Joyful

This is Joyful - a wedding gift to another cousin (three wedding quilts this year!).  There's so much to tell, I'm not sure where to start.  Isn't it pretty?  I rushed to take the outdoor photos literally 10 minutes after I finished stitching the binding, dragging Rob out there to hold it up.  I hadn't even had time to bury the threads so I could catch the last of the fading daylight (and I notice now it's technically upside-down).

The flange binding was a great choice.  I forgot, though, that the seams need to be lined up when joining the ends.  I didn't see it until I had stitched it all together.  Oops.  Had to pull that out and put it all back together.

I said I was doing graffiti quilting - it's not that dense.  I guess this might be called improv quilting.  It's basically a jumble of whatever free-motion patterns came to mind.  Regardless of what it's called, this was a fun way to quilt.  I will certainly do this again.  I tried some new stuff, played with some designs I haven't done in a while, refined some favorites.

I'm afraid of picking a thread that's too dark.  The pale yellow I selected was good, but the darker gold would have been better.  I'm sad I didn't have strong sun to make the quilting pop out; I'm grateful I caught as much sunlight as I did.  The quilting is easiest to see on the back.  None of the photos do it justice.  (Click on the photo if you want to a closer look.)

Along with thread color, I am still learning to free-motion quilt at the right speed.  I get nervous and rush.  I had problems with skipping stitches caused by a long stitch length.  Slow down!  I did better as I moved across the quilt.  Improv quilting is wonderfully forgiving.  That weird odd squiggle or crossed line?  I meant to do that.  Absolutely.

The other thing I totally meant to do?  Quilting the border in green.  Yup.  Had nothing to do the rapidly disappearing yellow thread.  I think the yellow would have shown better, but the green looks great!

I also discovered that a flange binding takes a little more room along the front edge, so some of my quilting is buried under the flange.  Not quite what I had intended.

So I learned.  Then there's the many things I did completely right.  This quilt is square and flat.  There isn't a single pucker in the whole back; I did a great job sandwiching.  The leaves and swirls were a good design for the borders.  The flange binding was an inspired last-minute change (with just enough yellow fabric to pull it off).  And I love the improv quilting.  I wish you could all see it in person.  Around 600 yards of thread and four to five hours went into the quilting.  I'm seriously proud of this one (can you tell?).  It was a lot fun to quilt (even with the half hour of swearing over skipped stitches).

I love the color palette my cousin selected.  It's lively and cheerful.  I considered naming the quilt Joyful Noise because it has so much going on. (There is a proper label - added after the photos were taken.)  In the end, I went with simply Joyful.  The quilt was a joy to make, to gift, and it's a good wish for any marriage.  I hope they enjoy this quilt as much as I have had in creating it. 

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