Blogger's Quilt Festival 2016 Entry 1

Yippee! It's Blogger Quilt Festival time, hosted by Amy at Amy's Creative Side. I've been looking forward to this for a long time. And do I have a quilt to enter this time around! It's my Big Quilt. That's how I referred to it the whole time I worked on it, and the name stuck. I made it for my son and daughter-in-law as part of their wedding present. They had to wait nearly two years for it, but that's okay. I started it in early 2015 and finished it in April 2016.

The design is original, but the center of the quilt is based on a screen-printed pillow on dotandbo.com. I expanded the rest of the design out from the center. The quilt is actually a giant 9-patch with each block made up of two 40 by 20 inch rectangles. Because the pieces are so large, I used a freezer paper technique to stabilize them and keep the seam joinings precise. I pieced the quilt on my Singer Featherweight using Superior Masterpiece thread.

I quilted the Big Quilt on my Singer 115 treadle with four motifs; straight lines and wavy lines with my walking foot, and stipples (meanders) and an abstract floral based on Flower Power by Lori at The Inbox Jaunt with my freemotion foot. I used two Superior King Tut variegated gray threads.

The quilt top measured about 120 inches square, and the finished quilt after washing was 115 3/4 inches square. (I was hoping for a little more shrinkage, but there you go.)

I'll add more pictures now, but if you'd like to see the rest of them and read more about the details and process, click on the Big Quilt label at the bottom of this post or on the sidebar.

I'm linking up with the Original Design category of the Blogger's Quilt Festival. Although the design of the center is derivative, the quilt as a whole is my own design. Please go take a look at all of the quilts, and consider voting for this one as one of your faves. Thanks!