Benjamin Biggs completed

It's been a great journey - thanks to Sentimental Stitches Just Takes 2 free block of the month for a lovely pattern generously shared. I reduced my quilt blocks by 75% from the 16 inch ones in the pattern down to 12 inches. I just wanted a smaller quilt finish and have been thankful of that when it came to hand quilting! 

I started the quilt in January 2014 and it measures approx 70 inches square, hand applique and hand quilted. The quilting design was not part of the pattern but I enjoyed throwing in a few scattered motifs amongst the  grid and echo quilting. 

I decided not to add trapunto to the motifs - preferring the softer, more natural look as it is. Thanks for the helpful comments and encouragement last post :) 

It's found a place on a hallway wall where the lighting shows up the myriad of quilting stitches! Despite there being so many stitches it really drapes beautifully thanks to the thin cotton batting (Quilters Dream).

I'm not leaping into hand quilting another just yet...giving the fingers a wee rest . 

Brenda's Bounty - a work in progress

WIP...sounds so much better than UFO don't you think?

Brenda's Bounty started in January - 7 1/2 " finished blocks

My favourite antique quilt in Linda Collins' Quiltmania book

I have to admit my method is a bit different from the template piecing method in the book - just adapted to my peculiar skills (ie the difficulty I always seem to have with accurate piecing!) and the methods I enjoy. 

A little bit of fussy cutting if the fabric inspired

and here are the pieces prepared to hand stitch the block above

My method involved making my own EPP papers - using thin card and shapes from the book templates. 

For the small triangles I stitch basted the fabric over the card and later popped out the card to reuse for the next block. 

For the the handle rectangles, I first needle turn appliqued the handle onto a background rectangle (using back basting preparation method). Then I used a glue stick and iron to glue baste the rectangle over card ready to EPP this piece. 

The two large triangles were also glue basted over card. I usually prefer to avoid glue, but with large shapes the fabric stays a lot more stable than when stitch basted - because it is held all around the shape edges and not just in the corners. Hope that makes some sense? 

So ...all these pieces become...another basket block

Once the block was all stitched together by the EPP method, I removed the papers and unpicked the basting just around the edge pieces, pressed flat and trimmed to 8" square.

 

The design wall was important to check for balance in value and colour

The baskets are done and now I'm moving on the edge blocks - just simple EPP of little triangles. 

Not much looking forward to putting it all together with the sashing pieces ...Y seams ahead!  I'll put the sewing machine to work for that bit...and try to keep the brain in gear! 

The garden is starting to show signs of Spring cheer so I brought some inside.

The Biggs

"The Biggs" is being laboriously hand quilted. It might well be the last quilt I ever stitch so intensely but at about 80% done the end is almost in sight!

I have shared Benjamin Biggs quilting pics on Instagram but nothing on the blog since this post in Feb 2016 when I finished the quilt top. It waited awhile in the quilting queue - with some Quilters Dream cotton batting and reels of YLI natural hand quilting thread on hand. Meanwhile some quilting design research...

A lot of the blocks in this quilt are quite irregular/quirky so I want to keep that feel in the quilting approach - nothing too symmetrical across the top.  

I planned to scatter a variety of antique-inspired motifs in among the blocks where there was a little open space. 

The motifs were drawn on to the top, before sandwiching, with a wash out pencil (General's Sketch and Wash graphite). The design is almost rubbed out by the time it is quilted so not much is left for washing anyway!

Winter weather, lots of 'Tour de France' recordings to stitch by, and a quilt in the hoop ...sigh.

Once all the motifs and applique pieces were outline stitched, it was time to commit to an intense background fill...and no going back once started! The outer ring of 16 blocks are echo quilted, and the centre block will be too. I love the look of echo quilting but it is hard going at times - all the turning and turning of the hoop. Nice not to have to mark but there's a lot of focus needed to get relatively even stitches and relatively even row spacing. 

The inner ring of 8 blocks are grid quilted (3/8"grid) - marked with the Hera marker, block by block - I love this process.

Just an aside : I've been thinking about adding trapunto - stuffing the quilted motifs with yarn from the back. It would give them more definition but am not sure it would be right for this quilt. The antique original on Sentimental Stitches blog photos does not seem to have stuffing, and I love the soft, wrinkly textured look. I'd really like to do this lovely pattern justice. Might the trapunto make it stiffer ? look too formal ? or maybe just look downright bizarre seeing as the motifs are all different and unevenly scattered on the quilt?! Sounds like I've made up my mind...but will see when the whole is quilted and bound. The fun thing about hand trapunto is I'm guessing you can add it any time... even years down the track! 

The border quilting is parallel lines 3/8" apart - Hera marked again, about a yard at a time, and the easiest quilting on this quilt!

When I started this post it was to be titled "The Biggs and some baskets" but have scrubbed "the baskets"  as the post has got too long! 

Back soon to share something else I've been working on 😊