Friday, February 10, 2017

Snail Mail Quilt

What do you do when you have a quilt where the fabric is too busy to showcase quilting designs? Well ... you can 1) do an allover design or 2) use the opportunity to practice practice practice since it won't show anyway.

Of course I opt for option 2.

I've had my fabric bundle Paper Obsessed in my stash for a few months, and while I really like the whimsical prints, I also didn't know what to do with it. It's a bit novelty for my usual taste, but I couldn't resist it at the time. I had also been interested in making Radio Way by Jaybird Quilts for some time, but the timing never felt right. Then, one day, I pictured the Paper Obsessed fabric on Radio Way, and knew it was the right combination.

Piecing this quilt was easy and relaxing, which is exactly what I was looking for. I debated between using the black or the white for the frame squares, but ultimately decided on black as I thought it'd look a tad more striking with the lighter tones in the printed fabric. (And to be honest ... I wish I had gone with white. It would have at least made one area where you can really see the quilting.)

For the quilting, since I can't see what's going on anyway, I threw tons of designs on there, but the one I used the most is ribbon candy. It's a design I love, but never was able to get the hang of. Well ... after quilting it 30+ times in this quilt, I got the hang of it! It is so fun to quilt, too. While I mostly treated each "strip" as a unit and quilted within it with linear designs, I kept in mind Angela Walters's "make a rule, break a rule" and occasionally I'd treat the block as a single unit and quilt a square design.

I'm glad I got a fun quilt out of this whimsical fabric bundle, and lots of free-motion practice in to boot. I've always been on the fence about rail fence quilts (pun intended) but the Radio Way pattern introduced a twist with the frames, and that makes it more interesting to me.

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This post participated in the link party at Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Busy Hands Quilts, and Crazy Mom Quilts. Join the fun!

11 comments:

  1. very striking quilt, I like how the black pops.

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  2. The black frames each block making them shine! Gorgeousness!!

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  3. I love it! The black just jumps out at you. Fantastic!

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  4. I love the play of the low volumes and the black! Great job!

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  5. Lovely! I can see how you couldn't resist those envelopes, so fun. Beautiful quilting. :)

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  6. This is a truly unique quilt! I really like it!

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  7. I think the black works really well. And I can see your ribbon candy quilting, looks good. I've only tried it once but am keen to give it another go soon.

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  8. It's incredibly striking - white might have shown the quilting but it would have had far less of a visual impact :)

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    1. Thanks! I feel much better about the black frames now given everybody's nice comments :D

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  9. I'm glad you put that beautiful fabric to good use! And yes, black was the way to go here -- the contrast is fabulous!

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