Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Progress on the Orchard Quilt


Lately I've been working on the orchard quilt, last seen here.   Having finally settled on an arrangement for the trees, I fused them down and began quilting in the extra branches.  It was quite a bit of thread work through all three layers to get all those extra branches in, as all of the skinny and most of the medium thickness branches are thread, not fabric. There are a bunch of unfortunate knots/birds nests on the back that are really frustrating but that I can't really pick out because they're on top of a bunch of other thread work.  I did discover that when coming back through with the snow colored thread on the branches, that I could sew over the brown branches and then color over it with brown/black/purple marker if needed (those were the colors with which I quilted the trees).  Saved me quite a few stops and starts.

Unfortunately, I realized (after doing all the work on the trees), that I definitely should have quilted the background first.  FIRST FIRST FIRST.  You guys cannot imagine, I had to stop and start my thread (and then BURY THEM ALL) for every little tiny section of background that shows between tree branches.  

Then when I started quilting the background snow, I got a whole section quilted and my thread broke.  I turned it over and was horrified to see a giant disaster.  I had to rip out the whole section.  I was so frustrated and only after much tribulation realized I'd been using the wrong bobbin.  ARGH.  Not as in the wrong color/thread bobbin, but as in a bobbin that goes to a different sewing machine all together.......

But anyway, it's coming along nicely now.  I'm switching back to the dog portraits for a while, but the next steps on this will be to put in the shadows for the trees, quilt the sky in the inset, and add a frolicking dog in the foreground snow.





Linking up with Lee and Nina-Marie as always!

14 comments:

  1. All I have so say is WOW. This is absolutely gorgeous, and looks like a painting. This just maes me excited to get to a skill level in quilting where I can create something this wonderful.

    I'm stopping by from the WIP Wednesday linky party, this is my WIP post if you wannt drop by my blog: http://thesehandsofmine.blogspot.com/2013/06/happy-wednesday-i-found-out-about-this.html Keep Creating!

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  2. This is really beautiful! I hate thread nests on the back. Makes me so angry! I'm impressed you didn't throw the quilt out the window! When it's all finished you can laugh about it!

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  3. Wow, that is beautiful! Sorry you've had so many little issues, though! I hate when things like that happen. I have definitely dropped in the wrong bobbin and made a huge mess before I realized my mistake. So frustrating!

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  4. There are so many different types of design involved in this quilt... it's breathtaking. I am in big lurve with the snowy landscape quilting!

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  5. This is amazing - you are so incredibly talented!!!

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  6. Fantastic!so sorry to hear about the bobbin.

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  7. One of my aphorisms is that there are no mistakes in quilting, merely learning experiences and creative opportunities. We have all had our share of those. The bobbin fiasco is one you are likely never to forget. Looking at the quilt it is hard to believe your difficulties. It is a stunner.

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  8. What a different way to do the sky! Wonderful!

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  9. Shannon!!! Oh wow! This is coming together so beautifully… I'm absolutely speechless.

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  10. That is spectacular. I'd love to see it in person.

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