That's It - Finished Quilting

This week I finally finished quilting my Balinese Batik quilt, and I am so happy it's all over.

I wrote about this quilt twice before, here and here.

I loved this quilt top when I bought it 5 years ago. I like the prints, the colors, the metallic bits, and it reminded me of Indonesia, which made me happy.

 

 

I fell out of love soon after I started quilting. I quilted this with a large spiral, which I think was a good choice.

 

For the quilting, I used Aurifil 40wt in a variegated white/blue color (called out at sea, I think), and I think the thread really works. I have learned that one spool of thread is not quite enough for a quilt of this size -- I did run out of thread, with just the corners left--so disappointing!

 



This quilt top was made of 4 or 5 different types of fabric, all seemed to be synthetic. Some of the fabric was stretchy, some slippery, some wrinkly...all difficult to deal with. Have you ever quilted anything not made of quilting cottons?

The fabrics stretched and slipped all over the binding, and the basting didn't really keep it all in place like one would hope. Over time, this quilt became less rectangular, and more...something else. I couldn't really get a good picture (it's too big), but you can see in the photo below, it has some very wavy edges.

Also, the points were very, very bulky, and I ended up with a few puckers on the back.

My husband looked at it the other day, and said the wrinkles on the back "looked cool," I'm happy someone likes them.

I won't lie, this fabric was so slippery and stretchy, I even ended up with a pucker or two on the front. Luckily, the fabrics are so busy, you can't tell from the photos--so they don't count, right?

I've never had such problems with quilting, so I was kind of disappointed at first. If I had known better when I bought it, in my pre-quilting days, I'm sure I would have passed. Live and learn, right?

This quilt will end up on a bed, so I don't think it will be too noticeable. I am hoping no one else will notice the mistakes as much as I do.. I'm bringing it home for Thanksgiving in two weeks--I'm very excited to have this nearly finished.

One thing I haven't thought about--washing it or naming it. Can I even wash these fabrics? I really wish I'd thought about that a few months ago. I should have tried prewashing it, oops!

I'll worry about that next week when I'm done binding. For now, I'll just celebrate this small victory, and take a break with some hand quilting .

Happy Tuesday!

This week I'm linking with WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced and NTT Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation