Barbara's Quilt Finished

A little late to sharing, but yay!  Barbara's quilt is finished and by now should have made its way home.  :)  I had so much fun quilting this - and I know I say that frequently but I really do love my job, and I really DO enjoy quilting quilt tops up for folks!

Barbara had been concerned that her top might be too plain for fancy quilting - I'm so glad she decided to send it along despite that concern.  The truth is, for most of us machine quilters who do a lot of custom work, the simply pieced tops are our FAVORITE.  The ones that have a lot of negative space give us the most opportunity for creativity.

Barbara sent along a few photos of quilting she had see online and requested something with a similar feeling.  I can at times recreate quilting, but often times it works best for me to see a photograph of what you like and then create something new and fresh but with a similar feeling or style.  So that is what we did here.  Because the photo she sent was a tad difficult to draw directly on I opted to recreate her blocks and share with her my ideas for each section of the quilt.

 

I almost always ask for the tiniest bit of creative freedom even when a mock up is approved.  Just like any plan, sometimes ideas look better on paper than in reality.  Or, what happens more often with my work, is that I think up little details to improve on a design as I'm working.  Sometimes those little gems are what really set that quilting design off.

Barbara requested two layers of my Hobbs 80/20 batting.  For most show quilts I like to use wool layered over Hobbs, but I find that 80/20 in double layers quilts up very nice too.  Wool is slightly lighter and has a filling quality that 80/20 doesn't.

I used Glide in the top and Bottom Line in the bobbin.  I do love this combination for appropriate quilts.  As a general rule I prefer a fine top thread for dense quilting - but this quilt in particular has dense and medium/light areas of quilting and I wanted the heavier thread to compensate in those areas with less quilting to give it a more even feeling.

All in all I am very please with how this one turned out!  I think I always spot a few things with each quilt that I will do slightly different on the next...but I still think it turned out quite drool worthy!  :)