Crowing?

Here are some photos of the quilt I completed for DQS10.

The circles start at 1/2in and increase in 1/8in increments up to about 2in, then increase in 1/4in increments to the largest circle (the white wholecloth circle) which is 4 1/2in. They were positioned by eye, and the lines across the circles all radiate from a point at the centre of the spiral (which is not the centre of the actual quilt, because that would have made the whole quilt look out of balance).

Fabrics come from Patty Young (Flora & Fauna), Sandi Henderson (Farmer's Market), Chez Moi (Swanky, I think), Valori Wells (Nest), Heather Bailey (I think Freshcut and Pop Garden) and Amy Butler (no idea!), plus a couple of coordinating tone-on-tones. Some of the tiny quilting patterns are my own, traditional or adaptations, and a couple came from here.

I've tentatively named it 'Crowing' - a nod to my mother's maiden name and the black birds, and because I'm rather proud of myself for successfully using and combining so many techniques on this quilt - foundation piecing, hand applique, mahcine applique, piping, machine quilting and, for the first time, trapunto.

But I'm having major second thoughts about this being my actual swap quilt. I love it, and it has received plenty of lovely comments in the Flickr swap group, but with the amount of time and effort put into this one, I need to be sure the recipient will love it too. So I'm currently playing with new designs and weighing up my options.

The photo above was taken in direct sunshine at quite an angle, to really emphasise the texture of the quilting - it doesn't 'really' look like this!

Trapunto is where an extra layer of batting is inserted in some places on the quilt, prior to quiting, to make them stand out. Each circle is trapuntoed. This post shows a little of how the trapunto was done.

Once I'd added the extra batting under the circles, I quilted the white and colour wholecloth circles. But when I was done, the dense quilting flattened it too much, and I added a second extra circle of batting under these three circles before sandwiching the quilt as usual.

Each pieced circle is quilted closely around the circle and in the ditch along the piecing lines.

To make them match, the wholecloth circles are the same, with the final quilting around the circle and along the lines between the different quilting patterns.

I should have added the black bird appliques prior to sandwiching as well, but I admit I forgot! So I unpicked the quilting along the lines on those three circles (to let the birds sit flat and smooth), and appliqued the birds by machine, using a tiny blanket stitch - unfortunately this now shows on the back, but looks perfect on the front. Then I requilted the lines around the bird.

The birds were all drawn by hand, and given my lack of drawiung ability, I'm very pleased with them. They are all different, but have matching tails

The background of the quilt is McTavished using wahite Bottomline thread (the coloured wholecloth circles are done it Aurifil cotton mako 50). The quilt is finished with narrow black piping attached to the binding, which uses carefully-selected strips from a diagonal zig-zag stripe fabric.

So now the question is whether or not I send this one away - or squeeze another quilt into my tight schedule? It has a hanging sleeve attached, and needs a decision before I can print the label. I'm running out of time, with a posting deadline of next Friday.