Sari Feathers...

It's been quite a few posts coming, but my queen-sized feather quilt is finally finished!  All those deep purples, pinks and oranges were such rich colors that the finished feathers reminded me of an Indian sari.

I love how you can see the backing print as the sun is streaming through the quilt here!  I've written quite a bit about the quilt top itself, but there is a whole new layer of amazing-ness on this quilt.  Peer a little bit closer with me...

This was my first time sending a quilt out to a long-armer and I was a little nervous.  But as soon as I opened up the box from Margaret Gunn, all anxiety was banished.  I was simply blown away.

The feathers in relief!

The beautifully detailed side borders done in different shades of taupe!

All those clams and feathers together with intersecting waves outlining the single feather shape of the blocks!

I dropped everything - seriously everything because laundry and cleaning can WAIT - and got right to trimming and binding.

I had a whole roll of this gorgeous Tile print from Joel Dewberry ready and waiting for binding - a perfect complement to the Heirloom print I chose for the backing.

This quilt finished at 82 x 102 - by far the largest quilt that I've ever made!  Now that it's finished, it's headed to the "master" bedroom to keep us snuggly in modern style.

Linking up:

Crazy Mom Quilts - Finish it up Friday!

Not a Feather Weight...

I've seen lots of Anna Maria Horner feather quilts out there and I wanted mine to be a touch different but I really struggled with how to accomplish that.  Messing around with some graph paper, I finally got it.  Instead of a typical block layout, I laid mine out to mimic the general outline of one single feather.  Love it.  But in doing that and figuring out how many rows I would need, the top turned out positively ginormous.

Queen sized to be exact - far, FAR larger than anything else I've ever done.  I can't even begin to imagine the quilting that is possible for this quilt.

Okay, so I do have a few ideas, but they are really far out of my skill set and all these gorgeous shapes and negative space are simply begging for a cracker jack quilter to knock this out of the park.

And just in case inquiring minds want to know, I did end up taking out the sections that had the large white splotches.  And with all of the different trips that I had to take to replenish my Kona bone supply, there are three different dye lots in one quilt.  Though you can't tell in photos, you can definitely tell in person.  Oh well - I still think this top is gorgeous!

Linking up:

Crazy Mom Quilts - Finish it up Friday!

Feather Frenzy...

Well this past weekend was the BMQG's annual quilt retreat weekend at the Franciscan Guest House in Kennebunk.  I wasn't able to get away for the entire weekend, but my friend Samantha and I were able to take advantage of a "commuter pass" to come up for a long day of sewing and socializing with the ladies. It was fabulous and so much fun to get to see everyone's works in progress!



Photo of Samantha & I courtesy of the BMQG - thanks Alice!

I had purposely been hoarding a stash of fabrics to create a quilt top using Anna Maria Horner's Feather pattern just for the retreat, and was supremely optimistic that I'd be able to churn out a bunch of feathers.  So just how many feathers did I make during an uninterrupted day of sewing?

(dramatic pause)

Actually my grand total was 7, but 5 was my total when I posted them up on the retreat design walls.  Yeah...I was kind of disappointed. 

Definitely not with how they came out though - I love the colors and fabrics together, and the feathers themselves are pretty big.  I can see myself embracing some negative space with a quilt top totaling no more than 20-30 feathers. 

 

But putting these babies together is a lot of work, which did get done in bulk at the retreat.  Lots of fabric strips were ironed, cut and pieced together and template pieces are all set to go - its the sewing grunt work that takes up the most time!  I just thought that I'd get a little further in the project. 

 

Oh well - looks like it will stretch into the spring and summer.  Not a bad work in progress to keep up with here and there. 

 

And as an added bonus, I won a door prize as well!  I ended up picking from a great pool of prizes collected by Aimee and chose a charm pack of Aneela Hoey's Posy line from Moda.  Love it!

Linking up with: QuiltStory's Fabric Tuesday

Feather Brain...

A while back when I was tossing ideas around, I posted this inspiration picture:

Even while I was typing the post, I connected the dots between that gorgeous color combination and this patchwork feather pattern by Anna Maria Horner.  I couldn't get it out of my head and fell more and more in love with the idea, so much so that (of course) I started buying fabrics here and there. Now I think I've built up a good but not too crazy pile that is all ready to be stripped and cut into feathers!

The deep purple with pink and the pink with gold swirls are my two favorites of the bunch.

And check this one out - this is all one swatch of fabric, but the strips each have different patterns. I can cut this up and make it look like I bought 6 different fabrics!

I went back and forth while choosing a solid for the background - I was originally leaning toward a light yellow like Kona's maize but when I brought them all together, I just wasn't feeling it. Instead I played it kind of safe and went with Eggshell (I think).

But that feather pattern looks like an awful lot of work that is going to take some serious time.  It's hard enough getting the girls to leave simple blocks alone and unstepped on (Site Note:  The peril of not having a design wall is that you have to spread out blocks on the floor at random points.  This creates some kind of siren song for children.  They see something on the floor and have to immediately run over and step all over it.).

Thankfully, the BMQG annual retreat is coming up in March.  Circumstances as they are right now, I couldn't manage to make the entire weekend but I was so excited to hear that they gave us the option of a "day pass" for the retreat - come up and spend as much of the entire day sewing and socializing as we can manage and then go back home for wrestling children into pajamas, teeth brushing, and bedtime.  Sounds like a good compromise to me!  So my stacks of fabric are washed and pressed, my templates are cut, and I am counting down the days to the retreat to begin my feather brained madness. 

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