: Quilter’s Dream Wool Batting, bought online from a quilt store in Iowa. If any Crackpots want to try this out, I’ve got some 2-foot-wide pieces that I can send you – the queen sized batting was a few inches too narrow, so I bought the king sized batting and cut 2 feet off each dimension. I really like this batting – it’s wool, machine washable, isn’t supposed to shrink, and even though it’s somewhat lofty it machine-quilts well even on my machine with a fairly small space to the right of the needle. It has a maximum quilting distance of 8 inches, the largest I’ve seen for a wool batting. Always a plus for those of us who don’t have ideal sewing machines (or skills!) for machine-quilting of large objects.
You’ll note by comparing my quilt with the original that I rejiggered the colors (which I’m sure surprises nobody), and my outer border is striped (with bonus mitered corners!) instead of the inner border, but that’s because the fabric I loved for the inner border happened not to be stripey rather than any real design decision.
And, at Nancy’s request, a not-so-great picture of a mitered corner. Wavy stripes mean making them match exactly at the corner is impossible, but I think I did pretty well, and it only took a little futzing to make the 4th corner match.
It looks great! I am so impressed by the diamonds and the fabrics! I also like your choice of a white background much better than the one shown in the book. I’ve never used wool batting and would be curious to check out one of your scraps (no hurry – All-Together Week is fine!). Since it’s January and I am always colder than anyone else in my house, I’m becoming a big fan of All Things Wool.
It really does look great! I’m amazed that you were able to put it together so quickly. I’d like to see what the wool batting is like, too.
Do you have a close-up picture of the mitered corners?
Wow! That’s a fast response. They look really good – I was wondering how the mitering would go with the wavy stripes.