Wednesday, June 8, 2016

Weight of Love Quilt

In February, I took the Weight of Love workshop by Libs Elliot. Libs has a very edgy aesthetic and when picking fabric for her class I was torn between a vibrant modern palette or a more sedate contemporary one. In the end I could not resist cutting into the fat quarter bundle of Peppered Cottons by Studio E fabrics that I had purchased. They are just stunning in person and provided much needed color therapy while I was working with them.


I decided to use the entire stack of fabrics rather than limiting the palette to just a few colors. These were my picks. In some cases I mapped 2-3 fabrics for the same color slot. 


Cutting up the hexagons was the easy part. Sewing them together was a slow process with all the Y-seams and it took some perseverance. In retrospect a loose weave shot cotton was perhaps not the right choice for a pattern that required precision cutting and piecing. I had to heavily starch some of the pieces to make them easier to handle. 


Once the top was done I decided to add in a few hexagons as background to complete the top. I had already made up my mind to hand quilt this one with Perle cotton. I used size 8 thread and a good Sashiko needle for this. From previous experience with another hand quilting project I decided not to use Warm and Natural cotton batting as it is really hard on the fingers. Instead I used Hobbs Thermore Ultra Thin Polyster batting. The needle went through like butter. I used about 6 different colors of DMC Perle cotton to quilt this one.




Finally I faced the quilt as I am currently into the no binding look. This is going to be a wall quilt for the most part so facing seemed to fit the bill.



Finishing this quilt has been very satisfying. I am going to miss working on it. Leaving off with a few more pictures.




Linking up to: Quilt Story

11 comments:

  1. This is gorgeous, Rachel! Beautiful fabrics and your hand quilting makes it super special!

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  2. This is gorgeous, Rachel! Beautiful fabrics and your hand quilting makes it super special!

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  3. A really stunning quilt and hand quilted. A real labour of love.

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  4. I love the texture and the color of the peppered cottons combined with the hand quilting. This quilt is gorgeous.

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  5. I you this quilt! The hand quilting looks great.

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  6. The color scheme you chose is so luminous and striking. Your hand quilting also gives it such a beautiful texture!

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  7. Fantastic! Mine is ready to be quilted... I can't decide how I want to quilt it. I really want to hand quilt it so it will look just like yours! But I can't! You are fast too! I love this!

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  8. What a very beautiful quilt! I am in awe! Lovely colours, lovely pattern - just perfect!

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  9. Wow, this is an amazing quilt - colors, quilting, design - all. It will be a phenomenal wall hanging!

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  10. Absolutely stunning! Amazing design ... just WOW!

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  11. Gorgeous!!! Wonderful job on the hand quilting. You must have patience (and time) of a saint!

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