This one is interesting. About three weeks ago, I had a strong urge to hand quilt. After I had finished hand quilting the Untitled quilt, I needed to do more.
In the works at that time was already a king size quilt that was inspired by quilts of Gee's Bend and Bosna Quilts. The 3 yards of fabric was bought about a year ago. It was by M&S Textile called "Women Collecting Water Purple" by Christine Doolan. Again, like most fabrics, it was love at first sight. This is the first time I have bought Aboriginal style fabric, and I remember that my husband had come in with me to the fabric store and had said that the Aboriginal fabrics were awesome. At that shopping trip, I had not bought it, and subsequent shopping trip I decided to buy it.
Below is the king size quilt made of solids in grays, blues and oranges and the Aboriginal style fabric.
This was originally suppose to be machine quilted. I had a friend over who saw the half pieced quilt, and she said, "No, this quilt should not be machine quilted, this quilt should be hand quilted."
That sparked another journey. After deciding that I wanted to hand quilt it, I had to research on batting. I have always hand quilted with polyester, because it is much easier on the fingers. I remember one year I had quilted a wall hanging with cotton batting, it was a disaster. The quilt top was made out of Japanese fabrics. After doing a tenth of it, I gave up and gave it away. It was way too difficult. Since that episode, I do not hand quilt with 100% cotton batting. My batting of preference is Thermore by Hobbs. It quilts like butter even with batik fabrics.
I decided not to use Thermore for this particular project because I wanted to make this into a bed quilt. Through researching of other people's experiences, I decided to try Hobb's Tuscany Collection Silk Batting. So I bought that online and waited for it to come in.
At this point, the top was 90" x 101". I had bought the king size batting which is suppose to be 120" x 120". From past experience, the actual size of the batting is much more than what is advertised. So this one came in at 124" x 133". I waited to determine the quilt top size because I wanted to maximize the batting.
After the calculation was done, I needed to figure out what I wanted to do for the backing. I usually piece my backs. For this one, I decided to buy wide back, and settled on Kona Wide Fabrics. The width of the fabric is 108".
Knowing the measurements for the batting and the backing, the final quilt top size is now 101" x 120". 101" because of the width of the backing and 120" because of the width of the batting. Yes, call me crazy.
After all that was figured out, I realized I did not have the endurance to baste it by hand. I called a local long armer and she said she can baste it for me. Ta-dah. I will be dropping this at the long armer and my one to two year journey of hand quilting this sucker will start.
I hope I have the stamina and the will to do it.
This quilt has yet to have a name. In a year or two it will have a name, and hopefully will reflect my journey.
Quilt & Bitch
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