Pages

Friday, February 20, 2015

Finish Report! ~ "Jovial Trees"

Woohoo!



I'm so in love with this quilt. Like: Seriously! And adding to the happiness is the crossing-off of a UFO from 2013 and the fulfillment of my February Lovely-Year-of-Finishes goal.




The dimensionality on this is marvelous with all the 3D parts, the fabric feels so nice, the 80/20 cotton/poly batt has a perfect drape inside that fairly-dense quilting . . .  Who cares that Christmas has been put away for quite some time?   ;D



I don't have a full-on shot, yet, of the finished quilt. I'll get that in a couple of days and insert it here. We're supposed to get 18" of snow starting tomorrow, so I'm waiting for that blanket of beauty to form before going outside for a photo op. Too bad I'm not ambitious enough to pull the reindeer back out and set them up, too - that'd be pretty, but this flimsy shot is going to have to be enough for that idea:



This quilt is from the free pattern, "Jovial," put out by Moda in 2011. I bought the kit made from the Basic Grey fabric collection, Jovial. I didn't get enough of the blue-based reindeer yardage for the backing, so it's framed with some coordinating Grunge yardage of red. LOVE THE EFFECT! Just perfect for the quilt.  It measures 75 x 75" after the quilting, which pulled up two inches from its 77 x 77 measurement as a flimsy. (So don't forget about that effect if you're ever making a quilt for a very specific dimension.)  



All the quilting was done on my Viking Sapphire, in a combination of walking foot and free motion work with the spring-action foot. When I started doing the quilting on this, you may remember that I decided to do something about the free-flying 3D trees, as the pocket in this shot catching a spool I'd dropped made it clear to me that this intended sofa-snuggler would get repeatedly ripped by feet catching those pockets! 



I'm super happy with the cathedral-window type approach I used. I stitched those flaps down as I did the quilting, with curved pop-out edges. I used a fine-gauged blanket stitch for that, and switched to straight stitches on each tree to finish its outline at the base and trunk. 



Everything else was done with free-motion work. On the border, I just ran parallel squiggle lines outward by following the edges of the bubbles in the print. You can see here that I just used the border print for the binding. It disappears on the front (and truthfully, this design doesn't need further framing), but it's a very nice edging on the back.



In the center, I wanted to make meandering "wind" that was blowing around everything. I guess it's a McTavishing adaptation of sorts, and I think it was quite successful! 



As I came to each spinner, I ran a straight line close to the heavy edge to give a nice definition as well as to stabilize the bulky seams underneath. Worked like a charm. They all lay down properly now, and the flaps look perky without rebelling against their placement.



My wind-work execution is not particularly refined, like I dream of it being, but there are no tension problems nor messy nests. 






And on a quilt that's fun in a whimsical, almost-folksy way, the amateur form is right at home. It won't be long before I get the feel of the McTavishing family of fills in my hands for very smooth, evenly-paced and attractively arranged results. :) 



I really love the effect of the unquilted trees on the back:




Navarre thinks I made this quilt for him. It was so difficult to catch some shots today, as he kept doing the kitty-ski maneuver under, into, and through it!



The amazing thing is that the camera was actually able to capture him in focus one time:




I'm going to keep this quilt out for another week and enjoy it through the snow-in before I put it away until next year. It's highly unusual for me to work on a Christmas quilt outside of the late-Nov thru New Year's range, but I'd really wanted this one finished this winter, and when you have a tussle with cancer, you just get to do whatever you want with your quilts.  ;D





~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Linking up at:

21 comments:

  1. I absolutely love your quilt! Your work is impeccable. The 3 dimensional part of this quilt is so fun!Great free motion quilting designs too!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Beautiful! I love the texture created by the 3D shapes and quilting. www.quiltartbymegan.com

    ReplyDelete
  3. What a super fun quilt!! I love the 3d elements and the quilting looks like snow blowing around. Congratulations on a great finish!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Wow! Your quilting definitely looks like wind. Great job, especially on those trees.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Gorgeous finish...love everything about this Christmas quilt...and since there is lots of snow on the way...you definitely need to have it hanging out with you for a while! I was catching up on blog reading today...always drawn toward Sue Garman's Star Crazy. I'm going to enjoy watching that one come along.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I think this turned out much better than the original, it's really wonderful. I'd consider it a winter quilt and keep it out until spring if for no other reason than Navarre's love for it :)

    ReplyDelete
  7. Great finish Lyn! I love all your improvements - the 'cathedral trees' are perfect. You are so creative!

    ReplyDelete
  8. An amazing beauty! Love it all, but especially your swirly wind quilting which just adds so much to the effect.

    ReplyDelete
  9. You're darn right that you get to do what you want to Lynn! I'm in love with this sweet quilt and all it's wonderful details! Most of all I love the wind swirling around the trees and pinwheels. Terrific job in every way!
    Navarre is way too cute!

    ReplyDelete
  10. This is really really cool. Love the 3D! :)

    ReplyDelete
  11. A gorgeous quilt - love how you tamed but kept the 3-D effects. Tussle with cancer?? I hope it is behind you. Blessings!

    ReplyDelete
  12. Congratulations on your beautiful finish! I LOVE the quilting you did on it! Glad everything checked out fine for you as well!

    ReplyDelete
  13. Oh, Lyn your Jovial quilt finish is so lovely. I never knew that quilt pattern had all those 3D elements. Your quilting is beyond amazing. Thanks for sharing and linking up with TGIFF.

    ReplyDelete
  14. It's gorgeous, I love the way yuo handled the 3d parts and the trees look great the way you've quilted them. Perfect wind effect too!

    ReplyDelete
  15. Lyn, Not only is this quilt totally fun-packed, it is also a technical triumph - so many processes, not least the wonderful quilting!

    Thank you for linking up with Free Motion Mavericks!

    Love, Muv

    ReplyDelete
  16. I know I am very late in this post and I do hope you see it. This quilt is lovely! Do you know where I can get the pattern? Thank you!!

    ReplyDelete
  17. I love this quilt! You did an amazing job on it! Is the pattern still available?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I’m looking for this pattern, too! Any luck finding it?

      Delete
  18. I would love to know how you made the trees and the spinners. It’s not the typical quilt.

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for stopping by! I answer each comment via email. Sometimes, though, the system fails to notify me that a comment has been left, and if you are a "No-Reply" commentor, I cannot respond. Also, I apologize for having to block anonymous users - too much uncivil spam was coming through to leave the comments completely open.