Show + Tell :: Fox Run Nebula

May 10, 2016

This quilt is for my niece who is graduating this June from high school. This fabric is the Kaufman Effervescene fabric. The fabric included a border, but I decided not to use it. 

The pattern again is quarter square triangles, and each measures 2 3/4" finished. Originally I just had the quarter square triangles, and hubby said it was too small. I took the solid Kona fabrics and I added 6" to each side of the quilt. I did straight line quilting, for that's all I know how to do.

Front of quilt

Detail of quilt

The back of the quilt has somewhat of a story to it. So the start of the back of the quilt is that red square that's kind of in the middle. Then I worked around it adding to it like a log cabin. I had a few leftovers of the quarter square triangles that I smacked it onto the back. I also had a few inches of the "Effervescene" fabric that I incorporated into it. After I was done, with the back, unfortunately I found approximately a 3" x 8" piece of it left that I forgot to put in. Oh well, too late.

You see that weird orange and yellow panel fabric on the upper quarter of the back of the quilt? That came from my mother-in-law. The fabric is a Marimekko fabric that she bought a while back. The fabric is more of a upholstery fabric rather than a regular cotton fabric. I've washed it, and hopefully it won't shrink too much when the quilt gets washed. The original Marimekko fabric I got was double the size. Our niece also has an older brother, whom I did not give a high school graduation quilt to. So I cut this Marimekko fabric and will incorporate the other half into the back of his quilt. Cheesy I know... but I think it's a cool idea. From grandmother to grandson and granddaughter and a connection to their aunt and uncle.

On the bottom left hand corner of the quilt is where I had a lot of smaller pieces of fabric from the project. I took all of the small pieces and made a block. I think it turned out well.

Back of quilt

Detail of back of quilt

Marimekko fabric from mother-in-law

Detail of back of quilt

Marimekko copyright information from fabric

Detail of back of quilt, my favorite area of the quilt

Title: Fox Run Nebula
Dimension: 88" x 103"
Materials: Cotton Batik, Dream Cotton Batting
Method: Machine Pieced + Machine Quilted
Date completed: 05.2016

As I was piecing the quarter square triangles together and listening to my audio book, I accidentally tapped on the "search" button on my windows phone. To my surprise, the image below popped up. It reminded me so much of the quilt I was piecing, that I stopped to figure out what I was looking at. It turns out that it was call the "Fox Run Nebula", thus the title of the quilt.

Here's the detail information of the Marimekko fabric. It says "Maija Isola Design 'Joonas' ". I wonder how old this fabric is... it must have been in the 70's or 80's.

Below is the whole piece of fabric before I cut it into half.

Because I wanted our niece to have something that was fully created by me, I decided to machine quilt it myself. I have not machine quilted something this big in ages. So it was a huge deal. We expanded our dining room table, placed stuff underneath it to protect the table from getting poked with the pin. I am so anal and protective about the dining table, that I think we have two layers of protective things underneath.

Below is where I quilted the quilt. It is our living room. Hubby helped designed the area, because the purple bench (half finished from three years ago) was too low so he put wood underneath it to raise it to a better height. Then he found a good size table top that we put on top of the purple bench. Next I put the Rowenta mega ironing board (that I got for $1.00 from a yard sale) to the same height as the table.

Here's a picture of the quilt as I'm quilting it. Then hubby said, why don't you put the slippery plastic thing that you used to cover the table on the ironing board so that it's easier for the quilt to slide it on. We did that, and it made life easier. We make do with what we have. :)

The first few columns of the quilt was a pain in the ass, but as I worked on it, it got easier. I first went horizontal, then vertical. Once I got the quilt stabilized, I quilted it on a diagonal. It took a while, but I sucked it up and got it done, hey almost a month in advance.

So that's done. Now I have company for 1.5 days. Perfect timing.

Now all I have to do it clean the living room, and company is company in 8 hours. Plenty of time, plenty of time.

Quilt & Bitch