Sunday, August 5, 2012

A Quilt for Lily

I've made a quilt and been frustrated about my inability to show it to you, since I lost the cord that attaches the camera to the computer.  I thought there was a way to use the card reader on my computer, but the card didn't fit in the slots.  This morning, I tried again, and there is a card reader that works, it just looks like it is bigger than the card.

So, at long last, I can show you a quilt for Lily.

First the background story.  Last year, the first weekend in June, 2011, I went to the National Quilt Society quilt show in Columbus, Ohio and took a photograph of a small quilt that looked very intriguing to me. Well, I actually took lots and lots of photographs, but this story is about this photo.






I showed it to a friend of mine who has a granddaughter named Lily, and she said "make that for me."  Well, there was no way I could even make anything exactly like that, and I wouldn't want to break any copyright laws legally or morally, but I figured I could make something inspired by it.  Unfortunately, this request happened during our busy time at work and somehow this little quilt took a year and a month to make.


I liked the original technique of cutting through layers for the background, but decided to keep it simple for my quilt.  I took a jelly roll and put the strips together for a background.  Then I traced the flower from this photograph and cut out some fabric with fusible attached to it.  Then I zig zagged it down.  Yes, I know that even after tracing, my lily doesn't look like the original.  Even when I try, I am not good at copying.


I chose a different font and a different location for the name.


This little bud is such a wonderful feature.


I didn't take the stem all the way to the binding so the flower is floating on the surface.  I used Timtex as a batting because this is a wall hanging and I wanted it to hang straight on the wall. This made it difficult to free motion quilt, but I had fun choosing different straight line quilting designs.  The backing fabric is folded to the front.  I did stitch it down. This quilt seemed too formal to just use fusible web, and I didn't want to use up any more fusible web.  I added a false back to hide my stitches, so I wound up having to use extra fusible anyway.

I added an extra layer of batting for the flower to give it more interest.  I gave it to my friend and they loved it.  It matches the room since it is purple and yellow.  I only today realized I don't have a photo of the whole quilt showing all the binding, but the binding is right underneath the photo so you aren't missing much.

Overall, I am really happy with it. The flower itself isn't as good as the original quilt, but I really like the rest of it, so it balances out. The quilt is 12" x 12", and was finished the end of July 2012.

I haven't stopped quilting, so there are more pictures to show on another post.

5 comments:

O'Quilts said...

Lucky Lily....great job...glad you have not stopped quilting

Paulette said...

And you did all that on such a small 12 x 12 scale! Awesome little mini. I love that you just went for it, but in your own way.

Allie said...

Wow oh wow - you did a fabulous job on this - I love it! Lucky Lily!

Barb said...

what a special gift for friends! I've never tried the extra batting, looks good!

Kate said...

Very pretty.