New Experimental Quilt Finished

August 1st, 2007

I finished my 3rd experimental quilt…these are traditional style quilts made from blocks I bought on ebay. I am doing this series of exercises because it’s teaching me a lot about different types of quilting designs on traditional quilts and also about thread choices. Here’s a pic of the most recent one:

blue-wreathes-heart-inlinin.jpg

You probably recognize the pattern on the top since I’ve used it before on my first experimental quilt. (What can I say-I got a really great deal on the blocks!) Anyway, the pattern is the innie and outie curvaceous heart pattern, which is a modern day pattern because I made it up myself. You can see the quilting design more clearly in this close up picture:

blue-wreathes-heart-inlined.jpg

I think this modern quilting pattern works well as a background fill design on this traditional quilt and I learned some good things in the process of stitching it. The camera doesn’t really pick it up well, but I used a subtley variegated thread made up of white, off white, and brown. I chose this thread because this quilting design is one of those types of designs that simply looks more interesting if stitched in a subtley variegated thread instead of a solid color; it lends a subtle sense of movement and depth to the quilting. Let me show you a picture of this pattern in a solid color and then a variegated color and it will seem more obvious:

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img_0134-rs.jpg

Now can you see what I mean? Sometimes you just NEED a variegated thread!

What is weird is that the whole time I was quilting this, I was telling myself what a horrible thread choice I had made because the variegation seemed so loud and so drastic that it seemed distracting to me. Once it was done, I really liked it! That close up picture is taken less than 1 foot from the quilt and I can’t even tell the thread is variegated; I can only see more depth and texture, so I’m not sure why I thought it was overwhelming when I was working on it! For comparison, here’s a close-up of another experimental quilt stitched in the irregular swirl pattern with a solid thread. I like the design, but it doesn’t have nearly the depth and texture…

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