Saturday, April 11, 2009

On Finish Lines


The completed quilt... finally! I should have waited for some better lighting before photographing, but I got impatient. The weather and I were at a week long stand-off, and finally today Ijust gave in and accepted some slightly moody lighting. :-) This has been a labor of love in every sense of that phrase, and while the finished product certainly isn't flawless, I love it to pieces! (Haha, pieced quilt, love it to pieces... get it?! Oh, the level of humor...! ;D)

There's just something so magical about holding in your hands a realized idea. I've already used it oodles (thus some of the crinkliness of the quilt.. it's been washed, dried, and cuddled with non-stop!) and that's probably my favorite part about sewing. No matter how much you love a painting or photograph, you can't hug one!

Some logisitics:
~began picking out fabrics, figuring out design, and then cutting summer 2006
~began piecing the top winter 2006
~finished piecing top, embroidering back, and piecing back by winter 2007
~tied quilt spring 2008
~bound quilt spring 2009

The quilt measures (about) 46 inches square, and it took me roughly 35 hours just to bind it! I did every single thing by hand, and since this was my first quilt, I didn't know to use a running stitch. Instead, I used a very tight whipstitch, the stongest stitch I could think of at the time. About halfway through piecing the top, I took it with me to a fabric shop in search of some backing material that coordinated well. The employees all thought that I had serged the top, my seams were so dense with thread! By that time I didn't want to change my stitching styles even though I had finally realized that I was going a little bit overboard. So it goes. :-)

It took countless spools of brown thread, multiple trips to various fabric stores, and a good three years, but I've finally finished my quilt. Phew!

AND I COULDN'T BE HAPPIER!! :D :D :D

Now to start planning the next one...! ;)

Until then, love and best
your Bee ♥

2 comments:

VJ said...

It's so pretty! Looking forward to seeing the design for your next quilt.

Bee said...

^_____^ Grax! Next time I'll probably choose slightly more muted colors though, haha. xD