LoriEl's Quilt, Final pictures

It's done, and it's past time I updated the pictures for it. Sorry, Lori, I am so late in doing this. The post office estimates you should have your quilt back on Thursday.

First, the final bundle as it went into the box. Lori wrapped the quilt in Saran Wrap when it came to me, and I found this method kept the finished quilt wrapped into a tidy bundle that would fit in the box nicely.

Next, the finished edges, with a matching motif from the centers, stitched the same way as before, with paper 

transferring the pattern:

And, more final pictures of the quilt off the frame:

 

LoriEl's Quilt Continued

Work in progress: here's how part of it looks stitched:

Because I had to modify the store-bought template to fill the space that I had, I scanned in a good copy of one section of it, then Emilie, my daughter, cleaned the edges up in GIMP, and then copied the sections to make one full pattern. I found that AVERY LABEL SHEETS leftovers (labels used up) make excellent transfer paper. The backs can be printed on, making the pattern 100% consistent for all blocks without having to chalk them and eyeball putting sections together, and it was the easiest of all the papers I tried for transferring patterns. This product rips away cleanly, if you increase the number of stitches per inch. (16 or 18). I have tried several expensive papers meant for this purpose, even the "wash away" ones, and I was frustrated by every single one. Wasted money, unless I find another use for them. This (free!) recycled Avery label paper works great, and since my friend George does a lot of mailings through his business, I have an endless supply of this paper to recycle for patterns. I printed them out on my HP inkjet printer.

LoriEl's Quilt

 Here are pictures of LoriEl's quilt. Because we didn't have a design set in stone yet for the quilting, I took the liberty of SID along all the edges of the cream areas. This stabilized the entire quilt and allowed me to roll it forward and back along the frame without any fear of distortion. I used a cream/tan thread (Superior Thread's So Fine! #403), which happens to blend nicely with both the cream on the front and the backing fabric.

I used Quilting Preview Paper and an Expo Dry Erase Marker to audition several designs. I tried several other designs for the dark colored runners, but none of them looked right, especially at the intersections, and so I didn't add those to this blog entry. Here's one I liked for those runners, along with HQ's VersaTool Ruler that I used to draw the curves (and will quilt the curves with):

Keep in mind that quilting on dark areas tends not to show well, and so it's best to keep your quilting simple in those areas. (Unless you are going to be looking at the back for an overall design, it just needs to be quilted for stability.) Because I SID along the edges where the dark meets the line, even the single cable through the pink centers would be enough.

For the first center design in the cream area, this is a flower that I had previously done. The first sketch was commented on as being "too busy", so this one was simplified and made larger. Also, it shows the outlining of the runner squares as SID, which makes them into "little pillows". Which, I think is a simple effect that is still nice, and is also nice and easy to stitch as well.

And for several center designs, taken from those thin plastic templates that you would chalk to get the design- some are modified to fit the space. I thought this one left too much cream unquilted, although I could add the diamond from above to add to it.

 This last one I would reject for being too busy as well: