TGIFF - Finish Report! "Ruffled Roses" - my best UFO ever, and February OMG

Hello!  Welcome to this week's Thank Goodness It's Finished Friday hosting!

This is where you can link up your finishes that you're excited/relieved/proud about! Show us your finished quilt, or complicated quilt top, or even a full set of intricate blocks that took you forever to do!

We appreciate your including a link to this event in the post that you're sharing, and when you link up, don't forget to use the URL for your particular post page, not the general URL for your blog/photo set.  :)



I am super excited to share my finished UFO, "Ruffled Roses," by Sue Garman, as it has been in the works for quite a long time. (I will edit this for a full-face shot of the quilt as soon as weather permits me to get it outside with holder-uppers.)

This was the 2011 Block of the Month quilt at The Quilt Show. I purchased their kit, because the spring colors appealed to me during my winter shopping. It started out that fall as a very long-term project in my hand applique tote. In February 2013, it went onto my BOM work rotation and the piecing got monthly attention, until the top was finished in February 2015. 

At that point, it was hung in the Quilt Top Closet until whichever time came first: My turn with a master longarmer, or I got my own longarm and felt ready to work on this. I'm really glad the line was too long to beat out my acquisiton, because quilting this up for my first 2019 UFO was supremely satisfying.  It took just under 87 intense hours. I needed a good 2 week break completely away from it after that, but yesterday I got the binding attached and all stitched down, keeping its track record of significant stages culminating in Februaries. For some reason, that quite tickles me.

By the way, this is my February 2019 project for the Elm Street Quilts OMG challenge!  
And I'm so excited about this finish, I'm linking up at Show Off Saturday, and Tish's UFO Busting, as well.

This is my best quilt that I've made so far. And I admit that I'm quite sad that it's leaving me. Last year, I promised my mother-in-law her choice of quilt tops in the closet to quilt up for her, and she chose this one. At least I know it's going to a great home where it 
won't be abused.  :)   


Most of the quilting comes from my own ideas, but the curved crosshatches and feather work encircling the baskets was a study of the work in those borders that Lisa Sipes did in 2012 on this Ruffled Roses: 

For the rest of the work, I knew I wanted to put a good bit of McTavishing on this quilt - for the applique background in the center, corner, and swag border areas, as well as for the basket backgrounds. 

I knew I wanted to try out some pumpkin seed work, which fit into the on-point round.

I knew I wanted to quilt feathers and roses that mimed the applique roses in the big central setting triangles that had so much untouched yellow. I actually quilted curved crosshatching in the first corner to reflect the curved cross hatching in the outer white border of the quilt, but it didn't look as great in the design as I wanted it to (with the nearby straight diagonals of the trellis round), so I spent almost 2 hours picking it out so I could switch to this straight crosshatching!

I had to think about what I wanted to do in the green border with the big purple dots - wanted something to tie those dots in a little better, so I tried this paisley-and-roses approach in a thicker variegated thread. I wasn't sure what I was going to think of the contrasting thread (pinks, purples, etc.) - but I love the effect!!  Particularly once I put in the figure-8s in the thin bands along either side. 

Roses got quilted into the outer piano-key colored border, as well, with meandering leaves filling in the rest. I had pressed all those seams open, so ditch work in each "key" wasn't an option. I really love the roses and vines, anyway, better than I probably would have liked the SID effect on this particular quilt.

I started marking roses into the trellis border, but they didn't completely float my boat, so I put some daisies in, instead. 

I needed something to tame down the big dark purple hearts in four of the applique blocks, so I came up with some detail work that I kind of reflected in the open hearts in the swag border corners. I also put some motifs with hearts or flowers in some of the large basket areas that needed "something" to break up their expanses. 

There are a lot of quilting themes on this quilt, but I tried to keep it cohesive by having each theme reflected somewhere. Some things were more successful than others, but overall, it came out wonderful!

The last border for me to figure out was the swags. I didn't know how I was going to quilt them until after everything else was done, including their McTavish background. I drew tons of ideas out on my overlay sheets, tried and picked out a couple, and finally stumbled on feathers for the top green and a sort of ruffle-miming approach for the bottom green. That one made me happy.

This was all done with double batting - Hobbs Premium Washable Wool on top of Hobbs Heirloom 80/20. I used all kinds of threads in about eight different colors - mostly So Fine and Monopoly, with that Superior Rainbow thread thrown in. Usually I change the bobbin color out to match the top thread, but with the double batt and the mostly-pastels threads on top, I kept with my white SuperBob prewound bobbins the entire way through. They worked wonderfully for all the top threads. Went through 28 bobbins on this baby. And that's a thin thread! Can't imagine how many MagnaGlides it would have used. . . 

~*~*~

So, now it's your turn!  Link up with a finish you would like to share, and enjoy a few moments browsing what others are celebrating! 

TGIFF Link-Up for February 28, 2019:

Inlinkz Link Party