Author's Note: This page is
under construction. I have added some close-up pictures of the quilting,
but the picture quality isn't as good as I would like. I'll replace
them with some better pictures once I get the quilt back from the Colorado
State Fair in early September.
| The working title for this quilt was "Diana's horse quilt" because the colors were inspired by an awesome Timeless Treasures print of gray, black, white and brown horses running through a blue mist. I bought a couple of yards of this fabric because my daughter Diana loves horses, but I didn't end up using it in the border of the quilt as I had planned, because it was just too busy for the effect that I wanted. I did use it for part of the backing though. |
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I started this quilt in March of 2000.
I loved the colors of the horse fabric and thought I'd try Carol
Doak's "Easy Stash Quilts" technique of selecting many coordinating
fabrics from my stash for the quilt. (Of course, that didn't stop
me from buying more fabric to use in it!)
EQ4 design, March 2000 |
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I designed the quilt using EQ4. The center
of the quilt is made of alternating Arkansas Snowflake and 54-40 or Fight
blocks (I did modify the blocks a bit). I wanted a gradation of value
and intensity as the eye works out from the center of the quilt.
This effect was lost somewhat when I tried the horse fabric as the inner
border, so decided to use the light fabric instead.
Trying out the horse border |
Diana with the quilt after I had decided on the light border fabric |
Because I had so many fabrics for this quilt,
it took longer than normal to cut out the pieces. The piecing was
done entirely on my 1936 Singer Featherweight. I did most of the
piecing and had sewed some of the rows together during March and April,
and then worked on some other things in May and June, and then came back
to this quilt at the beginning of July when I decided that this would be
the quilt I would try and get done in time for the 2000 Colorado State
Fair judging, which was in mid-August.
| By mid July I had finished the piecing and started the quilting. First I quilted a line down the center of each series of stepping stone blocks. I then quilted a curved line from corner to corner of the stepping stone blocks. I wanted to emphasize the "curve" effect in the quilt along the edges of the large blue and black stars, so I quilted in the ditch along the points of each star and then curved over to the bottom of the next point on the star. I stippled outside of the stars between this quilting and the curved lines connecting the corners of the stepping stones. | Click to expand:
Quilting around stepping stones |
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Quilting in and around diamonds |
At this point I didn't have a clue how I was
going to quilt the inside (brown and gray) stars or the borders.
A quilt store in my area was offering a class on designing feathered quilting
designs by Sue Nickels, and I got the last slot in the class. This
was a wonderful class; the next day I had adapted one of Sue's designs
for the inner stars and had drafted the feathered design for the light
border.
I outlined the inner stars in much the same manner as I had done the outer stars, and then placed my feathered quilting design in the middle of each star. I stippled around the outside of this design and also stippled the larger areas inside the motif, in order to set the feathers off. |
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Inner border quilting |
After quilting the feather design in the light border, I stippled heavily around it (and pulled an all-nighter at my local quilt group's retreat in the process). If I had known prior to sandwiching this quilt that I was going to do this quilting design on it, I probably would have experimented with Hari Walner's machine trapunto technique. Oh well, maybe on the next quilt! | Click
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Quilting in corner of inner border |
| Originally I had planned to quilt simple diagonal lines in the outer border. However, it was clear that I would need to do something much more dense to keep the quilting in the border in proper proportion to the rest of the quilting on the piece. And, after all the curvy quilting I had done, straight lines would not add to the quilt at all. So, I adapted another of Sue's feather designs; this one still achieved the diagonal effect but was much more appropriate. I designed the motifs in the corners and the ones in the center of each side of the dark border. Once the feather designs were quilted in this border, I went back and stippled in the spaces between them. (I had to pull another all-nighter for this, as it was one day before the deadline for delivering the quilt for judging in the state fair!) | Click
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Quilting in outer border |
The quilting on this quilt is done in various colors of Sulky metallic threads (peacock blue, copper, silver, and a variegated thread that has all three colors in it). The stippling in the borders was done with Sulky rayon thread (pale blue for the inner border, and a medium royal blue for the outer border). The bobbin thread is quilting weight Mettler, light blue. I didn't have enough of the horse fabric for the backing so I used a wide strip of the dark blue border fabric on either side of the horses, and the quilting shows up nicely on the back with that light blue thread.
Finished dimensions of this quilt are 75" x 95". The batting is Quilter's Dream Cotton.
My good friend Teresa Creech decided I had no
business driving 150 miles on no sleep, so she came with me on the trip
to the state fairgrounds. Since she was driving, I was able to sew
the binding on in the car. We delivered the quilt with about an hour
to spare, and stayed overnight so that I could attend the judging the next
day.
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Judging the quilt during consideration for Best of Show |
This quilt was entered in the "Original design"
category, which was the first to be judged. Teresa and the kids we
brought went to breakfast after they dropped me off, and when they were
getting ready to announce the winners, I called her so she could listen
in on the results. Thank goodness for cell phones! The quilt
won first place in its category.
After watching the judging all day, all of the blue ribbon winning quilts were judged again for "Best of Show". There were several really nice quilts, including a gorgeous hand quilted white on white quilt that I thought was the sure winner. But, they picked my quilt! |
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A full view of the quilt during the Colorado State Fair judging |
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The quilt on display at the 2000 Colorado State Fair |
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Closeup of awards and border quilting |
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