Emerging

This is another quilt that I never got around to blogging once it was finished, although I did show plenty of progress photos. I made Emerging for FLiQS2; an invitation-only quilt swap. I'm currently (and reluctantly) sitting out round 3, because I have so much to do. The two separate commissions for bed-size beach scene quilts I've recently added to my list just confirm that was the right decision.

My basic design concept came from merging several of my partner's likes, although I changed quite a bit of the way I constructed it as I went. I hadn't actually planned for it to be completely wholecloth, but it works  better this way.

It took a lot of drawing and re-drawing to get the tree roots just right, but I love the way they turned out, and they really sing quilted in silver holographic thread (Superior Glitter - my favourite for the metallic effect).

The background is dense filelr quilting in gradating colours. I'm originally meant to have several more colours and more rings, but it came down to thread choices, and these were best. It also meant that I could move the outer feather ring further out, beyond the branches. In my sketches, the feathers (unintentionally) went through the tree branches, which would have been a pain to quilt, and not visually effective - the feathers would have been broken and distracted form the branches.

My first sketches also called for filler quilting inside the trees and between the roots, but after quilting the trees, I decided against the fill - it wasn't necessary.

Once the quilt was bound, I felt it was missing something, and quilted a line of charcoal glitter thread in the ditch of the binding, but it didn't really show, so I picked a brighter glitter thread and using a hand sewing needle, I threaded it through the charcoal stitches, going through about every 3rd stitch.

I'd originally planed for the birds to be appliqued, but after the trees were quilted, I wanted them to be the feature, so I quilted the birds, too. I used lighter threads for these than in the rest of the quilt, and quilted around each one twice. I'd probably prefer them slightly darker, and in hindsight wouldn't have chosen yellow for the third one, but they work well.

Oh, and by the way, the red backing fabric took at least 9 wash cycles - luckily I didn't have much other washing to do!