A Bloomin' First 3Q Finish

Lately, what I work on in my sewing room depends on which lesson I'm teaching, or which quilt needs to be readied for Quilt Fest of Jacksonville.

I've taught two different binding methods to two different groups of quilters in the past week. The hexagon baby quilt worked perfectly as my demo quilt.

I've been hand-sewing sleeves onto several quilts entered into Quilt Fest.

As I was binding Bloom, I put these pictures on Instagram. It's still my hope to get as many quilters as possible to try this great binding method which happens to be my favorite. It's different because there's no need to make folds in the binding at corners, or figure out how to get the beginning and ending tails cut to the right length. Corners are machine-sewn. (See tutorial link at right.)

When I finished sewing binding on Bloom, for the first time I used Clover Wonder Clips. The clips work great, and you can't beat the Amazon price for them.

My fingers are sore from all this unaccustomed hand work, but... yay! Bloom is finished! As much as I want to take it outdoors for a photo shoot in natural daylight, I just couldn't bring myself to do it. All that white fabric... all the rain we've had lately... entering it into a judged show... Nope. Can't do it.

So for now, here are indoor pictures.

76-1/2" W X 75" H

Bloom looks nice on our king-sized bed, but isn't big enough to stay there.

As many of you already know, I put lots of free motion quilting into this. Around each bloom, I quilted concentric circles, using the same color Aurifil thread as the fabric color. The red flower has red quilting; orange flowers have orange quilting, etc. Throughout the quilt, the bobbin thread was white Bottom Line. 

Batting is Tuscany Wool by Hobbs. I intentionally selected wool for the dimension is gives to the quilting. 

During the marking, quilting, and washing/blocking of this quilt, I learned a tough lesson about using FriXion pens on fabric. Though marks disappeared when I put heat to them, in a cold water wash in the machine, marks returned! I immediately put the wet quilt to soak in the bathtub, even trying Dawn dishwashing liquid and a toothbrush to try to remove marks... to no avail. After consulting with a friend, I put the wet quilt into the dryer on low temp, thinking the dryer heat would remove the marks. Nope. I resignedly blocked the quilt on the floor - using my new Strait-Line laser level from Home Depot -  and expected the worst.

Surprisingly, a later touchup with a hot iron again removed the marks, but I know chemicals are still in the quilt. I'm glad I marked only in strategic places, not on the entire quilt. In the future, I plan to be much more judicious about when I use FriXion pens.

It's nice to have white furniture that shows off these bright colors.

Quilting show on the back with a natural daylight bulb shining across it. My goal is always to try to quilt designs that make people think quilting has been done on a longarm. The viney, double-veined feathers are my favorite design in this quilt.

Bloom is labeled too (one of the page full of labels I prepared last week), and I'm giving proper credit to a great designer, Emma Jansen of Australia. If you like this pattern, you can buy it as I did through her shop: Ballarat Patchwork. Or check out all her great patterns (including Snowflake Medallion) that happen to be on sale now.

Bloom is the first of four finishes I've challenged myself to complete in Leanne's SheCanQuilt Finish Along, by October 7. I'm tickled to have this one done. Three more to go. Linda