Have you finished any projects recently? The best part of having QuiltCon contest submissions due last week and AQS Paducah submissions due this week is that having those deadlines pushes me to finish several ongoing projects.
Today, I get to share the final reveal of Oasis, my desert-inspired appliqué quilt. Over three posts, I have shared the process of going from photographic inspiration to a finished quilt.
- Part 1: Creating the Design
- Part 2: Appliqué
- Part 3: Quilting and Finishing (Today’s Post!)
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Thank Goodness It’s Finished Friday (TGIFF)
It’s a joy to host this week’s Thank Goodness It’s Finished Friday (TGIFF), and I’m genuinely excited to see all of your recently finished quilts! Scroll to the end of this post to see what everyone has been working on, and add your recent quilty finish.
Finishing Oasis
Quilting
Selecting a Motif
Hand appliqué quilts have lots of intricate detail, and I like to keep the quilting simple to highlight both the shapes within the design and the technique behind the stitching.
A small-ish grid design works well in quilts with botanical or other natural elements, such as 100 Days of Greenery or this quilt. We frequently encounter the natural world through the filter of a window screen. Therefore, a grid feels unobtrusive and allows us to focus on the primary elements featured in the appliqué. I like a 1/2″ square grid for a wall quilt of this scale.
Quilting the Design
I like to do straight-line quilting on my domestic machine for wall quilts. I use 1″ wide artist’s masking tape to mark my quilting lines and space them every two inches.
Why 2″? I have a 60″ long ruler that is two inches wide, so it is simple to position the lines of tape along either side of the ruler.
After marking the tape lines, I baste my quilt using safety pins and then use the walking foot on my domestic machine to quilt along either side of them. Once the baselines are in place, I remove the tape and subdivide the sections until my quilting lines are 1/2″ apart.
If you are interested in learning more about my quilting process, check out these posts:
- How to Pin Baste Your Quilt For Straight Line Quilting
- How to Do Straight Line Quilting Using a Walking Foot
I quilt all of my lines in one direction before marking and quilting them in the second direction.
Quilting Thread
Most quilts benefit from using colorful thread. For this project, I used 50-weight Aurifil 5006. The light turquoise color pulls from the background fabric without distracting from the greens and pinks in the foreground.
Binding
There are two basic options for edge finishes: binding or facing. A facing folds all the way to the back of the quilt, which gives the illusion that the image on the front of the quilt could go on forever. Binding creates a narrow border that frames the overall quilt design.
For this design, the binding’s frame appearance was the best choice to interact with the quilting motif’s window screen effect.
I keep an assortment of bindings available to add to my quilts, but I also make bindings specific to the quilt design. I pulled four possible options for this quilt, two I had already constructed and two from my fabric stash.
I quickly eliminated the bindings of a medium color value since the darker greens emphasize the framing quality of the binding. I ultimately decided on the irregular green stripe with a gold metallic component since metallic fabrics appear several times within the overall quilt design.
Quilt Stats
- Title: Oasis
- Size: 36.5″ x 41″
- Techniques: Hand Appliqué, Machine Piecing
- Quilting: Domestic Machine Quilted with a walking foot on a BERNINA 770QE PLUS
- Fabric: Too many fabrics to count with assorted solids, prints, batiks, and hand dyed pieces
- Batting: Hobbs Tuscany 80/20 Cotton/Wool Blend
- Thread: Appliquéd, Pieced and Machine Quilted with 50-weight Aurifil in multiple colors
- Binding: Irregular green stripe cut on the bias
Thank Goodness It’s Finished Friday (TGIFF) Link-Up
Now that you have seen my recent finish, I can’t wait to see yours! Add a link to your recent finish below, and check out all the other fantastic finishes!
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