It’s a late wedding present for my cousin and her new hubby who happen to live by the beach, so hopefully she and her hubby love it!

The post wash measurement is 56 1/2 x 65 1/2.

Back

I heart a striped binding!

The post wash measurement is 56 x 66.

And this yumminess is all for me!

When I washed the Black, White, and Red All Over quilt, a bit of the red bled onto the white.  I was able to get most of the bleed out with stain stick and multiple washes, but ever since that experience I’ve used 2 or 3 Shout Color Catcher each time I was a quilt (especially quilts that have red and white).  Boy am I glad I did this time.  The backing for Giddy is red with pink dots and the front has lots of white.  I’m certain had I not included the 3 color catchers, some of the white would’ve turned pink or red.

2 color catchers from the wash load sandwiched between a fresh out of the box sheet.  They definitely caught lots of color!

Post wash measurement is 54 x 70.

The bride and I are childhood friends, and we were also roommates in college.  She always loved everything from France.  Anytime I see anything that reminds me of Provence I think of her, so I chose the Breath of Avignon line for this quilt because it completely reminds me of her…just so fitting.

I used Carolina Patchwork’s Sweet Garden pattern.  The pattern uses 1 layer cake plus some yardage, and I love how the pattern shows off the beauty of the entire line without feeling like it’s busy.  That’s my biggest issue with many layer cake patterns…they feel busy to me, but in this pattern, the addition of the solid sashing is very pleasing and calming, and yet it allows the fabric line to stand out.

The backing and binding fabric  is not from the Breath of Avignon line, but it looks like it fits perfectly!

I do love how it turned it!

Post wash measurement approximately: 60.5″ x 61″

My quilting and sewing has been slow going this summer.  I was hoping that once the kiddos were back in school I’d have so much more free time to sew, but that just isn’t the case.  I’ve been working a lot more, and sadly there’s been little sewing going on.  One of these days I’ll get back to it…hopefully very soon.

The post wash measurement is 52 x 63.

For the label I incorporated it into the backing design.  I used a Sharpie and wrote on the white fabric.

I don’t often get pictures of my finished quilts with their recipients, but I am hand delivering this quilt to the recipients tomorrow, so hopefully when I get back from vacation I’ll post some pictures of the hopefully delighted recipients with their quilt.

I love the colors, and I really liked how it turned out.

I marked this quilt for straight line quilting, and I have to honestly say that I’m not sold on marking my quilts prior to quilting.  I also used flannel for the backing, and while it is soft and cozy I’m not sold on it either.  If you use flannel, PREWASH it!!!  Even if you don’t prewash your fabrics, ALWAYS prewash your flannel.  Flannel shrinks so much more than regular quilting fabric, and the weave is bigger.  Once you wash it and it shrinks, it shrinks the weave, which makes the quilting stitches much more secure.

Does anyone get nervous when they put the quilt in washer for the first time?  I always hold my breath when I open the washer and hope and pray that when I open the lid the quilt is still in one piece.  Never before had I hoped and prayed as hard as I did when I washed this quilt, because it was such a labor of love, and from start to finish took well over 40 hours to complete.  It was such a relief when everything was intact!

The prewash measurements were 95 x 95.  The post wash measurement is 88.5 x 88.5.

Here it is in all its glory (it’s a queen size quilt shown on a king size bed).

In this center vertical row there are 3 blocks where I decided not to quilt over the painted flower, because I didn’t want the quilting to take away from the flower.  I thought that darker fabrics with the darker painted flowers needed to stand out and I thought the quilting would obviously compete with the flowers.  So the brown painted flower on brown fabric framed with cream, as well 2 and 3 blocks above this block are the ones I left the flowers unquilted.

I arranged the blocks so that on the diagonal starting from the top left all of the blocks are the same color…can you see that?  It might be more visible in the second picture.

]]> http://southernquilter.com/2010/03/urban-nature-quilt-and-pillows/feed/ 4 http://southernquilter.com/2010/02/spring-flowers-recap/ http://southernquilter.com/2010/02/spring-flowers-recap/#comments Thu, 25 Feb 2010 03:10:59 +0000 Rachel http://southernquilter.com/?p=485 Spring Flowers is done!   And I LOVE it!!!!!!  For starters I used Camille’s Baby Mine pattern.  The pattern is a great deal because you get 2 patterns for the price of 1–a girl quilt and a boy quilt.  I wasn’t 100% sold on the flower applique pieces that go with the girl quilt.  So I hunted through my library of patterns and found one that I love…it’s called French Roses by Heather French.  Some day I’m going to make an entire quilt of French Roses (I even have the fabric for it), but since that’s down the road I figured I give the French Roses a whirl by substituting these flowers for the ones that came with the Baby Mine pattern.

The French Roses pattern  uses the soft edge applique technique, which I thought is perfect for a baby girl’s quilt.  I’m certainly in love with soft edge applique!

I’m so glad I made this modification.  I think the French Roses flowers are softer, more feminine, and just downright adorable.

The quilt measured 40 x 50 prior to washing and measures 37 1/2 x 47 1/2 after washing…perfect size for a baby.

Front

Back

Polka dot binding matches the inner border

Label: I used a piece of muslin, cut the edges with pinking shears, wrote on it, then soft edge appliqued it to the quilt

Fabric: Butterfly Fling by Me & My Sisters Design for Moda, the white is a white on white design with butterflies, the polka dots and some of the fabrics in the flowers are from my stash.

Side note: I started working on an improv project tonight.  I got everything out and set up (machine, ironing board, started cutting fabric etc.), then went to sew, and my sewing machine won’t sew! Grrrrrrr!  So I’m bringing it in tomorrow to get serviced, because one can’t have a non working sewing machine when one NEEDS to sew!

See the cherries

Instead of using a separate label, I decided to simply write on the back of the quilt.  I’m really liking this idea….it’s simple, it’s easy, and it’s permanent.