Friday, January 28

Fourteen year quilt




So this is the most creative thing I've done lately. I started this quilt about 14 years ago-not kidding. I have made several other quilts since then, but I would always pull this one out, work on it for a while, then put it away again. Finally I made a decision a couple months back that I would finish it and so did. It is an original design I made, using several steps in process.






First I sketched my idea on a piece of paper, then gridded it off. Then I took freezer paper (has wax on one side) and taped enough pieces together to create a full size pattern which I then gridded off to same number of grids as original drawing, and then the fun began of transferring the drawing to large scale. Entire quilt, measures about 62" square, and was pieced together with around 700 pieces (I haven't counted but it's a guesstimate) , sewn into 144 squares, which were then sewn into one piece.















It was a pretty intensive project as there were a lot of pieces to keep track of, and so every single piece, no matter how small, was given a number and letter and color to designate it's position in the quilt. As in: 1aB meant: row 1, piece a which would be sewn to piece B and so on, in a shade of blue. After the design was transferred onto the freezer paper, then the entire pattern was cut into pieces, and then each piece was ironed onto the appropriate fabric using a warm iron (wax allows the pattern piece to adhere to the fabric but peels off very easily without leaving any residue.















Section of quilt. You can see the squares the quilt was assembled with. An attempt was made to keep the design flowing from square to square, but different fabric stretches differently and I wasn't always completely successful. Whatever! I wasn't completing in a competition and so cut myself some slack!



















Detail of quilting stitches. Entire quilt was machine quilted.















Another detail of quilt stitching. Voila! Piece of cake!

6 comments:

nick friedman said...

That's an awesome piece of work. My mother recently finished a quilt she'd been dragging around for many years. That project had seen her through a divorce, about 4 jobs, a couple different homes, and who knows what else. It looks great.

Deb said...

Hi Nick-I tried to leave a comment on your blog-but I think I failed! so anyway, nice to meet you and thanks for the nice words about my quilt. I will be sure to keep an eye on your blog now!

ang design said...

nice mapping deb.. this took me straight back to my table mosaics i had to map those too :P only 2yrs in the making...

cookingwithgas said...

now I know I am not making a quilt- 14 years! my gosh girl at least you did it.
And it is pretty darn wonderful!
I was just talking about sewing something and Mark put me back right- I am not really that person- just want to be.
Lovely! Make another one!

Deb said...

Hi Ang, mapping . . . I didn't know there was a name for that! It'd be cool to see your mosaics!

Meredith it didn't HAVE to take me this long. I just kept putting it away and forgetting about it. It's really satisfying to make a quilt so if you want to, go for it! Make like a wall quilt maybe? 3'x4' or something so its really managable. Take a peek at Quilters Newsletter Magazine sometime. The quilts in there will blow your mind and give you some idea of what's possible

ang design said...

hey deb well thats what i call it :P have a nose at my commission page the table mosaics are on there ....it was a tonne of work but learned a lot!!
http://web.me.com/angwalford/angela_walford_ceramics/Commissions/Commissions.html