Now if you've followed my blog you know that I traversed a range of emotions with this quilt. First I was red hot for the plan of this modern quilt (so not my regular style) done it batiks (so not my regular choice of fabrics). After a few blocks I was trending towards "ummm... not so sure about this"...followed by "oh my goodness this is bad." Now I persevered and assembled all the blocks and got the border on it. About this time I was warming back up to the look of this quilt, but then I needed to quilt it. I'm not sure why I decided I needed to quilt it as I routinely send my tops out to be quilted, but I pin basted this one and off I went. Within the first 20 minutes I remembered why I prefer piecing to machine quilting, but I soldiered on. It ended up taking a lot longer to quilt than I first thought as the more lines of quilting I put in it, the more lines it needed. I almost broke my arm patting myself on the back for finishing this one and hung it in my living room. I was still on the fence whether I liked it or not but the longer it hung there the more it grew on me and now I do LOVE it.
It stretched me to work in this earthy batik palette versus the brights I normally select. I did enjoy doing the improv piecing. The idea for this quilt came from the book Stack, Shuffle and Slide by Karla Alexander - you can see it here.
This is the second top like this that I made from this pattern. The first one was in crayon brights - you can see it here - but I haven't gotten around to quilting it. I do think that this excursion into another style of quilting was good for this old dog and I did learn a new trick or two.
Here are some close-ups of the blocks - I do wish I captured the color better in these first shots.
This one is the best picture with the truest colors.
I hope you enjoyed this quilt and I know you will have a ton of fun seeing all the other entries!
happy stitching-
carol fun
Batik is worthy of close examination Carol. Yumm!
ReplyDeletelooks wonderful and good for you for stretching your work
ReplyDeleteI love this! Such delicious colors.
ReplyDeleteohhhh love the colors and improve blocks.... Beautiful!
ReplyDeleteYes!! I very much like this quilt, and well done on quilting it yourself! You can pat yourself on the back!! ha!! :)
ReplyDeleteWhat a wonderful quilt!
ReplyDeleteSo glad you came around to loving this quilt. I think it is wonderful...batiks have something to do with that I am sure!
ReplyDeleteSometimes it's hard to move outside your.comfort zone but most often it's luckily worth it :)
ReplyDeleteGreat Quilt and I really like your bright version also. :) Worth all the work!!
ReplyDeleteI love how the glow of the batiks make it seem like the blocks are almost jumping off the background! Your improv is beautiful, and so is your personal quilting, I'm glad you've fallen in love with it :)
ReplyDeleteYour Quilt is Amazing Carol! I love it. It's been awhile cince I visited and realize I have tagged that same pattern in Karla's book. Love all those extra bits you added, really makes this quilt sing.
ReplyDeleteJane