Friday, June 22, 2018

30 Pearls {Finished Quilt}

Happy birthday to me and hip hip hooray for another finish!

My modern-themed quilt for our June Island Batik Ambassador challenge is finished! You can see the first two posts on this quilt here and here.

I finished the binding and trimmed all of the lose threads last night and am going to hang it up in my sewing room later today!


As I explained in my original post, there are 30 "pearls" to celebrate my 30th birthday (today!), pearls are my birthstone, and pearl is a traditional 30th anniversary gift.

I quilted free motion pebbles in each pearl with white Aurifil. In the backgrounds I used five different shades -- hot pink, red, dark coral, orange, and purple -- to quilt the different filler motifs. I used 56 different filler motifs inspired by Leah Day's quilting gallery! It required quite a bit of starting and stopping, which I don't normally like to do when I quilt, but it was 100% worthwhile for this quilt to be exactly as I had envisioned.


The binding and hanging pocket are of a cream Island Batik print that is slightly darker than my pearls. I had originally pulled a purple fabric for the binding but I didn't have quite enough fabric for that. In the below picture, you can really make out some of the quilting with the orange thread!


For the whole quilt, I used white thread in the bobbin so that I didn't have to change both the top thread and the bobbin every time I needed to switch between colors (which was a lot!). The texture on the backing is just so fun! I managed to keep my pieced backing nearly perfectly square with the top, which is a miracle for me!


I will try to post some close up pictures of some of my favorite quilted sections on Instagram over the weekend. Using Leah Day's gallery as my inspiration was a great starting point however I had to think through how to quilt some of the designs in the arcs! Some were easier than others to "bend" into the arched spaces -- like the meandering type motifs and feather type motifs -- than others! There were a few that I decided would only work in the full squares rather than in the arches, which worked out well.


This project is a rarity in that I both designed and made it for me for fun. I enjoy and love just about all of the quilting that I do but I don't often make something "just for me" and it was a nice change of pace to be completely selfish with this project and be finicky about every detail without worrying about writing a pattern to go along with it.


As always, a big yippee hooray thank you to Island Batik for providing these fabrics for me each month to play with and to stretch my creativity! I love our modern challenge month as Amabassadors and this might be my favorite Ambassador project of all of the things I have made in the last 18 months!

Quilt Stats:
Name: 30 Pearls
Design: self designed, essentially randomly spaced drunkard's path blocks
Fabrics: Sunflower Serenade from Island Batik
Size: 42 inches square
Quilting: pearls: pebbles in white Aurifil;
     background: 56 different motifs inspired by Leah Day in pink, purple, red, orange, and dark coral Aurifil
Started: April 2018
Finished: June 2018

Have a wonderful weekend!

15 comments:

  1. Happy Birthday, Alison! You share your day with my mom and niece, both creative women like you, though the former in flowers and the latter in words. All of you are pearls of great value! And this quilt just for you is lovely. I hope you enjoy it and your day.

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  2. Happy Birthday, Allison! This is such a gorgeous project! I like the design and colors you used so much. And it's perfect to hang in your sewing room. Enjoy your day!

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  3. Wow! I love that you made this themed quilt for yourself and that you designed it too! The 30 pearls are so sweet for your birthday. It's also nice to have all those quilting designs on a piece that is special. Happy Birthday!

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  4. It is beautiful! Your drunkard's paths look so great, and these colors are such a gorgeous sunset.

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  5. Happy birthday! LOVE the quilt and the idea of doing different designs on the pearls is priceless!

    Sandy A

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  6. Happy birthday and congrats on finishing this piece exactly the way you want it! It's beautiful and I love all the symbolism of the pearls and the number 30. Pebbles are the perfect quilting for all those pearls, and it turned out so wonderfully! :)

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  7. Such a meaningful quilt for you. Love how you did different quilting designs in different sections!

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  8. I love all those warm colors with the lighter pearls. Congrats on a very pretty finish. Hope you had a very happy birthday.

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  9. Happy Birthday! The quilt is just terrific and so much fun when we make something "just for us". Its a great quilt and wonderful that you stepped outside your comfort zone and enjoyed the result.

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  10. Great design! I love the bright pinks paired with the white and the pebbles are wonderful.

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  11. Wonderful design and great colors, what a great birthday gift for yourself!

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