Finish Report! ~ "Fireflies in the Meadow"

I am so excited about this quilt, you guys. :D

This is almost a direct copy of Katie's quilt. When I saw her top, I was completely smitten, and not only did she not mind if I made one, too, she sent me a link of where to find the fabric. The fantastic fabric is from the collection "Wee Wander" by Sarah Jane, and I got it at Hawthorne Threads online. 

This was quilted with my desktop Viking Sapphire. And what else could I use for this quilt, but glow-in-the-dark thread?? It's FANTASTIC! I was quite surprised at how nicely it shows up at night. (I'm still trying to figure out how to get the camera to show that to you.)

I put in a large-scale meander on the center portion, wanting to keep this super snuggly. It's very difficult to keep that nicely spaced on a table-top machine, so I put in some wandering lines with water-soluble markers and white ceramic pencil on the darker blue rows. Here and there, I drew in a firefly.

The border fabric is nothing short of wonderful with the fun scenes of children hunting fireflies at dusk, and brings back memories of magical times playing in clouds of these intriguing insects during childhood trips to my cousins' in Pennsylvania and Aunt in New Jersey, as well as my own children's gleeful amazement running around with jars in hand at Grandma's in Nebraska. We've never lived where they flourish, so it's a rare treat in our own lives. 

The grass and children were quilted with the glow-in-the-dark thread, but I switched to matching blues of 50wt Aurifil for the outer border. Wanting to keep with the more-open scale of the inside, I simply followed logical lines through the different bush and tree areas, and did what I call a "lazy evening air" meander in the sky.

Before I got there, though, I did the kids and the grass. This is what the first pass created:

Isn't she adorable??  You can see that the line of grass is quilted much denser than the rest of the quilt. It didn't look bad at all like this, but it *did* make a collapsing point around the quilt in the narrow gap between the grass and the ditch-stitching around the center. So I made one last pass to put in a line of clover, mushrooms, and fern buds in that gap:

That solved the problem very nicely, and didn't make an unsightly pull in the quilt like I worried before I started that extra fill. I think that's because the outer and inner scales balance each other, and the flannel backing I used gives it enough "oomph" on either side. It was just that narrow fenced-in band that had a problem.

By the way - here's that backing. Isn't it perfect for this quilt?? It's from the Riley Blake "Oh Boy" collection.And those horses are probably my favorite part of the quilt. No, the border is. No, the horses are. . .   ;D (And why are these photos dropping the Lightbox "fixing" I did so you'd see the colors just right? Everything looks a little muddy. It's not at all in real life! That's a beautiful almost-mint green in that flannel.)

I ended up deciding to do something to make my copy a little different from Katie's, so I off-set the picture blocks. The frames, as well as the main binding color, came from the center portion of the double-edged border fabric. Love the fussy cut vignettes!

I used the faux piped binding method on this quilt, more so that I could do it all by machine than for a design decision, but it looks great.

Trimming the edges to do that was a bit of an adventure, though. I had two "helpers" that Would. Not. stop diving into it! (And here you see the colors properly.)

This quilt was on my Q1 goal sheet for the 2015 Finish Along. It was also my March goal for A Lovely Year of finishes, and it's a WONDER that I got it finished in time with all the wedding prep flooding us right now. 



I made the top last August. The meadow behind the house was so lush at that time from the summer's record rainfall!

One last look at it finished:

Quilt Stats:

"Fireflies in the Meadow"

              70.5 x 78.5 inches

100% cotton fabrics from the Sarah Jane "Wee Wander" collection

Backing: whole-piece 100% cotton flannel from the Riley Blake "Oh Boy" collection

Batting: Hobbs 80/20 Cotton/Poly Heirloom batting

Design adapted from Katie Mae Quilts "Catching Fire(flies)" quilt

All construction and table-top free-motion quilting done by Lynette Caulkins

Pieced August 2014, Quilted March 2015 in Monument, Colorado

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Linking up at:

Sew BitterSweet Designs Lovely Year of Finishes

Fabric Tuesday

Free Motion Mavericks

Can I get a Whoop! Whoop!

Link-a-Finish Friday

TGIFF, which is at Quokka Quilts this week
 (main site here)