A finished quilt for ME!

I haven't finished a quilt that I intended to keep since.... 1997?   That was long, long before I found modern fabrics, flickr inspiration and my own design sense. 

I bought all of this Anna Maria Horner Little Folks voile a few years ago, but I didn't have the confidence yet to sew with voile.

I have never done hand stitching with perle cotton before and never used more than one color stitching in a quilt before.

I've never made anything so silky soft that I absolutely had to use it for naps and sleeping as soon as it was thread basted.  I really would leave the perle cotton thread in place, remove the needle, remove the Q snap frame and then go to sleep with it.  I would mentally carve out time in my day to take a nap with it.  

I've only splurged for bamboo batting for baby quilts...until now. 

The binding fabric is a denser weave quilter's cotton with a smoother but slightly heavier hand than Kona cotton.  I tried hand stitching the binding in back with invisible stitches and the voile just puckered like crazy.  So, I machine stitched it down and then added some accent hand stitching around the entire perimeter.

The backing is very tame compared to the front but all of the stitches show up nicely.  I really thought I'd be relieved to be done with all of the hand quilting.  Instead, I keep scanning the quilt with my eyes to make sure there isn't an excuse to haul out the perle cottons again. 

I had originally told Ben that this was my summer quilt and *only* mine.  He has since started a campaign of puppy dog eyes and not-so-subtle requests to share it "once in awhile."

(He has also dubbed the photo above as his "Hey Girl" picture.  As in, "Hey Girl, I'll hold your quilt up for pictures until my arms want to fall off and then I'll hug it close to me because it smells like you.  --R.G.")

(For size reference: my husband is standing on a chair in the backyard with his arms spread as wide and as high as he can manage without his noggin showing behind the quilt.  That's my lazy way of measuring a finished quilt.)

I really couldn't be happier with my summer quilt.  It is so dreamy that I am already considering another summer nap this afternoon.

Distracted

Oh, hi!

I'm still here. 

I'm in the middle of one of the coolest paper piecing block designs, but I'm stalling on the embroidery needed.  So, I decided to cut up an entirely new stack of fabric and start a full quilt top.  Then I was rearranging the furniture in my house and somehow started stripping and sanding some old furniture.  Oh, and I'm starting a new quilt for the quilting retreat this weekend.  Distracted, much?

Well, I'm finally posting some pictures of that new quilt top.




Pictures don't do this justice though.  Have you ever felt how light, soft and silky Anna Maria Horner's voile fabric is?  This is all from her Little Folks line.  I wish you could all reach through the monitor and feel this quilt top.

 


Kelly over at kelbysews started the My Precious QAL (quilt along).  The purpose is to finally gather the courage to cut into fabric that you've been hoarding in a pile and gazing at and petting, but never sewing with.




I meant to make a summer quilt out of this fabric last year.  Thank goodness Kelly knows what is good for me. 




I still have to choose the backing and quilting pattern, but I did make this in three days.  I love it when other quilters push me to go the extra step.