Saturday, July 30, 2011

How do you feel about sampler quilts?

Me? I don’t love them. I sometimes wonder why I join bee’s because I have yet to find a sampler quilt that I really like…..until now.

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I am currently in only two bees and my month just happened to be the same time for both bees, so I decided I was going to have both bees do the same block.

I sent out this stack of fabric.

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Asking the bee members to make me one 16.5 inch block…only I wanted them to go together somehow. Since I don’t usually like sampler quilts I decided that if each person added two borders around their block (one white one color) then they would tie together.

I think my idea worked out well and I love the top of this quilt…and to my surprise its large enough to fit my king size bed.

I sashed it with Kona ash and I think it really lets the blocks shine and makes it neutral at the same time.

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Only three things are on my mind about this quilt. I would love any input or suggestions.

1. How should I do the back. I would love to give it a simple design that is easy to do but somewhat interesting. Plus of course it has to be affordable and large enough for a quilt this size.

2. Quilting. Anyone have any advise? I could free motion quilt all over this of course but wanted to see if anyone had any clues….also any tips on quilting a quilt this size. Not sure how much it would cost to send it to a professional.

3. Although it fits fine on my king bed, I would love for it to be a tad longer on the sides. I need some options. It is long enough but not wide enough. I have thought about adding another row of blocks but that means I have to creatively come up with 4 more blocs for this quilt…..anyone want to help? LOL

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Anyways there is my accomplishment I have been working on for some time now. I am proud of it and it just might be one of my favorite quilts to date.

9 comments:

Tracey Jacobsen said...

It looks amazing! I agree that the ash was a PERFECT choice for sashing. It does add a nice neutral touch to it, and makes the blocks so pretty.

You could add charm squares to the sides (and top too if you want)

but it looks so good!

Deanna said...

You may want to check out Quilters Cache for block ideas. You can view hundreds of options sorted by size.

The quilt is truly lovely! The Ash sashing makes the colors shine.

Cherie said...

Love it! This turned out to be such a great bee quilt :)

Ann Marie @ 16 Muddy Feet said...

I did a few sampler QAL earlier this year, the buttons are on my blog Layer Cake quilt along ( i used fat quarters) and Block a Palooza, I think there are 12 in one and 16 in the other, so that would give you 28 choices, and there are some really nice ones too. 16muddyfeet.blogspot.com

Katie B said...

It looks fantastic! You're so smart to have both bees work on the same quilt.

Have you thought about a sheet for the back? I've never done that before, but it would be an economical choice.

Lynne (Lily's Quilts) said...

Wonderful wonderful wonderful and exciting to see it all together like that. It would be quite fun to have a solids checkerboard on the bank in co-ordinating colours. A Flying Geese border might look quite cool - giant flying geese. I would stay stitch the whole quilt first - quilting straight lines along the block edges and then FMQ-ing each block individually. Having said that, if you get a professional to do an all over design, it isn't a massive amount of money, even over here in the UK it's reasonably affordable so worth looking into. Why don't you ask Angela Walters what she charges. She seems to be iniversally acknowledged as the best in the business right now but is apparently very affordable.

Katie M. said...

Lovely quilt - I always say what my first thought was (too much thinking is not good!) anyway, A sawtooth border down the sides using fabric the quilt blocks to widen. I, personally, love sampler quilts. But I'm also a lover of scrap quilts and that may be why????

DanaK ~ WaterPenny said...

As long as you're not handquilting it (ha!) I think a sheet would be a great back for this.

Anonymous said...

first of all...GORGEOUS! when i debate over how to make a quilt "grow", i look at how much is already going on already. you've got a lot of movement & you don't need to compete or overpower the well balanceds blocks. that being said, i would most likely do 1) wide solid borders, or 2) large flying geese (by large i mean maybe 4 x 8)or however much you need to add. as for quilting it, that size i would send out for sure. email me privately for 2 phone numbers of quilters i have used, one here in TX, one in Missouri. shipping won't kill the cost. the largest one i had done in MO was maybe $75 & shipping was about $13 each way. (bettina763@aol.com)

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