Done, at Least for Now

September 25th, 2017
 
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I had to turn in my quilt today, so all work on it has ceased, at least for now.  It’s 61 in x 61 in and I love the bold color combinations and also love the quilting.  There is one border section that actually isn’t quite finished yet, and I couldn’t begin work on it or it would really look odd.  I am hoping that I will find the time to go back in and finish what I want to do later.  Here are some closeup shots:
 
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This next photo shows where I couldn’t finish.  I want to add a single row of pearls in the tapered arc-shaped channel that abuts the blue applique shapes in that red border zone.  I estimate that the quilting, plus all the thread burying, will take at least another 20 hours of work and I just ran out of time.
 
 
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Quilting this one really drove home to me how important color is.  Having such a close view of that center section, which is a hand-dyed cotton sateen, was thrilling for all the hundreds of hours I worked on it.  I need to use my hand dyed fabrics more.
 
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I’m excited to work on some other projects for awhile!

3 Weeks…

September 13th, 2017
…since my last blog post.  It’s never my intention to go so long between posts, yet it’s happened once again.  In truth, I have hardly been sewing for the last 3 weeks but in the last week, I have been quilting daily to try and get a jump on a quilt with a deadline.  Here’s a shot of the outermost border zone (the wider dark blue section):
 
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I haven’t completed all the quilting on the “inside” parts of the quilt, but my focus is on the outermost border right now.  This is so I can get the binding on as I’m still working on other parts of the quilt.  This border design began with the ruler work framework below:
 
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It’s not so easy to see, but the framework stitched in turquoise rayon thread was done with my PTD 12 arc ruler and the smaller “melon shapes” were done with the PTD 8 arc ruler.  There is some additional ruler work using a lavender thread on the outside of the large arc border design (toward top of photo), and those were done with the PTD 12 arc ruler as well.  You can see that the featherettes filling the large “superior” zones of the design has been completed.  In this next shot, I’ve added another type of featherette design to fill the large “middle” zone.  This was stitched using an aqua Floriani polyester thread:
 
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The key to doing this kind of “fill-in” work is to go into it with the goal of filling the entire space with your featherette.  This makes you stretch or contract each individual plume so it looks like it was “born into” that space.  Next up, I stitched the same type of featherette inside the two “melon shaped zones” below.  I used the original Sulky Rayon turquoise thread for these spaces that I used for the original ruler work framework:
 
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The final move was to fill the center bottom space with another featherette design, in this case, the Aztec featherette.  I did this with a gold Floriani polyester thread:
 
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Depending on time, I may go back in with a different color thread and hyperquilt those bottom featherettes.  I only have 1 1/2 weeks until this quilt must be handed in, so whether or not I make it back into those sections in time remains to be seen!  Unfortunately, I have aspirations for additional quilting in many sections of this quilt, so it will likely boil down to which zones need it the most…