Show + Tell :: Falling in Love

April 28 2013,

Title: Falling in Love
Dimension: 87" x 75"
Fabrics: Cotton Batik
Block: 2,900 Quarter Square Triangles
Method: Machine pieced and machine quilted

Falling in Love

In December 2012 I was inspired to make a rainbow quilt. After going to two of my favorite quilt stores, Fabric Place Basement in Natick and Fabric Corner is Arlington, I came up with the perfect fabrics to create this collage.

My rule of thumb for picking fabric was lights, mediums and darks. Once I had that balance, I was off the making quarter square triangles. I had it in my mind how I wanted the colors to be laid out. The tricky part was the blending of the colors into each other.



Making of quarter square triangles



Completed quarter square triangles stacked on a cutting mat

Once approximately 2,700 quarter square triangles were created, with each color represented equally (by approximation - I'm never exact), I started laying it out on the floor. This meant that furnitures and plants had to be rearranged, and nobody going to that area of the living room.



Once I was satisfied with the layout, I stacked them on top of card board and mats, in rows that made sense to me.



Stacked pieces on top of a cracked cutting mat

Once the pieces were all pieced and joined, I tackled the back. I decided to use a top that I had finished prior to starting this project that consisted of blue and orange quarter square triangles. I worked around that piece with orphan squares and fabrics that were not used. I did the back by piecing it "log-cabin style" working my way around the central piece.


Back of Falling in Love



Detail of Back of quilt

Once the back was done, I had hubby help me tape down the back to the floor with painter's tape to make sure that it was flat. This is the first time I have ever taped the back down, and it worked well, because I don't have big bubbles or fabric overlaps on the back. The batting had been "resting" for a week or so. Resting is an important part of the process because it decreases the creases of the batting. I use Thermore Hobbs 100% polyester batting because it is very thin and this quilt is meant to be hung and not to be used on a bed, so the polyester batting was ideal. After much pinning and snipping off unwanted threads from the quilt top I was ready to quilt.

The pinning process

I decided to quilt this myself because the previous quilt had gone to a quilter and I was not to happy with the results. I went to the store and bought blue, red, green, purple and orange thread. I quilted it in the ditch changing thread as I went. I would quilt four to eight columns with one color and then switch to another color and then went back to the first column with the new thread color. After the quilting was done, the binding came next. With the help of hubby, we tried to match binding with the color of the perimeter of the quilt. This requires some brain power, which I lack. With hubby's patience the binding was done to achieve a borderless look to the quilt. It now hangs proudly in the living room, and I am off to a new project.

Quilt & Bitch