Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Jacobean Floral meets Lone Star and Beyond

Over the years I have learned that when a quilt lands on the back of the table for a prolonged period of time, there is a reason.  Something about the quilt just isn't fitting right, maybe it is one of the fabrics or a block just doesn't come together or maybe the direction is all wrong.  When I find one of those pesky quilts just waiting to be finished, I now put it up on the wall so I can study it.  Once I figure out what bothers me about the quilt I can make a decision on how to fix it.

Sometimes my solution is to finish the quilt and give it away as fast as possible so I don't have to see it anymore.  Other times I write notes on what I can do to fix the issues and put the whole thing in a box for future assembly - maybe more than I want to take on right now.  Generally though, if I have figured out what needs to be changed I will de-construct the quilt to the point where I can make my changes and then complete the quilt.

I still have to wash and block this hanging but it is looking pretty good.
This photo is from below eye level which is causing distortion

This Lone Star and Beyond quilt hanging is one of those quilts.  I took the class from Jan Krentz in 2003 at the Minnesota Quilt Show in St Paul.  It was a great class and a fabulous technique for doing a Lone Star.  I actually had the whole quilt pieced before the end of the year and loved the way the colors played out.  I had bought all of the batiks at Glad Creations and really expected it to be a much brighter quilt since each of the fabrics was bright - at least for a batik.  I planned to put the star on black setting squares to make it really pop but realized that the batiks have a gray undertone and just "died" on the black.  Fortunately Fossil Ferns were big that year and one of the vendors at the show had the perfect moss green for the setting square.

I knew that I wanted to applique a design into the 8 setting squares and working off the fabrics in the star, I thought a large grape cluster in each square would complement the quilt.  I found a number of different patterns and merged them into a design I thought would work.  Using the same purples, blues and red-pinks from the star I was building the quilt one square at a time.  When I had 2 of the squares completed the quilt moved to the back of the table under untold other fabric.  Off and on over the years I tried to complete the quilt but never got the third square done much less the other 5 squares.

I have thought about the quilt over the years.  Every year it would make it on the list of quilts I really should finish but no progress until February of this year.  I realized that the problem I was having with the quilt was the grape cluster design.  I starting thinking about different designs I have used and seen in books and magazines when I ran across my copy of Pat Campbell's Jacobean Romantica.  This whimsical design of flowing flowers was exactly what I wanted.  I quickly, but very carefully, removed all of the applique I had already completed.  Because the quilt had not been completed the original fabrics were still together in a project box so I was off to the races.

The quilt was started in 2003 and languished until 2010 looking for a purpose.  Once I found my answer for the applique it took me just 6 months to complete the applique and only 2 days to machine quilt the wall hanging.  It now hangs in my front entry and I love it.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

This is gorgeous!
Diana