West of Paris

Okay, so that's the newest working name for this quilt. I designed it to feature 8 fat quarters from the Pom Pom de Paris collection from Moda. I rarely buy more than a couple of fabrics from any collection, so when I found that I had, without planning it, picked up 8 fats from this collection at a booth at a quilt show, I knew something special had to be done with them.

I saw a braided border on a quilt in a magazine and thought "I can do that", so using Bonnie Hunter's assembly instructions for the Texas Braid Quilt in Adventures with Leaders and Enders, I set out to do this. I kept thinking what I wanted to do in the center that would feature the floweriest of the fat quarters. I came up with something very simple that I can quilt on, and then added the borders and squares to cut down on the size of pieces I'd have to cut from the fats. Then, I added the first of the narrow gold borders that really tied everything together as I kept building. Then came the braided border that was so simple that it got routine to chain piece them. The rest of the narrow borders are meant to stabilize the braided borders. All the braided border edges are bias and all you have to do is look at it hard to get it to stretch...especially the 200" outer edge before the last gold border was added. The large bricks fit nicely between the two braided borders to give me a great place to quilt. I intend to fill that with feathers. The wider borders on the top and bottom ended me at 60x72, which is more than comfortable for a lap quilt and plenty big enough to snuggle a grandkid under. This quilt is going to be a gift and I can hardly wait to get started quilting it. I plan to quilt the devil out of it, stopping just short of making it too stiff to snuggle.

This whole quilt was pieced on the machine I rewired last weekend. And, thanks to Joe, who sent a comment on that post that I should try researching under National Rotary Sewing machine and I found my machine! Thanks, again, Joe. This morning, for the first time in the 20 years I've owned her, she's actually threaded correctly and the tension discs are engaged.



I talked a big game recently about the wrong side of a quilt top, so I thought I'd show the wrong side of this one. I confess that this is a good one. They aren't all this clean and well pressed. In part, I think that raveling was helped by how fast I made the quilt. It seems that quilts that hang around for a long time tend to ravel before I pin baste them.






I also wanted to share pictures of this storm cloud that came up the other day. It was beautiful and fascinating to watch. It was like a mushroom cloud, boiling and building and growing. We stood outside and watched and traffic kept slowing down to see what we were staring at and photographing. But, we didn't get a drop of rain out of it.





Okay, just one more announcement. It's Rob's birthday! Happy Birthday, Dear! It's also my niece, Abbie's birthday and Eyore's birthday. So, happy birthday to all! And, many more!





Lane