Client Quilt: Angels

September 2010

A dear friend of mine, Judy, had made a throw for a special friend of hers. Judy asked if I would quilt it for her and I was delighted to. Judy wanted the quilting to be light and airy ... just the sort of thing that I am comfortable with doing at this time! :-)

This is the angel print block. Yep, there is a leafy meander in there but you just can't see it due to the print. Personally, in many cases, I think it's a good choice not to do anything fancy when you just can't see the quilting!

Here's a close-up and a hand tracing of the leafy meander done on the angel print.

Here's a close-up of the flower quilting in the strip set block. This looks complicated, doesn't it? Ho ho! Fooled you good! It's actually VERY EASY!

I had bought a set of free motion quilting books, "Pocket Guide to Freehanding" by Darlene Epp. They are worth their weight in gold .. they are just that good. She presents quilting designs that progress from the very simple, building on what you've just done, to designs that look so doggone intricate that you'd swear that you would NEVER, EVER be able to do it ... and yet, voila .. there ... you just have. These books are awesome.

Here's a close-up and hand-tracing of the flower quilting design in the strip set block.

The quilting in the center section of the quilt alternated between the leafy meander in the angel print blocks and the flower meander in the strip set blocks.

Here's a look from the back where you can see a close-up view of the meander on the center of the quilt. You can see how the flowers in the print block and the leafy meander in the strip set block alternate.

This is an over-all view of the back. I think there's a nice distribution of quilting and texture, which is what I strive for. Sometimes it's easier to do than others.

For this quilt, getting an even distribution was easier because I was able to work in block-sized units. Having a smaller, defined area to work in can help you figure out where you want your stitching to go. These blocks were a great aid in allowing me determine how much quilting was to be done in each area.

The hardest thing for me, at this point? Over-all, edge-to-edge meander. I can gauge the density of one swath across Lizzie, but once that area is rolled onto the take-up roller, I no longer have it as a guide for the next are to be quilted! If I take a break from quilting and come back at a later time, it's doubly difficult to remember just exactly how closely or how far apart those meanders were! Thankfully, this was NOT the case on this quilt!

But what was done on the borders? Judy & I played around with a couple of different ideas: feathers resembling angel wings, a wavy feather ... but in the end, she decided that since her friend was a gardener, a leafy column design was very appropriate.

From long ago, I had a stencil in a leafy column. Once you get in the groove of this design, it's very easy to do. However, since it is a fixed size stencil, it didn't always nicely fit the length of border, so the corners were kinda/sorta fudged/finessed into submission. :-)

This is what the front of the borders look like. You can also see there is a narrow green inner border. On small borders such as the green one, I have a favorite swirly-curly design that I got from Carla Barrett's blog, "Feathered Fibers". I LOVE this design. I use it all the time. So much, in fact, that I quite forget that Carla has some really neat variations of it that I really should try to use. Maybe next time. :-)
Here's a view from the back; a close-up of the continuous leaf quilting in the outer corner and you can more clearly see the swirly-curly design that is in the green narrow border.

Oh dear. As I hung the quilt up to take the pictures, I was looking over the whole thing, basking in the after glow of a job well done. I discovered that in one of the strip set blocks, I had *missed* quilting in the green strip!

Obviously, I had myopic vision and was thinking that the block was only the peach & yellow strips. Sometimes it's very easy to get so focused on what you are doing in a small area, that you lose track of the larger picture.

Not to worry, I filled in the missing quilting. I don't think you'll be able to find it. (I put the yellow flower head pin in the block so I could find it later to do the quilting. I took the pin out when I finished. :-) )

Judy was very pleased with the effect of the quilting and therefore *I* was pleased with the job. It's always a source of angst (at least to me) when the client sees the finished quilt ... will she like it? Eventhough suggestions and designs are talked about prior to quilting being started, there is always the possibility of the finished quilt not being what the client had in her mind. Fortunately, Judy is a lovely client to have .. she likes my work! :-) (come back again, Judy ... Lizzie is waiting for you! [grin])

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