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Thursday, October 9, 2014

Flimsy Alert! ~ "Lori & Aliya"

This is my first commission quilt - I'm not at a point in time yet where I'm ready to take those on in any regularity, but when a friend that good asks, you see if you can do it.  :) 



A fantastic friend from our Florida days wants a red and white quilt with gray minkee backing that features quilting of cameos of her super-cool German shepherd, Aliya. So we used Pinterest to find a design she liked, and we settled on the "Metro Hoops" pattern, with a uniform red background instead of the two-tone.




I ended up constructing this top differently from the pattern, because I wanted the cameo fields to be seam-free, and the diamond pops of the black print to be one piece instead of four corners sewn together. I also wanted a larger size than the 3x3 grid would yield.



It wasn't terribly hard to figure out how to work it - that Quick Curve Ruler is awesome! I just made curve bars to insert with squares of background and accent. The worst part was getting my history-writing saturated brain to work the math reliably to upsize the rings.

I have to say, if you are happy with the modern wedding ring shape and want/need to piece a top in much greater speed than the tradition wedding ring pieces let you do, this ruler is a FANTASTIC way to go. 


 

The fabrics were fun to work with since they have a modern pop to them, despite the atypical red background. Technology is awesome, since camera photos make it easy to share findings with a distant commissionee to see what they do and don't like!

I actually finished the top in something like early August, when I had zero time for non-academic writing. Now I'm finally getting to its report. Lori asked if we can wait a few months before doing the quilting so she can save up for the custom job, which fits perfectly with my quilting time/priorities at the moment. Sometime in January I'll start on that part. I'll put different cameos of Aliya inside the nine rings, developed from photographs that Lori's been taking. I'm not certain yet what I'll put in the spaces between the rings, but her paw prints will be worked into the quilting of the outer edge areas. I extended the background beyond the rings (another departure from the Metro Hoops pattern) to give space for that and to make a little more snuggling room under the nine rings.


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15 comments:

  1. Your top looks wonderful!! I love the boldness of the rings against the red. I'm always impressed by what that ruler can do.

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  2. Your friend must be thrilled! This quilt looks amazing and it's great that it's so personalised. I'll look forward to that paw print quilting :)

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  3. Wow! I didn't know the Quilt Curve Ruler could be used like this -- very cool! Great colours, Lyn! Your friend is very lucky -- this looks beautiful so far and I can just picture it with the quilting -- fabulous!

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  4. This is gorgeous! Way to go. I need to try out the QCR the patterns are so pretty

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  5. Fabulous and congrats! I love the curves!

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  7. It is beautiful!! I am starting my first commission quilt too.....it is sure a lot more effort than just going with whatever catches my eye!!
    Great job!

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  8. This is fabulous! Love the colors, the piecing is brilliant. Nice work!

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  9. such a different look from the pattern. I like it.

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  10. How cool! So glad you tried and liked the QCR. I love it too, and have a third project in the works. Come February, I'll be teaching three patterns using the QCR. The quilting for your commission quilt sounds challenging, but I have no doubt you'll nail it perfectly.

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  11. That is a gorgeous quilt. And I love the changes you made. I have that ruler, so your version is going on my to do list. Thanks!

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  12. LOVE! LOVE! LOVE! Very clever piecing for the cameos I might add! I am like you.........I don't do commissions unless it is for someone very special!

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  13. That is very clever piecing Lynn, it sounds time consuming but the results are great. Red makes nice pop of color, can't wait to see the finished quilt, I am having trouble visualizing it.

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