Happy Needle and Thread Thursday, y'all! You might remember that I shared this humongous Anna Maria Horner quilt top way back in October of last year, but I am so excited to finally share the finish with you. I call this pattern 2-4-6, and if you're interested in the block measurements, you can check out my post
HERE.
This king size quilt is a whopping 108" square, and because I am completely certain of my limitations, I had my extremely talented friend, Teresa at
Quilts2AT Studio, quilt it for me (follow her at tpino on IG). Teresa is a nationally known, award winning quilter and a member of my guild, so when I finished wrestling with the top and backing of this behemoth, I happily passed it off to her so she could work her magic.
Since this quilt is so simple in its design, I decided to choose a paisley loop quilting design with a little flourish to soften the squares a little bit. I think it really goes nicely with the AMH prints too. Speaking of prints- in case you're wondering, this quilt contains 125 different Anna Maria fabrics. The complete Folk Song, Mod Corsage, Loominous, True Colors, and Fibs and Fables collections are represented, as well as a few prints from LouLouThi and Honor Roll. Because I thought they blended so well, I even threw in two Amy Butler prints, and two prints from Anna Maria's daughter, Juliana Horner. Can you pick them out? Here is another shot of my precious stack before I had the guts to cut into all of it.
That stack totals over 30 yards of fabric! Way more than enough for a king sized, fully reversible quilt, so that's just what I made (plus another throw quilt from the scraps that you can see
HERE). It took a little planning to make sure that my leftover pieces were arranged in a way that the quilt would look just as good when flipped over, and I'm so impressed that Teresa was able to load it onto her longarm and perfectly center it with the top. That is hard to do, but she's a rock star!
For the binding, I opted for this rich maroon wood grain print, also by Juliana Horner (keeping it in the family as much as possible). The dark fabric creates a perfect frame for the quilt and picks up on lots of the deeper colors in the fabrics.
In almost 20 years of quilting, this is the very first quilt I've made that I didn't quilt myself. Everything about a king size quilt is more difficult. Even jobs that seem small, like pressing the quilt top or taking photos, become tedious when the quilt is so monstrously huge. I was so glad to turn the quilting over to someone else, and of course that meant that I got to skip the basting step as well! Basting is the devil, so a big whoop! whoop! for that.
For longarm quilting, the backing has to be made a little bigger than I usually need for basting and domestic machine quilting, so I actually
still have some small scraps left after squaring the quilt. Don't worry though, they will not be going to waste. I already have a little project in mind for them.
I have been happily sleeping under this quilt for the past few nights, and let me tell you- I could not love it more. From collecting the fabrics to putting the final stitch in the binding, and finally snuggling under it at night, this huge quilt felt like an epic journey, so I'm calling it Epic.
Okay then, friends! Before you link up to show me the epic happenings in your sewing studio, let's take a look at the highlights from last week's party! This lovely chambray log cabin is by
Laura at Slice of Pi Quilts.
Katie Mae Quilts shared this awesome Oklahoma quilt. What a great design, and the quilting is so amazing!
And this pretty Plus Playtime quilt is by
Anja Quilts.
Just one more thing before we party. I owe you a winner for the 4th of July sponsor giveaway. The winner is comment number 37, rosemaryschild. Congrats! I'll be contacting you soon so you can claim your prize! :)
Okay, y'all! It's time to share what you've been working on this week!
1. You can link finished projects or WIP's , but just keep it about quilting and sewing!
2. Link to your specific post (not to your home page!) to make it easier for others.
3. Please remember to spread the word and post my button or a text link.
4. Spread the comment love far and wide!
5. Following me is not a requirement to link, but is so very appreciated!
*If you're new to the party, here's a helpful tip for linking up- select "Auto Crop" when selecting your thumbnail photo. For some reason, trying to crop your own image results in the dreaded "white question mark box," and we definitely want to see your awesome work! :)