Vol 2 - Project 13 - Revealed

The top is finished - I wonder if anyone figured out how it might look?  Anyway here is the project all assembled.......

Pretty huh

I had absolutely no issues at all putting this top together.  The instructions for this project are minimal, with pretty much only cutting directions given, the rest you need to figure out for yourself.  Even which direction to press the seams, something which has always confused me. Over the course of the 2 books, Harriet has taught me how to read a block and figure out how to make it.

Using all of Harriet's techniques - paying attention to accuracy when cutting and piecing, careful pressing, fanning the seams, trimming the blocks - it all sounds like a lot of extra work and yes, it takes longer, but the results are worth it.  Everything fitted, the points match, the top is square and flat. 

Yippee! 

Harriet's version of this quilt has a framing border of the dark fabric and small border and binding in the light fabric.  It looks great, but alas I have no fabric left for either borders or binding. 

I played around with borders of different colours and eventually decided this top doesn't need any borders at all. I've made the side setting triangles larger than required, so I have about an inch and a half extra width of the light paisley teal. I think this is enough.

Harriet's quilt is below.

Similar colours for both quilts.  If this was to be my quilt I would have chosen very different colours, but the teals really are very pretty and I'm happy with how it came together and turned out. 

I still have a problem with selecting a binding for mine - I'm not really happy about introducing another colour - maybe I'll use cream as I have lots of that left over.

QUILTING

I've recently completed a Quilting Masterclass with Deborah Louie http://www.deborahlouie.com.au/

where, amongst other things, I learned Trapunto quilting.  I'm very keen to have a go at this on a real quilt and this one seems like an excellent candidate, with all that white space.  I'd use wool/poly batting and lots of stippling to really help the design pop out.

I selected a couple of simple stencils which I thought could be good for beginner trapunto...

Then, looking at the photo of the quilt, I could see circles, or spirals - like a ripple moving out from the centre of the blocks.  Hmmmm.

You may remember Project 13 from Vol 1 where I did circular quilting on a scrappy quilt with a cotton batting.  I love the texture the circles gave to the quilt and now I'm thinking about doing the same quilting on this new top to get a kind of ripples effect ..........

Project 13 Vol 1 - circular quilting

I'm a bit torn now on how to quilt this - any suggestions would be welcome!

Vol 2 - Project 13 - 4's and 9's with Internal Frame

This project, with the uninspiring name (sorry Harriet) is the last one before The Final, where I sit my Vol 2 exam.

I'm going to do this post a little differently and not show you the design up front.  The quilt is made up of 6 different blocks.............

The clever quilters out there will be able to see ways to put these blocks together to form a traditional style quilt.  The blocks are all set on point and the design incorporates an internal frame and side setting triangles.

This quilt is being made for Karen, who wanted teal and cream coloured fabrics.  Karen picked out her fabrics months ago but I've not seen her for ages and had forgotten which ones she chose.  I forged ahead anyway after selecting a dark green/teal and a teal/cream paisley for the main design and a cream for the background.

All the blocks have been made up and are sitting up on my design wall ready to be sewn together.  Looking at it, it's going to be a very pretty quilt.