Designing for a Client – FINISHED

This is my last post in the Designing for a Client series, because I finished it! I’m so over the top thrilled with how this quilt turned out. Huge thanks to Andover Fabrics for reaching out to me with this project. It was just the right combo for me – rainbow and challenging. Honestly, the hardest part of the whole thing has been working it into my already over-filled schedule.

Here is the finished quilt.

I decided on the perfect title – this is called Turn of the Century. Get it? Century Solids, turning in a circle? Yeah. My family rolled their eyes, too.

The rest of the quilt came together so nicely. The last round was a bit of a challenge. I designed the pattern to use exactly half of a 5″ charm square. If you’ve done foundation paper piecing, you know that matching up a shape that is the exact right size to the exact right spot can be hard. I will spend some time re-drafting the arc to make it easier. Since this is a quilt meant for hanging, rather than washing and using, I don’t mind that a few of my seams are a little scant.

I was very concerned about adding the “shoulders” to the quilt, but they were a piece of cake. While I getting ready to cut the pieces, I realized I could fold the fabric on a diagonal and cut just 4 pieces, instead of the 8 pieces I was originally planning for. Geometry is a powerful tool. Too bad I didn’t take a photo of that part, right?

While my Bernina longarm worked on attaching the layers, I started working on cleaning up the studio. Once in a while the chaos reaches levels that overwhelm even me. I am not a tidy maker, but wading through piles and losing things upsets me. After a year of living in my space, I am finally starting to get organized. Here you can see the longarm room, and the first of at least 4 thread shelves. I have a lot of thread for the longarm, because I need all of the colors. For colors I use often, I need extras. You know, so I can wind a bobbin without re-threading the machine.

Here is my other Bernina, taking a victory lap. I heard someone refer to binding as a victory lap, and I love it! I used to feel like binding was a punishment – so boring. Now I think of it as a celebration of all the hard work I did. This quilt was bound by machine, not by hand. Because my victory lap only lasts a couple of hours. Also, I’m infatuated with the black on black print Andover chose for the binding. I’ll be using it for the version of Turn of the Century I make for myself.

Before and after my cleanup session. To amuse myself, I threw all of the fabric scraps on the floor as I worked on the paper piecing. Paper did mostly go into the trash can, because sorting paper from fabric later is a hassle. This cleaning happened while the quilt was on the longarm.

It is so important that we label our quilts, especially ones that leave us. I am a fan of just a simple, hand written label on the back of the quilt. Sometimes I even write directly onto the backing. This time I didn’t as I was concerned about the ink bleeding through to the front. I used a Pigma Micron pen, which doesn’t bleed, but I am paranoid. For a quilt I love this much, I definitely want people to be able to tell who made it. I considered making a fancier, pieced label, but time is precious, and Andover won’t be displaying the back.

Okay. Last photo. This is my friendly fabric monster. He is composed of all of the tiniest scraps I generated by cutting down all 100 – 1/2 yard cuts of fabric. I was going to just stuff him into a pouf, but now I’m thinking I might play with the scraps and see what comes of it. At the very least, this could be a great series of mosaic post cards. Also, an excuse to go buy some tulle and Steam a Seam.

I hope you get to spend some time quilting today. I’ll be working on my next secret sewing project, which should be revealed in September or October.

Want to read the full story of Turn of the Century? Check out my earlier posts. And if you have any questions, just ask! You know I love to chat about quilting.

• Part 1
• Part 2