textile dreams – fibery wake up

This is what I gave my mom for her 65th birthday. The image is taken from an Art Noveau window I have from a calendar. I attached the “glass” pieces to a foundation using Vliesofix, then ironed on the black bias strips and appliqued them by machine. The finished piece is mounted on a wooden frame, which was actually quite easy to do. And I didn’t have to quilt the whole thing – so it’s much faster too than doing the batting, backing, quilting, binding… thing.

I really like how the colours of this piece came out. I already had a lot of fabric that lends itself easily to glass imitation and bought some more for this project. The effect is better than I expected.

Ok, I actually managed to insert a picture into this blog. What you see, is my first (and only) bed-sized quilt to date. It’s a distorted log cabin pattern, the instructions came from Patchwork- und Quiltjournal Nummer 65, November/Dezember 2002. The fabric was the cheapest all cotton fabric I could find at the time, it’s “Ditte” from IKEA, and they still sell that stuff, although in completely different colorways. I really like the effect the colours have, and the quilt lies on my bed every day. I really enjoy looking at it, although it’s been lying there since 2003.

Lessons learned from this project?

• The most difficult job was machine-quilting the whole thing. I finally managed, but not without a fight. This is the fact that stops me from making big quilts, since I like to be able to handle the whole thing under the sewing machine.
• This project was made from 120 blocks, and they definitely were not the same size. To make it possible to join the blocks correctly I had to trim them, and although inside the block not all of them are the same, this gives a very good effect in the finished quilt.

That’s all for the moment, I just read in my notes that it actually took me only 5 months to finish the whole project. I wouldn’t have thought that!