Vision Sort Of Accomplished!

I had a vision for this quilt and when this did not exactly go to plan I abandoned the project. Well, it has been resurrected and I have definitely been reminded why it became an UFO in the first place.

I have been working on the border for the last 1 1/2 weeks. What a hassle this was!

My initial thought of stitching this out using Golden Threads paper proved too difficult...the motif is just too frilly and to my horror I also had not taken into account that the borders were all slightly different, so it was back to the drawing board for me. The motif comes from EQ8 - Quiltmaker, Vol.8 and is called 'Curly Plume'.  Went back into the program and tried to adjust the sizing to my border. This proved very difficult indeed. While I could manage this on paper (and within the program obviously), getting this to fit my actual border was starting to become a nightmare because my measurements were a bit off to start with (due to compaction of the whole piece) and EQ8 is very precise. My border is 42 1/2in, give and take a little...after my first attempt to print out and glue together the whole border and it then not fitting my border, I started again, this time thinking this through a bit better. I sectioned the border into 4 equal parts, this time though making one of the motifs in one section a tad smaller in width (even though according to the program it should have fitted my border perfectly) to account for variation in my measurements (and to be able to have one section smaller to make necessary adjustments in the other borders).

Hard to see but I think you get the idea...painstakingly put together, section by section...allowing for adequate space at the bottom and top. Unfortunately for me this border relies on the correct placements of the motifs, particularly in the corners. Does not help that this is not a continuous border but individual motifs! You would think that this makes it easier but it did not as the beauty of the border relies on the correct placement of the motifs. After this I took one section at a time and made myself a stencil with Golden Threads paper, i.e. tracing it, then stitching it out without thread and then using it as a stencil with the chalk pounce.

Ready to stitch and hoping for the best

Bingo! See that white line on the left...I needed it exactly there, not close to it but exactly where it ended up. The first trial I did run into trouble on this very first line by being slightly over which made the placement of the next few sections too difficult, i.e. my other corner motif would have been misplaced.

So, I continued... and am happy to report it worked out.

Had some trepidation re the left corner but ended up in exactly the right spot with not a millimetre to spare. Writing this now, it sounds so very simple but I must say this nearly did my head in and the project was in danger of going back into the cupboard.

This truly must be the most crazy thing I have done for a long time and I definitely will not repeat this, just too labour intensive. But I had this vision of this quilt and it obviously needs to be completed. Not sure actually what exactly this will look like as I had a few issues. For example, the corner motif did not work out at all and I am now leaving that blank, probably just going to echo the space. Will have to wait and see. Also, there is a 1/4in space separating the border from the centre...that was also not part of the equation! Not sure whether I like the look of that, but it is what it is...will fill this with pebbles after I finished the border.

A word on the motif...very easy to stitch out but a hassle to keep consistent. You have to stitch this with some gusty to make it flowing and sometimes that works better than other times.

As I am not a machine and I am stitching on charcoal, you can see every little wobble and hesitation but I think , that is just too bad...it is, after all, done freehand, and this is as good as it gets.

Hopefully I am not running out of steam on this!

Karin