Are you amazed? I am not going to go all falsely humble on you, this quilt is fantastic; but, feel free to drop comments of praise, should you feel so inclined (I always appreciate a heartfelt "attagirl").
Every year I make one thing that climbs the scale of "best thing ever?" and stays there refusing to be toppled, this might be the thing for this year. Babette was 2009, Ruby was 2010 (though Starry Night, did give it a run for its money). This year, it's probably going to be Big Love.
This quilt was made for Little Sir's former Pre-School teacher. She was a fabulous teacher and we consider her a friend, and well, my children love her. So when Little Sir asked if "we" could make a quilt for her to give her as a wedding present, of course it was the best idea ever, and I said of course "we" could.
Though I had an idea what I wanted to do back in April, I didn't start making the quilt until a week before the wedding in July. What? That's how I work--if you only have a minute (week) it only takes a minute (week). I know, the philosophy is flawed, but it has worked well for me for at least two decades. In any case, I wanted to do something modern, but yet harkening back to tradition, because, well, love...it's an old concept....and, well, it's a big deal, right?
I was thinking of making a traditional Double Wedding Ring (DWR) quilt, but since I am not sure I love even myself enough to go through the pain and torture of all that curved piecing, I nixed that right away (or, I dragged my feet until I had to do something else, you pick). Also, the traditional DWR quilt is just so....traditional. And well, modernity, I am all about it for the most part. So I began playing around with the idea of wedding rings. And then I made them big, terribly modern, right?
At somepoint in the design process, I thought it would be a great idea to hand draft the arcs for the rings. I am pretty sure that stroke of brilliance occured on a night where I slept very little because any quilter who has embraced technology will tell you that that is probably the stupidest thing ever thought. But it seemed like a good idea at the time, so that's what I did.
The handdrafting makes the arcs not so perfect, which, to be honest, I kind of like. The piecing in the arcs was entirely improvisational, which is so modern, it kind of hurts. This is the largest quilt I have ever free-motion quilted on my machine (it measures 63 inches square--I intended to make a throw, and I like 63"-65" for a throw).
The quilting was meander stitched (some people call it stippling, my sources lead me to believe these people are wrong, but there you are) pretty tightly and then I pieced the continuous binding with bits and pieces of fabric used for the rings.
Backing was remnants with blues and purples prominent (the giftees favorite colors) and after attaching the top of the binding by machine, I hand sewed the binding to the back. No, you read right, I sewed it by hand--who am I?
I hope that the quilt is well used and well loved. And while this quilt design drove the development of other designs, I think I can safely say that I will likely not be making this one ever again.
Notice I did not say "never."
Now I think I am going to go and knit something. Cooler weather, it is around the corner, after all.