Community Quilt 177

4 01 2015

This was a BIG quilt, and my first done using Karlee Porter‘s graffiti quilting method. It’s a quilt for a West Coast Eagles fan (one of the two Australian Rules Football teams based in Western Australia).

I stitched in the ditch around the centre strip of rail fence blocks, then echo quilted an inch out from these blocks, using a navy thread on the dark blue fabric and a yellow thread on the yellow fabric. I thought about quilting the yellow side in contrasting navy thread and the blue side in yellow thread, but decided against it, instead quilting each side in a matching thread for the fabric.

In each large blue and yellow sector, I quilted several instances of ‘eagles’ in cursive script, echo quilting around each one. But most of the quilting is free-form graffiti quilting, with me deciding at the last moment what motif to stitch next. I used McTavishing in the white centre, though it’s hard to see in the pictures below. I also thought about using a contrasting thread to emphasise the word ‘eagles’ on each side, but decided against that too as I thought it would spoil the effect.

This quilt took about 10 hours to quilt.

(I used to be a member of the Fremantle Dockers, the other Western Australia AFL team, so I’ve quilted about 10 small Dockers anchor symbols  in this quilt as well 😉 They are so well disguised I couldn’t find any of them the next day!!)

(Click on a photo to view it larger)

quilt177_01

quilt177_02

quilt177_06

quilt177_04

quilt177_03

When on the machine:

quilt177_08

quilt177_07

Back of the yellow section:
 quilt177_05

Update May 2015: This quilt was featured in the Community Quilts display at QuiltWest 2015, and I believe it attracted a lot of attention 😉 The Community Quilts organisers used it as a talking point for the Community Quilts program  and mentioned that I’d had the last laugh by stitching some Freo anchors into the design. They pointed out one anchor and challenged people to find more! It seems the men, in particular, were very interested. And everyone thought I had a good sense of humour as well as good quilting skills 😉 The quilt will go to the Wirrapunda Foundation as a raffle quilt later in the year at their 10th anniversary dinner.

Quilt177_QuiltWest02

Freo Dockers supporter looking for anchors! (note the anchor on the back of his Fremantle Dockers branded sweater)

quilt177_QuiltWest01

Hunting anchors

Quilt177_QuiltWest03

Found one!

Threads used:

  • Top: Fil-Tec Glide in yellow, navy, and white (‘Mango’ colour 80116, ‘Navy’ colour 32965, ‘White’ colour 10000) (40 wt trilobal polyester)
  • Bottom: Fil-Tec Magna Glide Classic pre-wound bobbins in Light Tan, Black, and White

 


Comments : 4 Comments »
Tags:
Categories : Quilts and fabric stuff

Gwen’s quilt #3

1 01 2015

Gwen asked me to quilt another quilt for her for someone’s birthday. It was a modern version of a double wedding ring quilt (73 x 73 inches), and Gwen asked me to do something rounded to emphasise the double wedding rings.

My first step was to stitch in the ditch around all the white centre blocks and the border to stabilise the quilt. Next, I had to decide how to approach the blocks and emulate wedding rings. Circles were the obvious solution, but how big? should they be formal (with rulers and/or markings) or informal (free motion)? spirals or closed circles? how many? where to put them? should they overlap? what thread(s) to use? how to deal with the white centre squares?

I decided to use a variegated blue thread for the large circles and decided to use rulers (Handi Quilter’s half circle rulers) to stitch the circles. Each large circle almost hit the centre joins of the block. I then stitched another echoing circle about 1 inch inside the large circle. Then I stitched more in the offset blocks overlapping the first ones, and did some small ones in the centres where the blue blocks intersected.

For the white squares, I did more double circles (using rulers), this time free motion stitching rounded circles within the boundaries of the circles.

Last was the border. Again, I used rulers (Handi Quilter’s clam shell ruler) and stitched large clam shells from the corners to the centre, filling the centre point and the corners with a little three plumed feather.

This quilt took MUCH longer to quilt than normal — I estimate it took about 12 hours to quilt. Why? Well, rulers is one — you have to go slower and be more careful about hand placement, quilt movement, ruler placement etc. And then there are the stops and starts, which you don’t have when you do a continuous line all-over motif. Also, ruler work takes it out of your shoulders, neck and back, so I only did a maximum of four hours each day to get this one finished.

(Click on a photo to view it larger)

quilt_gwen_01

quilt_gwen_03

quilt_gwen_02

quilt_gwen_04
quilt_gwen_07

Back:

quilt_gwen_06

quilt_gwen_05

Threads used:

  • Top: Wonderfil Silco (40 wt, colour SCM 18); Fil-Tec Glide ‘White’ (40 wt, trilobal polyester, colour 10000)
  • Bobbin: Fil-Tec Magna Glide Classic pre-wound bobbin (white)

Comments : 6 Comments »

Categories : Quilts and fabric stuff

Next Entries »