Tuesday, April 13, 2010

An order

On my sewing room's new whiteboard, purchased to help me remember monthly goals, there is an edict for the month of April stating "Erica's quilt only--start to finish!" written by none other than herself.  Seeing as how she just picked out the last piece of fabric for the top on Sunday last, I'm pretty sure that task will be spilling over into May quite a ways.  The pattern Erica chose is from the Fall/Winter 2009 Quilt Sampler magazine, called Material Matters  (photo link from Honey Run Quilter's shop website), which included dupioni silk for the triangle squares around large four patches, and velvteen for the border and binding--very luxurious!  The magazine quilt had very modern splashy big prints from the Free Spirit line called Tree Top Fancy, with dark chcolate for the silk and velveteen.   Erica is a more traditional girl so we picked out lots of 1/3 yard pieces from designer lines including Primrose Inn and Collections for a Cause, with a couple from Eva.  Later we picked out the cream background at another quilt shop.  Still later, after a fruitless search at several more stores for the right color of dupioni and velveteen, we ended up at JoAnn's fabrics where we found an upholstery level "suede" in a pretty purple.  Erica didn't find a silk she liked so she went back to a previously visited shop where she picked up the dupioni in a coppery shade.  We played around with the layout of the squares and this was my fave:

 But my girl has her own mind and she liked this one below best:


The four-patches will have triangle squares around them as a whole, then the single squares at the compass points will have triangle squares all around.  Luxurious suede will border the center along with a row of flying geese in silk as an inner border.  I have never worked with either dupioni silk or the suede so this will be all new to me!   The instructions call for washing/drying the dupioni and then adhering a fusible woven stabilizer before cutting the pieces.  I believe there will still be lots of shedding while handling this hybrid, however.  Cutting directions were easy for the large squares we laid out, but a bit daunting for the background and silk--many many squares in two different sizes.  Yet I am looking forward to the challenge of working with these new fabrics. I haven't quite spent what the kit costs from the website, but it seems it will be close by the time the backing fabric is added...but she's worth it, I swear! 

5 comments:

*karendianne. said...

What variety and interest and FUN! This one will be a real blast to watch you work with. I'm looking forward to sharing this process with you. (and dear Erica, too as she's surely to be afoot)

A special, shared, Annie & Erica quilt to love, *karendianne.

Unknown said...

This looks like it will be a beautiful quilt. How wonderful that you will have the memories to go along with it. I love dupioni silk, although I have never quilted with it. Only used it for curtains and crazy quilting. Good luck. Can't wait to see your progress.

julieQ said...

Oh, pretty...I will be watching to see how the silk works for you.

Pokey said...

Of course she is worth it!
Regarding buying kits, I remember the shocked look on our friend Jerry's face, I made the comment, I like to make my own from scratch instead of a kit. He agreed with my reasoning of it being uniquely my own, but was shocked when I said, besides, I pick more prints, so there is more leftovers, so my sewing room is stuffed and I've spent more on it than the kit-!
It's is usually true....

Tanya said...

Smart girl!! I need to get a whiteboard in my sewing room too. Good thing my daughter isn't close enough to write on it.

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