Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Quilting Makes the Quilt.

I brought this quilt top home from guild. The powers that be was decided it was too dark and boring to give to a child in crisis.
Truly, it is rather boring. I think someone put it together, decided they didn't like it and donated it. So I figured I had nothing to lose by practicing on it. Ginger loves cats and liked the quilt because it has cats on it. I decided it is time to finally actually try quilting a feathered border...freehand feathers, although I did chalk in a spine line to guide me. I outlined the cats and the frames around them and meandered in their background. Due to a mistake I made a slight tear on one of the frames, so I went back and and added a looping design to cover the tear and actually it improved the quilt to lighten up hat dark frame.


Then I had to decide what to do in those big light squares. I knew they really wouldn't show on the front but went with feathered wreaths, with a feather/loop design in the corner of the block and a rose in the center. Since the back of the quilt is a black background print, the quilting shows up quite well on the back.Yes, my feathered border isn't quilt show quality, but its certainly not bad for a first attempt. All in all the quilting really does this improve this quilt, but I knew it could. I never decide a quilt is a failure until after it has been quilted. And even then I have had a few that improved with a washing and drying. I think I will probably be donating this one to Wrap Them In Love, through the Sunshine online guild. Ginger has at least 7 quilts already and one is a "cat" quilt.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Goodness, you did a wonderful job quilting the cats!! I liked the cute little thing to begin with, but you added the flair that it was craving! I hope you have a huge boost to your confidence, this is an awesome finish to this quilt!!
Thanks for sharing this project with us.

sophie said...

Lovely feathers! I'm sure Ginger loves it.

Judy Laquidara said...

Your feathers look great! And the best part is . . you did it!