Saturday, January 23, 2016

Finishing off the banner quilt

After I had sewn on the silhouette, I then had to put on the border. I had done some other pieces, when I was doing the design course through the Embroiderers' Guild, that were based on my sunset photos. I had not sewn borders on them, I had just satin-stitched the edges. They didn't have the extra layer of wadding that I have used for the A Matter of Time piece.
You can see one here - I was developing the idea for this piece, unbeknownst to me at the time.

I had done the majority of the sewing on the banner quilt without a backing piece of fabric. This made it rather messy for the machine, meaning I had to brush it out more frequently than usual. It also meant that any mistakes, tangles, etc, will be hidden when I finish it off!

The back of the quilt, before I put the backing on.

However, I did put the backing on before I sewed on the silhouette. And I did some extra quilting in the parts where the tree didn't cover the image. Just to be sure that the backing wouldn't move around.
I remember being told, in my beginner quilting classes, that you should never have more than a handspan free of quilting.

To finish off, I had to decide what I wanted, an obvious border or something that would, hopefully, blend in. As I have been using small pieces of fabric, I didn't have many pieces that would be long enough to do the border.

I managed to find some that seemed to echo the colours on the quilt and joined them together to make my edges. The silhouette made it easier, I could just put black on that edge, and I could use the border to extend the bottom part of the silhouette.
So here it is, the finished piece. 

3 comments:

mycamerandme365 said...

Your quilt is just gorgeous Mary, congratulations on a really lovely piece of work!

theregatha said...

Mary It is absolutely stunning. Well done

Mary said...

Thanks again, I am very excited. Will be going to the AQC this year!