It probably would have made more sense to break this into parts III and IV, but thanks to my downtime last week I’ve got some catching up to do…and since the quilt is done I’m too excited to wait to post the final for another week. So without further ado, I present to you my finished quilt! (Parts I and II here)

The process didn’t feel so long getting to this point, but now that I’m sitting down the re-cap it, piecing together the diamonds and triangles feels like forever ago. I was so happy to see that my hard work with being accurate paid off; beautiful 1/4″ seams all around and no extra stretched fabric hanging off any of the ends.

Staying organized with my columns and pieces made the piecing process go by quickly. Only starting after my day job, I was able to piece the quilt together in less than two evenings.

I did a lot of staring at the quilt top when it was finished being pieced. Although not all came out perfect, so many of my lines and corners lined up ???? Definitely an improvement over my first quilt.

You probably shouldn’t make a declaration after two experiences, but I’m definitely a pin baster. I’ve seen a lot of YouTube videos and blogs that rave about spray basting, but I just don’t think I’d feel confident in not skewing the quilt sandwich. Not to mention I already have to baste on my bedroom floor, and filling a closed area up with an aerosol glue doesn’t sound like a great idea; I just picture Brooks and I having a Clark Griswold moment with everything sticking to us from where the basting glue off-spray went when we try to go to bed. With a lot of smoothing and safety pins, the quilt was basted and ready to be quilted.

My original plan, and what I started doing on the quilt, was to stitch in the ditch to not throw off the geo illusion. I also figured this would be easier than laying out a design. Welp, I quickly realized that stitching in the ditch is harder than I thought, and can produce results that look messy. So partway through I decided to stitch 1/8″ away from whichever line I was following which produced a much cleaner stitch-line. You can see in the image below that some lines are clean and straight while others dip in and out of the seam line.

I was so happy with the end result of quilting that I sort of downplayed the binding part. Up until this point I had only made bias binding by sewing bias strips together one-at-a-time, and I really wanted to conquer the continuous bias strip. ???? I did it wrong three times in a row guys. And that was WHILE following a tutorial. However, after I found this YouTube video I was all set. Let me just tell you, when I finally figured it out and was cutting my continuous (already pressed!) bias tape I had stars in my eyes. It was seriously like magic taking a square piece of fabric and cutting one long perfect 2″ strip out of it. ✨ So here’s a boring picture of my bias binding just to document that I conquered it…finally.

After a few YouTube videos later to figure out how to miter the 120° angles, she was finally done. I know my original plan was to make a king in this style, but I think the pile of creative projects I want to tackle will cause the full king to be pushed back a little. For now I will marvel at this folded pile of colorful stitched cloth and feel my heart fill from going after my creative dreams.

Oh, and if you’re interested, the back of the quilt is the softest, cream minky fabric ever ????

Until next time,
Love Dylan

 

P.S I started my Moneta dress from Colette Patterns and can’t wait to post all about it; I’ll also be showing how to copy your paper patterns for easier customization and preservation ✌️