Sunday, March 20, 2011

Scenes from the Construction of a Quilt

This week is Spring Break, and I've made progress on my latest commission.  The T-shirts in this quilt are new -- purchased specifically for use in a lap quilt.  I believe there are nine T-shirts (some had usable logos on front and back). 


The central panel (above) isn't large enough to form the finished quilt, so I decided to pull out the embroidery module for my sewing machine in order to learn to use it.  After lots of trial and error, I ended up with this:


Oops...I mean this:


I knew even before I had finished spelling out "Horned Frogs" in machine applique that I wanted the words to spill over the side of the quilt. 


By the way, I constructed the remainder of the quilt top at a retreat at Our House in Milford.  It was a pleasant, productive evening, and I look forward to returning to the facility.


Unfortunately, I don't have a nice, pretty photo of the quilt before I basted the layers together with safety pins.    Therefore, the final quilt design looks rather ragged in the pic below:


As usual, I am doing the quilting on my sturdy Bernina.  I do free-motion quilting and haven't used a template or drawn out the design before I sit down to quilt.  The view below is of the back, so you can see the quilting more clearly.