More finishing!

Well, I finished a quilt that I have never been very fond of, was horrible constructed (both problems with pattern and piecer were involved) and vastly improved by quilting in my opinion. I'm not sure if anyone can get a feel for the flavor of this one, as the beauty of it is really the sparkly white fabric post-quilting is fabulous. I enjoyed the challenge of the odd shapes in this and I avoided quilting the stars because they were so puffy I just thought I'd let them live in all their puffy glory. I also used alpaca batting which I have been eager to try. It quilts beautifully--my tension is fantastic. And holy buckets, it is SOOOO warm. I have been sitting under it in my basement while stitching the binding on and my basement is pretty cool and I've been roasting. I think we may be able to skip the heat in our bedroom if we put this puppy on the bed. It's a 60% alpaca 40% wool and when I washed a sample it neither felted, nor shrunk, but the fibers which have no scrim, resin or needle-punching, did drift pretty badly. I think one of the problems with alpaca batting may be that alpaca wool is extremely fine fibers (part of the reason it's so soft and warm) and they just squib right out of the weave of even fine quality quilting fabric. The batting packaging recommended only hand-washing, but I had to do my own little experiment. So now I know, I should listen to the packaging. I have a few other brands to investigate, as well as a paca/cotton blend, so I will keep everyone posted.
Now, onto the pics! (Don't worry beginning quilters--I haven't forgotten you--thread lessons on Friday)
Here's the whole monster--I bought the fabric to do this years ago, when I first started quilting. Well, I should say my mom bought it for me. I only made it about a year ago though and now, finally, it's quilted and even has three sides of binding on--one more movie and it'll truly be finished--I've even embroidered a label. I called it "Fiery Stars" because of the colors, but also because I did flames coming out of the stars on the yellow (variegated thread made it just subtle texture). I used my leftover red to create a chunked up, random border, which seems to deeply offend some quilters, but I liked it and was happy to use up all the fabric. I think I had about 10" of leftover fabric. It's about 93"x100", hehe, depending on where you measure. Like I said, not my best work, finished, hands washed, etc...
Here's a chunk of the border (my favorite chunk--I love that fabric). I used a ruler to make the curly spine of this feather and really botched the corners, but I was quilting like that machine was a Harley and I had a death wish, so that's what I get for speed. I used a vari red/yellow thread and I love the peekaboo effect it has of really showing in some spots and not in others.
Here's the curly wurly freehand feather contraption I did in these weird white shapes. The picture really doesn't do it justice. The sparkly fabric just came to life once quilted. I used a very soft yellow variegated and I just loved how it turned out. Initially I was going to micro-stipple around the feathers, but I loved the negative space that they created, so I left that. I think half of quilting for me is not just where and how one quilts, but what one leaves unquilted. There, that was my deep thought of the day, but I really do think that sometimes the texture of quilted/unquilted is the real beauty of quilting.
And finally a little close-up. It's not even close to perfect, nor would I feel comfortable doing it on someone else's quilt yet, but I love the effect and I think I've improved so much just in the past two quilts. My little tiny circles (which are harder than you'd think moving that big machine around) are gradually improving if I remember that I'm at a quilting machine, not on the interstate (this is a very hard thing for me to remember--I'm very impatient and I like me some instant gratification). You can sort of see the glitz a little in this photo.

Anyway, I'll get back on track with my lessons on Friday. Last Friday I was helping someone literally all day and just didn't have the will power (or brain power) to say anything productive on a blog.

Happy quilting!