Today I finished a lap quilt that I started last weekend. I used a pattern I’d been meaning to try for some time — it reminded me a little of a Gustav Klimt painting.
I haven’t made a quilt from a pattern for ages, so this required a bit more discipline than I’m used to 😉 That said, I did adapt and modify a little… The pattern required 8 different fabrics in half-yard pieces, but I didn’t have much in half-yard lengths, so I used 16 fat quarters instead. All batiks (except the border and backing fabrics, which were cotton). I chose a blue/yellow/green theme and I’m quite pleased with how it came out.
To echo the very geometric nature of this quilt, I free motion quilted the main top with squares/rectangles in one continuous line using a pastel variegated thread in yellow, pinks, greens and blues, then did a sort of curly grass motif in the yellow border with the same thread, and a large meandering stipple in the blue border in a dark blue variegated thread.
When I finished making the blocks, I found I had two left over, so I incorporated them in the back of the quilt. I like that they add a touch of interest to what would otherwise be a pretty boring back!
Click the thumbnails below to see an image in larger size, then click again to zoom in to see the stitching etc.
This quilt is going to a friend, but I kept track of my costs and got very depressed…
Rhonda Bracey: At Random 
[…] my most recent quilt, I sort of kept track of my fabric and thread usage and time for this one and got a BIG […]
Quilt looks great Rhonda – I do love those colours too 🙂
In an email to me about this quilt, B asked:
Wow! Rhonda, I love that quilt. Love the colours, the fabrics and love the design as well. … I love how you quilted the “square stipple”. I reckon that would take lots of concentration not to curve. How far did you have to get into it, to lose the urge to curve and keep sharp corners? I like spare blocks going into the backing. Did you applique them on or break up the backing and piece it in?
My response to B:
I got the pattern from http://www.fourpawsquilting.com/pages/patterns.html (pattern is ‘Surround’) when I bought the Line Tamer ruler (which works well, BTW… not that I used it on that quilt — WAY too many little lines and turns for me to have the patience to use a ruler! 😉 )
Actually, it didn’t take a lot of concentration not to curve, though the lines are a bit wonky in places — and that’s a ‘design feature’ 😉 I rarely crossed a square/rectangle where I didn’t intend to do so — in other words, I rarely backed myself into a corner I couldn’t get out of. I started near the middle, come out to an edge, then back towards the middle, back out etc. etc. until the whole quilt was done. The thread only broke once, which was great! (Superior Rainbows Trilobal Polyester)
As far as the back is concerned, I didn’t have a wide backing fabric, just some normal yardage (It was a Jinny Beyer fabric in that lovely green). Having the two extra blocks meant I could make a join in the backing and it not be noticeable. I used the full width of fabric for one piece of the backing. The second piece ended up being quite a bit wider than the remaining quilt, so I cut an 8″ strip from it, and then cross-cut that into three, and into which I inserted the extra blocks. Then I joined the new 8″ strip back to the second piece and the first piece – and voila! An interesting back detail.
Because I had smallish pieces left over from the top (e.g. 6.5″ x WOF), I decided to use them to make the binding as it’s unlikely that I’ll get around to using those pieces for anything for ages and they were just going to clutter up my scraps boxes!