Friday, June 28, 2019

Reel Window

If I rated my quilts based on the amount of time they spent on the frame, Reel Window would rank at the top. By a long shot. I think this quilt spent a record of 10 weeks on the frame. I had a lot of other fun things in my life distracting me, and I just kept procrastinating on working this quilt. Actual number of hours that went into quilting this quilt is ... probably ... 16? 18? I don't really keep track. Maybe I should.

The pattern is called Open Your Window by Zen Chic, and the fabric is also by Zen Chic (have I mentioned yet that she's my favorite designer?) called Reel Time. So I combined the two to name this quilt Reel Window. When I finished piecing this, I thought to myself that this quilt feels very retro and simultaneously techy. Swirls would be so wrong for this.

So of course I had to quilt swirls. But they are embedded into a network of circuits, which is also why this quilt took forever. My machine, as fabulous as it is, just doesn't like this design. No, let me rephrase that. My machine hates this design. So it was a rather frustrating process, even if the end result is pretty cool.

I quilted the focal fabrics with some simple geometric designs and filled in the empty blocks with ghost blocks. I used two designs, a dot-to-dot design and a piano key-type design.

The back of this quilt shows off the circuit design even more.

In conclusion, I really love this quilt and I think this is some of my best quilting yet, but it completely exposed a major shortcoming with my machine. I don't want to make this post any longer, so I'll probably write about "the defect" in a future post. For now, I'll enjoy this new addition to my quilt collection and enjoy adding a new design to my arsenal.

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Linking up with: My Quilt Infatuation, Busy Hands Quilts, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Cooking Up Quilts, Powered by Quilting, and Meadow Mist Designs.

12 comments:

  1. I really like the circuit quilting and I’m curious about how you did it. Did you just draw lines and diagonals and get them to connect or is there some pattern or formula? I’m also curious now about the ‘defect’...is it the doing straight lines from right to left like mine? It really came out great.

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    1. Thank you Ann, I just quilted straight until I wanted to make a 45 degree diagonal, and kept going until it met another line, and then I echoed it. And yes, my machine can't do right to left for long stretches without problems.

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  2. This is so funny, I was on the Quilt Blogger website and saw your quilt but the name was Liz Makes Crafts(?) and I copied the link to send to you because I knew you love Zen Chic and I thought the quilting reminded me of yours and you could probably do this too and imagine my surprise when you popped up. For a brief moment I thought the computer read my mind. So I love the quilting it is spectacular as always I think I never seen this type before. You really know what how to fill empty spaces with lovely quilting. Great job!

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  3. It's hard not to like Zen Chic; it's one of my favorites too! The quilting on this is just fantastic; sorry your machine had an attitude! Love the quilt, Liz. It's definitely a keeper!

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  4. Smiling over here because if I had to guess what your machine defect it, it is probably the same as mine! Grrrrr. This turned out to be lovely in the simplicity of the repeated quilting patterns and the techiness. Love it!

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  5. I've heard that diagonal lines can be tricky on long arms. You really made them look great here, though! I think you totally nailed getting the swirls to integrate with the techy :)

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  6. This is soooo good! I love everything about it - the fabric, the pattern, the way you combined all the different quilting designs. You are so good at what you do Liz!

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  7. So wonderful! I love the pattern and the quilting. I know my machine doesn’t like diagonal lines and they are a bit wavy if I do them on my own (novice). I can imagine how much time this took - its a lot of straight lines but the little bits of swirls and atomic flowers (keeping it a little more techie) is gorgeous.

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  8. How pretty! I really love this quilt so much.

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  9. Beautiful quilting, Liz! Diagonal lines and right to left--ditto with my machine. Can't do that too long. Have you started your book yet?

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  10. The quilting takes this quilt to a whole new level. A work of art!

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