Tuesday, June 4, 2019

A Gifted Deal

Quilted, bound, washed, and dried. These darling blocks made a {fairly} quick quilt for a new baby. It went in the mail and arrived before the new dad's paternity leave ended. Whew!

HSTs of strings pair with red, orange, and pink solid triangles to form The Square Deal block in the center of this quilt. It is surrounded by a narrow turquoise inner border and a wider print of colorful triangles.
The Square Deal baby quilt

As frequently happens, I nearly drove myself crazy with the quilting. It needed to keep the quilt together and hold up to rigorous use. Additionally, it needed to be simple with a minimum of starts and stops. Burying threads is such a time consumer.

The inner border is SID with matching thread. This is my usual way to keep the line straight through all the subsequent quilting.

After asking my small group, I determined to try a squared-off spiral. It was a disaster. Not only were my "straight" lines wobbly, they were also too far apart. In desperation I switched to a regular spiral. It didn't seem like it would work well but I was wrong about that, too. It looks great. Yes, those curved lines are wobbly but I bet you can't tell!

This shows part of the center, both borders, the pink binding, and the spiral quilting.
Detail of the Square Deal baby quilt

The main back fabric was too short and too narrow. A bit of another blue lengthened the base and the last of the border fabric widened it. The spiral shows up so much better on the back.

The back is composed of a large floral on light blue extended with a quiet blue print. A remnant of the wide border from the front cuts across these fabrics dividing the sides about a third of the way across.
Back of the Square Deal baby quilt

I've used this design twice before, but it's been a while. The first time on the Neutral String baby quilt and later on Spiderweb 3.  I like it and plan to use it again. Echo quilting is one of the few designs that shows on patterned fabric. Spirals are a version of echos.
Quilt Details
Size: 40" x 40"
Design: Original
Batting: Mountain Mist 100% cotton
Thread: Blue and peach Gutterman 50 wt cotton
Quilting: Stitch in the Ditch and spiral, both with walking foot

Previous posts: 
1. The Chinese Coin columns that didn't work
2. Making HSTs
3. Playing with HSTs
4. Square Deal block
5. Using the extra blocks

 I borrowed The Golden Thread by Kassia St. Clair, a collection of stories about fabric through history rather than a history of fabric. Thirteen chapters cover pre-historic cave dwellers through the Space Age astronauts and include several stories, each beginning with a literary quote involving thread or textiles. That alone is worthwhile. Kassia writes fluently and persuasively; she based this book on some of her magazine articles. 
The cover is printed with the title and author and embellished with loops of golden thread.
The Golden Thread
by Kassia St. Clair

All in all, The Golden Thread is much more interesting than the news programs so I will be check her other book on color next.

 Enjoy the day, Ann
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