It's DONE!!!

It’s a wedding gift. The wedding was in October, but the quilter was booked up through Christmas. So we had to wait until January. Of course I was gone the whole month of January to South Africa. Anyway I no sooner got home, then I got the call the quilt was done. I spent the next several days putting the binding on and I still have to make the label.  (You can click on any photo to make them larger).

This quilt came about all because I participated in a block swap last year with about 100 others. It was called the Black – White – Bright 9 Patch Swap. Blocks were 9 ½ “ unfinished, and were comprised of a black and white print that read Black and another that read White and the center square was a tone on tone Bright, that read clear. I think I send out 30 or 35 blocks and of course got the same number back. I let it all sit and cogitate in a box for a few months and then I sliced the 9-Patches up and stitched them back together. The blocks sat for a bit again while I thought about the setting. Once the setting was on I know I wanted the quilt to be bigger, but I a- didn’t want to

make anymore of the 9-Patch blocks and b- I know I wanted some appliqué on it too. Originally I wanted a 2 color curved border… black and white of course, but my choice of fabrics was not quite right, so I didn’t like it. It would have worked if the ‘read’ white fabric didn’t have any gray in it. So I wadded the border up and set it aside for another day. I looked at how wide the borders needed to be if I wanted a queen size, and knew that much black would be too much. I knew I had a really nice

 variegated green fabric that became the vine. I didn’t have enough brights in my collection to do the flowers without too many repeats, so I asked my online friends for some scraps and did they come through! So I stitched down the vine and added the flowers and leaves; and then let it sit again.

I took it to a local Longarm Quilter –Julie Karlak of Simply Divine Quilting Co, in Bolingbrook IL. The whole quilt is stitched in black thread. The center is a simple repeat panto because you will never see the quilting, but the borders are all custom, with some fun brightly stitched bugs and flowers in a variegated thread and a custom pattern to fill.

So you ask, did the not so good border ever get used. Yep I pieced a back with all the left over bits of the blocks, sashing, posts and the border that didn’t go with the quilt.

The colors of the wedding were black and white, and I thought how often do we get to match a quilt to a wedding even before it takes place? I also wanted to make sure that it would be something the bride and groom would want. They do!

Personally I really like this quilt. It just makes me smile every time I look at it.

And there'll be More Later!

Beth