Pinwheel Pillow #4

The quilt, backing, and batting are all loaded on the frame, waiting for the thread to arrive.  While it waits, I am making more pillows.

Embroidered lazy daisy with glass bead

Flanges around each small block

Pillow back

Pinwheel pillow back

Backing for Graceful Garden Quilt

The backing is now sewn together -- three 120" lengths of 44"-wide fabric.

So the back measures 120" long by 132" wide.  That's exactly 10 yards of fabric.

It's not especially Jacobean, but then neither are the colors I chose for this quilt.

I like it better than true Jacobean, to tell the truth.

Next on the agenda is to put pockets into the leaders on my quilt frame so that

I can slip the Red Snapper dowels into them, and then fasten quilt to leader with

the Red Snapper clamps.  I haven't even pulled the Red Snappers from

the package yet!

I just purchased one more thing that should make the quilting of this big quilt

easier:  Microhandles!  A lady was selling them for $200 -- they regularly

sell for $300 -- and they're still brand new; she hadn't used them.  These will

help me with the echo quilting around the appliqués, and all sorts of other

intricate work.

Earlier today, I received a post saying that my quilting thread -- King Tut, in a

variegated color called Sands of Time -- has been shipped.  The Bottom Line

thread for the bobbin is in Cream.

And -- a friend from an online quilting group is sending me Tuscany wool batting

-- an exceptional quality of batting -- in exchange for custom quilting

on a quilt she made.  I'm anxious to begin!

Graceful Garden Quilt Top is DONE!

The last three borders have been put on the quilt!

There was a moment of great dismay last week when I looked up the rules for the quilting show I hope to enter and discovered that the width limit is 110".  I thought I had already passed that -- or at least would pass it when I applied the borders.  I was relieved to realize that it was the length that was 109.5"; the width, without the last three borders, was at 101.5".

I trimmed the two inside borders a bit, sewed them all on -- and the quilt now measures exactly 110" in width.  Whew.  The quilting will doubtless shrink it just a tad; then I won't have to worry about it coming in at slightly more than the limit will allow when I put on the binding.

As mentioned previously, this is a queen-sized quilt on a king-sized bed, so that inner border lands 16" inside the mattress edge.  Someday when the weather is nice, I will take a photo of it outside on the deck.  And I will take a picture of it on a queen-sized bed, too.  Meanwhile, this is the best I can do.

It has taken 711 ½ hours to get to this point.

Graceful Garden Side Hangs

Both of the side hangs, or 'drop', are together and attached.  Here it is on my king-sized bed, which doesn't look quite right, since a king is 16" wider than a queen.  I will sew the hang for the foot tomorrow, and then there will only be two or three borders to attach, and it will be done.

I've laid it on the bed so that the right hang is properly positioned.  That put the left hang right atop the mattress.

Blocks and Three-Strip Border

The quilt is now big enough to cover the top of a queen-sized mattress, with the three-strip border starting the hang at the sides and the foot.  It's on a king-sized bed in these photos.

Kaleidoscopes

The 'bucket skill' of the month on the online Cyber Quilters groups is kaleidoscopes or 'stack 'n' whack'.  I decided to join in, and make a block or two to for another pillow to coordinate with The Graceful Garden quilt.

The 'spinning blades' are cut; and now I will cut the background.  Which way do you like it best – against a dark background (yes, I will 'kaleidoscope' it -- right now, the blades are just lying

on the uncut black/gold fabric), or with the lighter color?

Those blades were cut from the same part of the printed design of the fabric.  I cut 8 squares, then cut the squares in half diagonally and used one side for one kaleidoscope, and the other side for the other kaleidoscope.  Funny, how different they look!

Okay, the jury is in -- but this is not a democracy, and I may or may not have gone with the popular vote.  ;-)  (It was close... very close.)  Here are the blocks, ready to be put on pillows.

Border for Quilt Center

I laid out enough quilt blocks to add to the center of the quilt to make it the right size for a queen-sized mattress, and it looked like a muddle to me.  It needed an interior border that was dark enough to separate center from outer blocks -- but I was nearly out of dark brown.  I decided to make the border of the mottled dark brown and the printed dark brown in one-inch squares, as the vertical sashing at the top is made.  So the border is made of nearly 400 one-inch squares.

Looks better now.  I'm ready to start joining together the loose blocks around the center, using a variety of sashing.  There will be another border before the blocks for the hang are added.  The hang needs to be fairly wide, as the bed is tall.