I think Jo made the most adventurous centre block out of all of us. She just made an arrow, and the really brave thing was, that it wasn't set in a square, it was a rectangle!
I've just realised that no one has added a traditional 4 sided border to Jo's quilt. Everyone has just added to either one or two sides of her quilt. When I received it from Alice it looked like this:
Alice had just added the teepees and triangles down the left hand side of the quilt. When we met for the quilt handover, Alice suggested that I might want to add something down the right hand side. That would turn it more into a square, and centre the arrows and the target more.
I thought that was a good idea, but as you can see from the above photo, Jo's quilt had got a bit wonky as it traveled around the group. Carla, another member of Possum Magic, wrote a blog post about wonky round robin quilts just a few weeks ago. You can read it here. In Carla's case she had Rebecca's quilt and it had a bubble in the middle, that Carla described as a bra B cup. When I looked at Jo's quilt above I thought it looked like a corset - wider at the top and bottom and nipped in at the waist (maybe I've been watching too much Poldark). Anyway, we both likened the quilts to ladies underwear.
The fact that the quilt has got out of kilter is no one person's fault. All these diagonal cuts mean that the fabrics can stretch quite a bit. Often the deadlines are looming when people have been attaching their borders, so they've just quickly sewn on the borders and posted it off. Fortunately I had the quilt early and had some time available to work on it. I knew my own border was going to be quite simple, so I thought I should try to straighten it up.
I thought of all the work that Carla and Serena had put into fixing Rebecca's quilt, and thought I couldn't just sew my border on and expect Carla and Serena to fix Jo's quilt too. So I was very brave and unpicked three of the borders, removed some of the excess fabric, and sewed it all back together. Once it was sitting flat and was all squared up, I sewed my own border on.
I deliberately left quite wide margins around the diamonds - nothing worse then cutting the points off. It will be easy for Jo to take my long border off and move the diamonds closer to the centre if she wishes.
I used some of Jo's favourite Anna Maria Horner and Tula Pink fabrics in my borders. Once again I purchased the low volume background because you know I don't have any in my house.
I've got one final Possum Magic quilt left to work on and it's Sharon's. It's amazing - so colourful and so much detail. I'll show it to you soon.
Last thing - To Bella Quilts - I'd love to email you back but you show up as a 'no reply blogger'. I've tried to track you down but really can't find how to contact you. Can you email me directly at wendysquiltsandmore at gmail dot com please? I'd love to be able to reply to your kind comments. Thank you.
15 comments:
What a lovely gift to flatten the quilt top out for Jo, Carla, and Serena. The difference in how the quilt lays before and after with your border is quite noticeable. The care and detail that each of you are putting into these quilts is amazing, and I like how your border moves the arrows and target to the center.
It looks amazing. I love the look of quilts which weren't planned or designed as such, but more just happened and this one is even more special as so many people worked on it.
It's looking very interesting... and I love the colour combos! I think it's lovely that you took the time to redo the last three borders, huge improvement! Yes, I agree repeating an element now (e.g.the small 1/2 square triangles) could add balance... but we will have to check back later to see what the final outcome is! Exciting!
Wow! What an amazing collaboration. I love that you took the time to give the top a bit of first aid and I think that's the perfect example of how awesome sewing groups can be. I can't wait to see all these finished and living in their forever homes.
a lovely quilt and you have done a great job sorting it the border is just right too
You are right to point out that often these glitches are no one's fault. The problem can be as simple as not having a big enough floor or table to lay it out really flat.
I like the idea of more triangles!
How kind of you to straighten the quilt out before adding more to it. I like how your triangles give dimension and balance to the top.
Beautiful quilt! Is there a pattern I could buy so I could make this quil? janicelashley@gmail.com
Everyone has added such creative components. I'm glad you were able to straighten things out to that Jo will have a beautiful finished quilt that she'll love!
That's great that you squared it up! Looks great!
Yay it's almost square again!!! I can stop twitching now lol. Well done for bravely unpicking some of the borders, it's scary isn't it?! But well worth the effort :) I agree on the triangles for finishing it off
How sweet of you to take all of that time to get everything squared up! That alone is better than any border. :) But, your diamonds are great as well!
Such a beautiful quilt! Amazing how something like this comes together!
I love what you guys have done and how you have thought of each other in the making!
Wow, I can't even imagine how you squared up that quilt without disturbing the designs in it. Good for you, and I'm sure everyone appreciates your care in doing that. What a beautiful group effort!
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