#AdoretheSchwarz

The first wedding quilt is done!  And delivered, so I can share.  Finally!  I'm thrilled I had enough fabric to do the cornerstones in blue instead of espresso (when complete, all I had was a 2x8" strip left over).  It's such a small change, but I think it makes a big difference in the overall look.

Added bonus - the snow melted and the wind died down long enough to photograph the quilt in my favorite spot.

Lots of photos - all the stuff I wanted to show off while making this quilt.

The pattern is a disappearing nine patch done on point with sashing and cornerstones.  I love how a relatively simple pattern can be so stunning.  I was inspired by a version done in black, grey and red.  This started with some light coffee colored fabric, which evolved into browns with blue highlights (unwittingly pulling a similar color scheme as Sunshine).

Flimsy with lots of extra overhang.

Instead of proper setting triangles, I made extra partial blocks that hung off the side.  I hoped the extra fabric would help keep the quilt's shape.  I stay-stitched it before sandwiching it, just to make sure the bias didn't stretch.  I trimmed the excess after I attached the binding.  

All those points along the edge were interesting.  I briefly considered what it would look finished like that until I considered binding all those corners.  Yikes!  As it was, the binding was time consuming, hitting the points on all of those squares.  Ripped and restitched a lot of it.  It was worth it - I have long rows of pointy points against smooth binding.  Nice.

I love trimming after binding.  Look at that clean straight edge.  That's almost as satisfying as hand-stitching the binding in place.  Ah... a finished quilt.

For quilting, I chose an all-over pattern.  A few weeks before I started piecing the quilt I saw this motif.  It stuck with me; reminded me of flowers and paw prints.  Lots of curves to go with the blockiness of the pieced pattern.  I tried out two other designs and this one always felt the best.  I've learned to go with what feels good, even if it's not what I originally had in mind.

Although it felt like the best design, it was a real stretch for me.  All my prior large-area freemotion quilting has been on small items like placemats - with a small pattern and area.  This, on the other hand, was SO BIG.  I was nervous - I had the quilt all set up at the machine, but then paced the room for a full 30 minutes before forcing myself to sit and start quilting.

I'm thrilled with how it looks.  Working through the middle of the quilt wasn't as difficult as I feared.  The first several repeats of the design were large; it was hard to see what I was doing and difficult to control.  I had convinced myself it needed to be big to prevent the quilting from being too dense.  I shrank it a bit as I headed to the first corner - it became about three quarters of the original size.  Suddenly it was easier to see where I was going and I had better control moving the quilt.  And the design was still plenty large enough.

The dogwood thread I picked worked well - it disappeared completely on the medium brown fabric and didn't jump out on either the espresso or pale fabrics.  I stitched myself into very few dead-ends.  I love my Singer 15-91 - the bobbin fed evenly, no snarls or skipped stitches.  I worked about an hour at a time, until my wrists got tired.  The whole thing took five sessions.

I was elated when I finished quilting:  I found only only pucker.  It was right up against the binding which was easily picked out, ironed and eased back in.  Then I photographed the quilt... and found two clear folds in the middle of the back.  Curses!  I managed to bury threads right next to one of them and never even noticed.  They were minor but bothered me enough that I pulled out and eased the stitching back in.  There's a few puffy spots in the back.  Still, I'm quite pleased with my experience of attempting a pattern this large.

I named it #AdoretheSchwarz, from one of the hashtags used at the wedding.  Other names that popped into my head sounded silly. 

Sharing with:
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