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Whole Cloth Silk Quilt: Quilting Progress

Stitch by Stitch and Line by Line


When I started the first rough sketches for a quilt for our bed back in 2013, I had no idea it would take this long to finally get the quilt to the quilting stage. As the ideas came and went, and we came and went to and from France every six months, the designs got altered, rejected, put on hold and restarted many times. Staying at home for the last few years, progress was actually possible. Thanks to Autocad and my husband's input, the design finally came together early this year.  Whew!

The quilt is now well on it's way, with a hoped for finish before 2019. (Fingers crossed!)

Most of the outline got quilted before the chalk lines disappeared.

All major design lines are outlined with 1/2" channels.

Using a quilting ruler (in this case Kelly Cline's straight edge ruler) is very helpful for accuracy. I love these rulers and am getting pretty comfortable with the ones used for stitching straight lines. On my next project I hope to be trying curves with Bethanne Nemesh's new ruler set.

Above shows the completed outline.

Close up of the butterfly detail. Although for most of the quilt I'm using a tone on tone thread, a few main design elements are quilted with a gold, 50 weight silk thread.

A spray of shamrocks.

A close-up of some smaller hummingbirds.

Progress has been steady, if not quick. Still hoping for a 2018 finish.

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