Friday, May 15, 2015

Floating: A Finished Quilt


I finished "Floating" just in time for the Blogger's Quilt Festival.  It is currently my most favorite quilt.  So I am entering it in the large quilt category.  If you are visiting from the BQF, welcome and thanks for stopping by.  If not, you can click on the button to see what everyone else has entered in the festival.

AmysCreativeSide.com


The pattern for this quilt is called "Magic Carpet," and it is designed by Christina Cameli.  I changed the pattern a little bit, and you can find out more about my changes in this post.  Christina Cameli has also written two books about free-motion machine quilting, and I mostly used designs from her books with a few of my favorites added in.  You can check out this post for more information about how I quilted it.

I named my quilt "Floating" because magic carpets float in the air, and the squares seem to float on the black background.

I love to see how quilting changes a quilt.  While I really like how the top turned out...


I absolutely love the finished quilt!!!


Every single one of the overlapping squares is quilted with a different FMQ design.  Including the square spirals on the black fabric, there are 72 different designs on this fun FMQ sampler.  You can see the whole quilt in this picture.


While it looks pretty in the shade...



It really sparkles in the sunlight.


I quilted it with Floriani's polyester embroidery thread, and I love how it turned out.  There are more than 350,000 stitches on this quilt, and my thread only broke twice.  (I love the stitch counter on my Baby Lock Tiara.)  I used nine M-class bobbins and spent 18 hours on the machine quilting.  Totally worth it.


The quilt top is all Kona solids.  Starting in the center and working toward the edges, I used:  Cerise, Valentine, Candy Pink, Violet, Magenta, Tulip, and Black.

The backing is a Riley Blake Blender in Magenta.  It really is a deeper color than it shows up in the photos.  (I'm blaming that on the sparkly thread.)


It looks really neat with the sparkly threads and the light shining through as well.


I bound the quilt in Kona Black to keep the floating look.  I stitched it down to the back by hand.


I used a scrap of the backing for the label, so it blends in nicely.


I had so much fun experimenting with photography on this quilt.  It was too big for my favorite spot on the fence...


And the quilting didn't show as much in the shade where I normally hang it on the deck.


So I tried somewhere new.


It might have seemed a little windy.


But it was just my little helper.


Maybe quilts are more fun than the swings.  ;)


We both like my new hanging spot, and I wonder why I haven't hung a quilt there before.

Quilt Stats #140
Quilt name: Floating
Pattern: Magic Carpet
Fabrics used:  Kona Cerise, Valentine, Candy Pink, Violet, Magenta, Tulip, and Black
Backing:  Riley Blake blender in Magenta
Amount used: 11.5 yards
Batting: Hobbs 80/20
Size: About 75 x 87
Date finished: May 2015
What I learned:
  • I can quilt more than 70 different designs! Two years ago I had a hard time quilting only 12.
  • The more designs I quilted, the easier they became.
  • I love the look of Floriani polyester embroidery thread on solid fabrics.
  • I tense up up a bit more when quilting densely and couldn't quilt as long at a time.
  • It was more difficult (read impossible) for me to prevent tucks when quilting this densely and one color at a time.  (I quilted all the black first to stabilize the quilt then started in the center and worked out.)
  • Custom quilting takes a long time.  I pieced the quilt in 6 hours, but it took 18 hours to quilt it.
  • I need to check for grease on my needle bar before quilting, especially if I just had it serviced.  


I plan on keeping this quilt in my craft room, but Cheetah thinks it would be perfect for a game of Twister.  Silly boy.

Thanks for stopping by!

XX,
Jasmine

P.S.  I will be linking up with the Blogger's Quilt Festival and other fun linky parties for my finished quilt.  The buttons are on the sidebar.  Check them out to see what other people are doing.

34 comments:

  1. Spectacular job. The quilting really helps the blocks look like they're stacked on top of each other. I need to learn to be more adventurous when photographing my quilts, because that is a great shot on the swing set! Love it!

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  2. Beautiful! And such lovely photos, they really show the texture of your FMQ.

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  3. Beautiful finish and a great submission for the festival, Jasmine! I really like the boxy spiral you used in the black border and spots between the blocks. And how awesome to have such a wide range of quilting patterns to know you can choose from in the future!

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  4. So beautiful, I love the colors and the quilting is awesome!!!

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  5. This quilt certainly has a big Wow factor. Everything about it is stunning! Good luck in the Festival!

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  6. A truly FABULOUS finish Jasmine! Isn't it wonderful and exciting to see how far you have come with your free motion quilting! I bet Christina is over the moon about how you've completed this quilt.
    Great photos too and I really enjoyed looking at all the views. The only problem was picking which ones to pin, LOL.

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  7. Jasmine, this is absolutely, fabulously gorgeous. I love the colours you chose, the way you changed up the pattern and the choice to quilt yours, as Christina did hers, with a different FMQ design in each block. I love (overuse, I know) the fact that your Tiara counts the stitches! And NINE M bobbins, whoa Nelly. I love the new hanging spot too! Cheetah is too adorable. I have to get my quilts in the festival! This weekend!

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  8. Jasmine, a truly magnificent quilt; you should be proud of your accomplishments! Truly stunning and what effort you put into it. Best wishes on the voting!

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  9. Such a fabulous quilt! I love the design and the colours and the quilting is just amazing!

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  10. I love how this quilt floats. The quilting is amazing!

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  11. Such a lovely quilt! And the quilting just makes it wow!!

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  12. Absolutely gorgeous! All those different designs are so pretty! I like your version of this quilt so much.

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  13. Your quilt is gorgeous, I love all the different stitches, I wonder if you ran out of idea at some point ... It really looks like it's floating, it's kind of cool!  Good luck with the competition!

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  14. You have my vote Jasmine!! Seriously...your quilting is just awesome!!! It's a great finish!!!

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  15. What a great idea for a beautiful quilt! I love your design, wonderful fabrics and GREAT quilting!!! :)
    Greetings from Poland
    Kamila

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  16. Wow! Great job. Your quilting is amazing.

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  17. It's wonderful work, Jasmine. I think this is one of my favourite of yours - so dramatic - and the quilting is amazing :)

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  18. What a great pattern to show off your awesome FMQ skills! Very nice :)

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  19. Your quilting is gorgeous Jasmine! I enjoy seeing so many designs I love in your hand. Thanks for making and sharing this pretty quilt, you are a rockstar!

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  20. Fantastic quilting on a gorgeous quilt. Congratulations!

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  21. What great dimension on this one, incredible. I love all the different motifs in the squares. I think I could spend hours looking at this and coming up with names for the motifs. Love everything about it.

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  22. It is a stunning quilt in regards to design, colors and your beautiful stitching! :)

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  23. Jasmine, this is a beautiful quilt! I'm impressed with your home machine quilting, as it really makes your quilt sing. And about the grease from a recently-serviced machine... I had exactly the same experience, but the grease smeared onto a Kona White background! My "Shapes" quilt, in the home machine quilted category of this Quilt Festival, has the story. Grease changed my quilt design! Best of luck. You have a winner, I think!

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  24. So so so awesome! I hope everybody clicks through from the Festival, because while the pattern is lovely, the AMAZING free motion quilting makes this quilt! I just don't have words for how awesome it is. I'm so uninclined to work with solids myself, but it's when I see something like this that I think I'll need to get over that and try it.

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  25. Totally unreal. The quilt is beautiful, and I love how you did a different quilting design on each piece. The before and after photos of the quilting are fantastic! I can see why this is your favorite.

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  26. Absolutely stunning! The quilting of different patterns in each block really brought it too life! Thank you for sharing!

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  27. Beautiful, just beautiful, love your colour choice and your FMQ is amazing. Well done.

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  28. A beautiful job---where did you get pattern
    wendyrdill@gmail.com

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  29. It is just gorgeous!! What a lot of work you put into that!!! Very very good job!

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  30. Wowser!! I am very behind in reading my favorite blogs so I just caught up with yours today! This quilt is just amazing! I love the colors that you chose for the quilt top. But the quilting is amazing! Spectacular!!

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  31. Your quilt is STUNNING!!! I love the colors, especially all the different FMQ designs. I just saw this on Pinteres:)

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