"Your Place or Mine?" top is finished

I'm delighted to say that I have finally finished the top of "Your Place or Mine?'.

These are the best photos I could do by myself - it's too big to hang on the clothes line!

and another photo taken with a different camera - it's very hard to capture the colours accurately.

I took this before I sewed the borders on, but it really shows how vibrant the felt is in this quilt. I love how the Kaffe fabrics complement the felt too.

Here's how it will look on our bed eventually:

I did have some hesitation about the borders, but after discussing it with the very helpful ladies at my local quilting shop, I've decided to stick with what was provided in the BOM. We did agree that the binding should probably be a deep blue colour to finish off the edges nicely. 

That last border looks different in different lights, but it is growing on me and I'm sure it's going to be fine. I think I just got a bit of a surprise when I first put it on!

So why did it take me five months to finish the last installment of this quilt? There are a few reasons:

a. I was worried that the pieces weren't going to fit together, and it wasn't going to be square due to my sewing and all the diagonal seams. I didn't want to face that problem so I ignored it!  Turned out I didn't need to be worried after all.

b. New and exciting things like la passacaglia came along. Fact - it's always more exciting to start something new rather than finish an existing project.

c. A part of me didn't want this to be over - I've been working on it for 18 months and I've now become known as the lady who's making that colourful quilt with all the felt. I get asked about it at local quilting shops, my stitching group and guild meetings. I'll need a new identity now that it's finished.

I'm going to get this quilted professionally. I usually hand quilt my quilts myself, but I think this quilt will look great with stippling on all the flat surfaces. It also wouldn't sit properly in my hand quilting hoop with all that lumpy felt.

I've had many questions about this quilt, so here's everything you might need to know:

1. The design is by Wendy Williams (not me - I'm Wendy Welsh). Wendy Williams lives in Sydney and works with Kathy Doughty at Material Obsession. Some of Wendy's designs are available through their website.

2. Wendy also has her own company called Flying Fish Kits and they also sell patterns and kits online.

3. Wendy has a book called Wild Blooms and Colourful Creatures and there are similar patterns in that book. It's available at Amazon and other book sellers.

4. "Your Place or Mine?" was a Block of the Month from Material Obsession that started in August 2013 and ran again in 2014. You can watch out for their Block of the Months in July 2015.

5. The BOM included all the fabrics, the felt, the templates and some Perle 8 threads. They are generous with their felt so I have quite a bit left over.

I have loved making this quilt. As a number of people have said, it reflects my personality and style, even though I didn't design it. Maybe it's something to do with people called "Wendy"?

I'll be sure to post more photos when I get it back from the long arm quilter.


Finished size 86" x 86"