Bordered Diamonds becomes Bordered Peacocks

I"m thrilled to say that my Bordered Diamonds quilt is finished and we're using it on our bed. I've decided to call it Bordered Peacocks because there are some bordered peacocks within it.

My Bordered Peacocks

I loved making this quilt. I took my time and enjoyed every step of the way, from fabric selection to planning the layout, to hand quilting it. Now that it's finished I'm delighted with it and I admire it each time I walk into our room!

One of the Bordered Peacocks

I started this quilt back in January 2012 when I first saw the Timeless Treasures Plume range in my local quilt shop. I just loved the colours in the Peacock fabric, and knew I'd like to make a quilt with it. I spent 24 hours going through the saved images on my iPad, trying to find of a pattern which would frame the peacocks and flowers. I'd always admired the Kaffe Fassett Bordered Diamonds pattern (from his Simple Shapes and Spectacular Quilts book), so I decided to use that.

Bordered Peacocks close up

I went back to the shop and bought some of the Peacock fabric plus a couple of other fabrics in the range. I then spent most of 2012 collecting complementary fabrics. I picked up more of the Plume range from other shops, plus some from the Timeless Treasures Shimmer range, and other fabrics that I knew would tie in well.

I love these blue flowers in the Peacock fabric

It wasn't until January 2013 (a whole year later) that I started to cut into the fabrics. By then I had far more fabric than I needed, but the left overs have ended up as a whole other quilt and a bag you can read about here.

My matching bag made from scraps by my mum

I machine pieced the top during the early part of 2013. Then I started to think about the backing fabric and decided on Eden in black by Chong-a Hwang. It's part of the Tree of Life range by Timeless Treasures, so tied in beautifully.

Backing fabric is Tree of Life by Timeless Treasures

By mid 2013 I had a quilt sandwich, but it was the biggest quilt I've ever made. I knew it was going to take time to hand quilt, but I never considered getting it machine quilted. I love the soft texture that hand quilting gives, so I always knew I would be hand quitling it.

Hand quilting inside each diamond

I quilted in the ditch around each of the 108 diamonds with black quilting thread, and quilted inside each of the diamonds with Perle 8 in either blue or gold. By the time I was about half way through the quilting, it was Spring in New Zealand so I put it aside to work on other things.

Last month (July 2014 - winter in NZ) I decided that it was time to finish it and start using it on our bed. There were less than 40 diamonds left to do, so I knuckled down and quilted them in less than three weeks.

Bordered Diamonds becomes Bordered Peacocks

I'm really pleased with how it's turned out. I love the deep blue colours and the gold metallic accents that give it added life.

I did find this quilt particularly hard to photograph -probably due to the gold metallic accents. Please forgive the photography!!

The facts:
The pattern is Bordered Diamonds by Kaffe Fassett from his Simple Shapes Spectacular Quilts book

The finished quilt measures 84" x 96"

Most of the fabrics are by Timeless Treasures

I"m linking up with Alyce at Blossom Heart Quilts, Kelly at My Quilt Infatuation, Esther's blog., Confessions of a fabric addict and Crazy Mom Quilts