Friendship's Garden Quilt

I just finished this quilt. I had so much fun putting it all together I wanted to share the process with you.

First I want you to know that I can't take credit for the embroidery in the blocks. My friend Holly from Quilter's Cove had one of her employees do the stitching. She was going to put them together and never got around to doing that so she passed them on to me. I've had them for a couple months but finally had the time to assemble the quilt.

I tried a few different fabrics for the sashing. It was kind of like Goldilocks. I thought I had the perfect green. When I actually sewed the sashing between the blocks in the first row, I hated it. It was too bright. I toyed with black but it just didn't fit with the cheery blocks. Next I tried red. It matched the red in the blocks, but it came out too dark. Most of the cornerstone fabrics didn't show up and I wanted to add that extra sparkle of color. Finally I tried the pink. I thought it was way too much pink, but when I actually sewed the sashing into that first row, I really liked it. That was the winner. However, I didn't like that it was a solid fabric. It was a little too plain.

Section of Plain Pink Sashing

I recently saw the book "Doodle Quilting" by Cheryl Malkowski on SewCalGal's Blog. I bought a copy right away because I knew it would come in handy for the Santa Portrait Trio quilt I'm working on. I found the perfect way to incorporate some of the "doodles" in the book into the sashing to break up all that solid pink.

I chose to do a combination of leaves, circles and flowers as the quilting motif for the sashing. Instead of choosing a pink thread that would blend into the sashing, I chose to do the quilting in green. I wanted it to look like a printed fabric rather than a solid. Here's  what one of the sashing strips looks like quilted.

Sashing with the Quilting

After I had done a good part of the quilting, I got really excited. I had achieved the look I was going for. It was pink with an added splash of color and texture. Don't you just love when that happens?

Partially Quilted

Here's what a small portion of it looks like from the back.

 I added yellow for the binding to give it a little more color and sparkle. Here's the finished quilt.

Finished Friendship's Garden Quilt

I'm really pleased with the way it turned out. I'd love to know what you think. 

Happy Quilting and Stitching,

Carol

New Bolts of Fabric

It has been awhile since I have had a chance to go "bolt" shopping. While we were on the way to Puyallup, WA for the Northwest Quilt, Craft & Sewing Festival this weekend, we stopped at the EE Schenck warehouse. This was my first trip to that facility, and it definitely won't be my last. It is 80,000 square feet of fabric, notions, batting, books, and patterns. All I was interested in was fabric, and believe me that was overwhelming in itself. I'm glad that was all I had to worry about.

EE Schenck Warehouse in Portland, OR

I was looking for some fabric to finish up a couple models for our booth. I wanted some to have on hand to use in future samples and some just to sell as 1 yard cuts.

I knew I would have limited time, both because I needed to get to Puyallup and because Alan has a limited amount of patience for things like this. He doesn't get as excited being around all those gorgeous fabrics as the rest of us do. So I went online before we got there. Found the fabrics I was interested in  and made a list. Once I got there I found out that it doesn't really work that way. That just means they carry those fabrics. They might not be in stock. So my great plan went out the window. With rows and rows of fabric to now look at I was BRIEFLY overwhelmed. Then I took a couple deep breaths and started walking the aisles.

I found things that I knew were perfect right away. I grabbed those. Made notes of things that I thought would work. Things that I added to a "Wish List"for later. 

I also had to audition fabrics to finish up my Friendships Garden Quilt. Here are a couple pictures of that process. I think I finally got the winning combination but I was so busy writing down the SKUs and other information that I forgot to take a picture. 

Option 1

Option 2

I'm still thinking about it though. At first I thought the red was overpowering, now I'm not so sure. There is red in the blocks and it is just going to be in some of the cornerstones of the sashing. So maybe it isn't as out of place as I originally thought. What do you think? Leave me your suggestions in a comment.

I'll finalize the fabrics for Friendships Garden this weekend. Then I'll order them after Thanksgiving. I'll get to work on them right away so I can get the quilt finished during my break between Thanksgiving and the second week of January. Fortunately the blocks are all done. All I have to do is assemble the quilt top, quilt and bind it.

Here are the fabrics that I came away with yesterday.

I'll cut some of these up tonight and they will be for sale in the booth tomorrow. I'll put them on the website after the show.

Happy Quilting,

Carol