~ Dutch Delight Finished ~

 Every once in awhile a quilt comes along and I'm immediately swept off my feet.  Dutch Delight by Jill Finley is one of those quilts.  From the first time I laid eyes on her I knew I would make it as soon as I could get my hands on the pattern.  

She was introduced at the Spring Quilt Market this year.  Jill and her husband designed one of the cutest booths for market that won a award.  You can see her booth with all the quilts designed for her new Conservatory fabric on her website by clicking here.

It would have been nice to use her new line of fabric but I'm trying really hard to SIMPLY(my word of the year).  Simply means more than keeping thing simple.  It also means to use what I have if possible.  So I dug into the stash looking to recreate her color pallet as best I could.  You can see my fabric pull on a previous blog post by clicking here.

Since this quilt design had a fairly small amount of applique I decided to do turned edge applique instead of my go-to method of raw edge applique.  It would be nice to have the time(or the want to) to hand stitch the applique in place.  But honestly I don't like handwork.  So invisible machine applique is the next best thing.  It takes a quarter of the time and looks pretty close to the "real" thing.  Using Mono-Poly thread by Superior Threads is my secret to faking hand applique.  If you would like to see how I make my invisible machine applique click here.

Even with this speedy method I needed to take a break about halfway through stitching it into place.  Breaking one of my number one rules in the studio by bringing in my coffee.  The only rules in my studio are No Drinks, No food, No Pets.  Of course I was the only one home at the time so no one else knew but me and now you.   Shh...Don't tell Mr. Podunk, I run him out of here when her brings in a drink.

This quilt finishes at 64 x 64, a nice size throw quilt that is sure to be used often.  So I wanted to keep the quilting fairly light for a nice cuddly quilt.  I also wanted it to quilt quickly.  So I used the quilt piecing as my guide.  What does that mean?  It means very little marking, I just line up my quilt rulers with the seams or intersections (the orange dots below) of the piecing.  I did mark the long crosshatching (red arrow) because I felt it would be quicker to have them marked than to mess up and need to pick out stitches.

The binding is my favorite part of the quilting process.  It's so exciting to be on the home stretch to a completed quilt.  With this quilt I did what some call "a true quarter inch binding".  What this really means is it's a tiny binding that finishes 1/4" on the front and about 3/8" on the back, just enough to cover the stitches from stitching the binding down on the front of the quilt.  Most bindings are cut between 2" wide and 2.5" wide , the most common being 2.25" wide. (I rarely cut at 2.25).  For this binding I cut  1.5" wide strips.  Yep that's tiny, but it really isn't any harder than the larger widths.  Why would a quilter do this.  Various reasons I suppose.  I did it because this quilt doesn't have a border, so if the binding is too wide on the front it will cut off my points on the piecing.  And I like for my binding to be about the same size on the front and back of the quilt.  I made a chart for me to reference the different finished widths of binding.  You can find the free printable chart on a previous blog post by clicking here.  

She's so pretty.  I can't wait to get her washed and tossed over the back of my rocking chair.  The simplicity of this quilt is swoon worthy.  It was quick and easy, but so satisfying.  If you would like to make this quilt you can find it on Jill's website.  PDF pattern here.   And the mailed pattern here.  You can also find her Conservatory  line of fabric on her website.  Or buy them together as a kit here.  She has several of her quilt patterns kitted up and ready to ship.  Even if you don't want this quilt you should go check out her other quilts. She's an amazing designer with such a creative eye for applique.

Pulling from my stash was fun.  It gave me a chance to use some older fabrics that haven't seen the light of day in years.  Like this backing fabric, it's from the 1990's or at least that what I was told.  The blue on the label is another oldie fabric.  I'm not sure how old but I know it's over 10 yrs old because I purchased it 10 yrs ago at a local quilt show in a scrappy grab bag .

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