My Favorite Quilt

So have you made a favorite quilt?  I've several that I love, and most of them I gave away.  But this one...

Hands down this is my favorite quilt made so far. 

 I call her Summer Romance.

Before going any farther let me tell you what this is all about and invite everyone to join in the fun, there's prizes!  

I'm linking up with Sew Mama Sew for the My Favorite Quilt Series

Part of the link up is to give a little info on the quilt.  

So let get to it...

Summer Romance was designed for the Iron Quilter Challenge by Missouri Star quilt.  We're all familiar with Jenny and her wonderful contributions to the online quilting community.   

I purchased the maximum allowed Summer Breeze charm packs from their site and started designing.  

The center medallion is actually part of a pattern called "65 Roses".  The pattern was to be enlarged 200 %.  Leaving it at book size and doing the math for shrinking everything smaller then designed my own applique borders.  If you follow me on a regular basis you know that I'm a project jumper.  It's something I've learned to live with and just go with the flow.  So ....I didn't meet the deadline for the quilt contest.  Frustration set in and I shoved it to the back of the to-do list for a few months.  Until one day the inspiration hit to finish.

Knowing that with so much white space the quilting needed to be extra special.  So the actual planning for the quilting took just as long as the piecing.  You'll see these little birds(below)  a couple times in the quilting.  They were designed by Wendy Sheppard at Ivory Springs .   Tweaking her design just a bit to make it fit my quilt.  I was tickled pink when she featured my quilt on HER blog!  After sharing it with Wendy, several people thought I should enter it in a show.   Maybe someday.  For now I'm happy with sharing it with my bloggy friends.

This quilt is where I fell in love with 100 wt thread.  Backtracking is invisible and the thread just melts into the fabric...LOVE IT!  In making the quilt I learned that detail is important.  And when you have so much detail mistakes get over looked by the on lookers.  (You'll see 3 stitching errors in this post, but please don't look for them ;)   I also learned that a super simple quilt design can become a WOW just by adding detailed stitching.  With all the positive learning experiences on this quilt you  know there's always one negative. I learned yellow quilting chalk pencil embeds in the quilt fibers when stitched over.  Several washings and soaks to remove the hideous chalk that found it's way to the trash can.  

It was the first and the last time micro stippling.  It was so intense and used such fine motor skills that I could only quilt about a 2 inch square at a time before needing a break.  

The hand applique roses were also a learning experience, quilting around them isn't easy on a longarm.

Another reason why it's my favorite is because it's just as pretty on the back as it is on the front.  Currently this quilt is displayed on the spare bedroom bed.  Every few weeks I flip it over and display the other side for awhile.  

Would I make it again?  The thought has crossed my mind, but I'm not sure I could find another group of fabrics that would work as well as the Summer Breeze.

And I just can't bring myself to do micro stippling again!

~ Lea Anne ~

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