I wanted to share some recent finishes, and talk about choices when picking quilting for your top.
This quilt, pieced by Jane at Jolly and Delilah Quilts from Tula Pink’s free pattern “Shoreline”. Jane is a state over from me, and so we ship back and forth using USPS priority. It works great!
For this quilt, I felt the block of colors in the middle were really beautiful. I chose to do something that blended more intense quilting with freehand edge-to-edge, which would help defray some of the overall cost, but still provide a nice “wow” overall. Along the top and bottom edges, I quilted two different and distinct borders using rulers and leaving some negative space to make that lovely wool puff up in the spaces a bit, and then filled in the interior with a variety of freemotion fills that I freehanded.
The second quilt is for my customer from Alaska, Terri, and it’s her original design. You’ve seen her quilt tops before, too! For this quilt, it had a minimal feel, and Terri wanted something simple and allover (or edge-to-edge)/ At first, I thought I wanted to do something that mimicked the triangles, which are variable and point in different directions, but then I decided to go with something that had a little curve and flow to it. It also kept it in a nice price range for Terri and simple for me, while still having a “custom” look that enhanced the quilt top. I’m only showing a “work in progress” photo, and will share the finished quilt once Terri has had a chance to see it in person!
I used alternating S curves to make brackets across the top, using the pieced rows as my guide for the overall size of the brackets. This made the top have greater variability and visual interest.
I also wanted to stay true to the wonky nature of the triangles, so I spent some energy trying to keep the brackets from being evenly spaced and from the same shape over and over again (I didn’t want to have it start looking like a mattress pad!). I personally have found that sometimes too-regular on minimal quilts makes them less likely to keep your eye and mind engaged. A little irregularity and wonk–which is so appealing and interesting on quilt tops–has the same effect on minimal quilt tops.
Happy quilting, y’all, and thanks for looking!
They both really look great.