Shabby Chic Kitty - Finished Quilt

Wow - Mr. Darcy finished this quilt so quickly that there was hardly any time to take progress photos & post them!  The quilt was loaded last Sunday, but I didn't get to start stitching it until Thursday.  Well, Thursday morning, before I left for work, I did the basting and one row, and when I got home that night I finished it - including the binding!  And I was not up very late at all.

I mentioned last week about having serious tension issues when working with a spool of YLI, and so I switched back to Superior So Fine for this quilt.  Did I have tension problems again?  You betcha!


This happened while I was basting the quilt to the backing fabric, and was completely user error.  When I first started, I asked myself, "Should I check the tension before I baste?"  My self quickly replied, "Nah, it's just basting.  You can check it after."  BOY!  Was that a mistake!  I should have known something was wrong when I felt NO resistance at all on the top thread when I first threaded it, and it wouldn't pick up the bobbin thread for tying off.  Did I check then? Nope.  I actually basted all 3 sides, and started a sample before I actually checked the tension.  Boy, was I surprised at what I found underneath the quilt!  I just gave the tension wheel a good crank clockwise, and that was it - problem solved.  I actually had an epiphany then... So Fine needs a tighter tension because the thread is so thin, so when I want to use monofilament or King Tut, I should loosen the tension from this point.  Hopefully that will keep me from mucking the tension too much - I shouldn't need wide cranks left or right, and if I do, that means something is horribly wrong. Brilliant observation I think.  :)


I chose a creamy white for the quilting stitches.  It blends in pretty well with the quilt in most places, and where you can see the quilting, it looks pretty cool.  I chose a 10" pantograph design with a floral motif to go with the fabrics, and discovered that I actually do like 10" pantographs.  Why?  Well, the harp area on my machine is 24", which gives me about 22" of actual quilting space front to back.  So on a 10" panto, I can actually get two full passes without having to roll, versus a 16" design where I'd have to roll after every pass.  I guess it just depends on how intricate the design is; this quilt took about 3 hours to quilt, maybe a little less because I take frequent breaks.

Here's a pretty good photo of the quilt top.  I actually took the time to set up the lights, and I'm much more pleased at the color interpretation - now you can see that the quilt is actually pastel!


The back was also fun to make - pretty large stripes with some extra blocks incorporated. This is a really great shot of the quilting too:


The binding I did completely by machine.  I stitched the binding to the front, flipped it to the back, stuck a whole bunch of pins in it, and did a stitch-in-the-ditch from the front of the quilt.  I was pretty much sewing blindly, but the key to the stitching is to have a very precise stitching line, and to GO SLOW.


No, it didn't look perfect everywhere, but I can attribute the bobbles to me not using my walking foot from the beginning, and stitching too quickly.  I will definitely do more quilts this way; as much as I love binding by hand, I simply can't spare the time for most of the ones I want to do.  I am very much a perfectionist, but I've seen some pretty famous quilters with their not-so-perfect binding, and I think maybe if I sacrifice a little perfection in favor of getting more things done, people won't holler about it too much.

After I did a final inspection of the quilt (clipping loose threads, giving it several good passes with a lint roller, making sure the binding is quite secure, and a final spell-check on the label, I packed it up into a pillowcase I made with the fabric that was left over.  I even had a piece of leftover binding that, with a serged edge, made a perfect tie for the pillowcase!


Making this pillowcase gave me a great idea for future customers who get longarm service through me, and as a result, I have a new toy winging its way to my Studio.  I have the perfect spot for it in the room with Mr. Darcy, but it will require finding a new home for my spare sewing machine.

My client has seen some progress pictures of the quilt, but I didn't show her the quilting, the binding, or the pillowcase.  Hopefully she'll be pleasantly surprised!  She already sent me a note saying I "have a customer for life."  That's pretty cool!

Happy quilting!