Hey Everyone, welcome back to Story Time Monday.
This is the last post in my making of a memory quilt series. In part 3 I added the borders and was sending it off to be quilted.
I had finished the quilt late one night, took a photo and then headed off to bed after sending the photo to my client to see the finished quilt top.
As I was trying to fall asleep I kept thinking that something just wasn’t quite right about the borders and I really wasn’t happy with the look of the corners. I finally fell asleep but in the morning I woke early – at 0530 and had the same feeling that I did when I went to bed.
The outer borders when I went to bed
I jumped out of bed knowing that I had to take off the top and bottom borders, change the size of the pieces and add in cornerstones. I didn’t have a lot of time as I was leaving that day on a road trip to London and had to drop off the quilt to the long arm by 0930.
There was no symmetry to the corners of the outer borders and this is what bothered me the most since the rest of the quilt had total symmetry. There was no nice flow around the quilt for the eye.
No symmetry in the corner
Ripping off the borders didn’t take long especially with the new fast method of ripping that I learned recently.
After doing a bit of math and trimming the existing pieces, I re-made the top and bottom borders with cornerstones. It is much better now and everything was even and symmetrical all the way around with great flow for the eye.
Outer border corners now symmetrical
Off to the long arm it went to be quilted.
I picked a simple geometric design with blue thread and a black backing. It looks awesome. Michelle and Larry did a fabulous job. You can see a close up of the quilting in the photo above.
Interesting enough Larry said that the blue jean fabric was the one that stretched the most under the machine. I hadn’t interfaced it thinking that it was heavy enough that it wouldn’t be an issue. I guess in the future I will interface the blue jeans as well.
The quilt is all done and bound with a cool fabric that was once a shirt. I love the binding with the squiggly line design which you can see better in the photo above. It measures 56 ½″ x 78 ½″ – a great size to cuddle under.
Completed quilt
The quilt has been delivered to the recipient and she was absolutely thrilled with it. She couldn’t wait to see her grandchildren wrapped up in it and surrounded by their grandfather’s clothes. I’m sure it will be a very emotional time for all of them.
Happy Quilting!
