Thursday, May 15, 2014

Blogger's Quilt Festival - Large Quilt



AmysCreativeSide.com

Today begins the Blogger's Quilt Festival hosted by Amy's CreativeSide.  Please take plenty of time to view entries, take notes and jot down favs each day - it will help when it comes time to vote.  This is our way of enjoying Quilt Market - for those of us who can't go to the real thing. 



This quilt was actually almost never finished.  It was started way back in 2009 when I first started quilting.  My first QAL online - unfortunately I do not remember the name of site and its now a disfunct AOL site so the pattern is not available any more.  It is the first quilt I bought specific fabric for.  Back at that time I was only just educating myself on fabrics and designers - I like to give credit.  I think most of these were blenders by Blank Fabrics. Another thing I learned in the making of this quilt - I don't like to make large quilts.  And I have found my niche as a scrap quilter and prefer to play with mini's - so the fabrics in this just didn't please me or the size, so off into a hidey-hole she went.  


I 'unearthed' this quilt at the time I started admiring a new long armer.  I just knew this was the person I wanted to frost this quilt to make it come alive.


Valerie @ Pumpkin Patch Quilter  was gracious in accepting this Plain Jane and turning her into a beauty. She worked her magic on those bare blenders - they just sing. 


But before sending her off, I had to completely remove the center.  Applique is still not my forte', but this was too horrible to send as is. I completely removed the center from the quilt; I replaced the applique sunflowers with pieced and totally redid the stems and leaves.  I had this hideous large Yo-Yo in the center (why) and replaced it with the circle.  Thankfully, being a scrap quilter - I had saved every bit of left over of this quilt and had just enough for the fixes.  Then the center had to be stitched back in place.  A few boo-boos were fixed and then she was on her way.


You could just flip this quilt and call it a whole cloth - just love it.  But she waited almost 2 months after coming home from being frosted.  Why we should never let a project sit for so long - it took some time to find the right material to work as a binding.


Finished size: 66" x 84"
Large Quilt Entry

Sewingly Yours,
Sharon

10 comments:

Cille said...

Lovely quilt and great quilting. I think it funny how we in the middle of a creative process sometimes can fall out of love with the project... Only to pick up much later and realise it was a hidden treasure :)

Deb @ Frugal Little Bungalow said...

A lovely quilt with a great story to go along with it! :) I am enjoying the festival this morning :)

Pattilou said...

I was immediately drawn to this quilt! It is so lovely. (I'm glad I didn't enter my quilt in this category!) Good luck! So far there are some wonderful quilts!

tirane93 said...

i love your filigree work in the blocks. very nice quilt!

Calicojoan said...

A finished UFO and a remake of the center too! :-) Wow, the quilting is just gorgeous! I know your one happy camper with this beauty! Don't you love checking off the old stuff, so you can go onto the new!
:-)

sonia said...

Love the story of this quilt, the rejected one ;) I look back at my first quilts and I think how much I've learned and how I have defined my taste for fabrics and colours. So brave of you to unearth it and give it a new life, I'm sure it will be loved and cherished. It's beautiful!

Mary said...

I love that your call the quilting- "frosting". Nice to get this UFO out of hiding so you could fall in love with it after all the re-work.

CitricSugar said...

The workmanship on this one is amazing!

Judy@Quilt Paradigm said...

Not a plain Jane at all! Beautifully done! Love the term 'frosted' - that is exactly what quilting does!!

Kate said...

Congrats on finishing up your not so plain Jane! It's a lovely quilt and the quilting is spectacular.