Finish Report! ~ Marissa's Home Quilt ~

 Yesterday I finished the binding for Marissa's wedding quilt:

Pattern is Kim Diehl's "Journey's End," fabrics are her "Katie's Cupboard" collection. 
65 x 65 inches, Hobbs Heirloom 80/20 batting

I love doing custom quilting. Usually, the fancier the better, as far as I'm concerned. Once in a while, though - Less is More. 

I'd intended to do some roofing and siding lines in the houses, and then some fill work in the background of the blocks. However, when I started doing that with one of them, it detracted from the quilt instead of enhancing it. The houses are very busy with the dozens of different prints and the piecework of the blocks in them. Putting more quilting in mushed things together rather than highlighting them. So . . . I stuck with "just" stitch-in-the-ditch on the blocks with one 1/8-inch echo around the windows. That simple work did a lot to bring out the features in the houses, so that the center of the quilt no longer melted into itself.

On the sashing, I simply ran lines straddling the thin stripes in the fabric print. Looks great!

In the border, I wanted the white bricks to stand out better than they did before the quilting. To highlight those, I threw in some continuous-curve quilting, then I ran some fun leaves-and-vine-curls free-motion style through the colored bricks, treating them as one field on either side of the white bricks.

I loved this teal print from the collection, so I'd bought enough to make the whole backing with it, and the binding frames the quilt with the same fabric as the sashing.

I'm very happy with how the quilting enhanced this top. It felt a little too busy for its own good beforehand, but the subtle-yet-effective strategies in quilting brought it up to its full potential. It's a great scrappy quilt with a wonderful old-timey heart-is-where-the-home-is feel.

Marissa surprised me by choosing this quilt top for her special quilt. I didn't expect the reproduction fabrics and highly traditional pattern to appeal to her taste, but the top really called to her. It makes me happy when a quilt I've made resonates with others.  :)  

I'm linking up at:

Tish's UFO party

TGIFF at Storied Quilts this week