The Story of Sunlit Treasure

A very warm to welcome to all visiting from the Blogger's Quilt Festival over at Amy's Creative Side and Sarah's blog, The Last Piece.

I'm sharing the story of my Sunlit Treasure quilt which I finally completed last month.

It began with a desire to make a bigger, more challenging quilt, one large enough to cover our bed well. When my pre-ordered copy of Sarah Fielke's "Quilting from Little Things" arrived in April 2011 I fell in love with her "North by North East" quilt design. The same month Lori Holt's Sew Cherry fabric range was released - a perfect match!

Using fabrics from my colourful stash, I quickly made a start on all those flying geese required for the middle panel, experimenting with which method worked best for me as I had never made a flying geese block before.....

Being one who sews on the dining table (of our family of 10) which is also our main homeschool space, quilting time and space is largely confined to school holidays. Somewhere in the middle of the monotony of sewing the required 700 flying geese I nearly lost all motivation to quilt at all. I was enjoying the more instant satisfaction of exploring my love of photography, and "unfollowed" every quilting blog I had previously enjoyed following.

 However, every time I would take a good look at the rows of geese hanging safely in my wardrobe I would realise afresh how much I really did love these fabrics. Many of them held special memories being remnants from previously made quilts and sewing projects, not to mention that their bright colours (like jewels or treasure resplendent in sunlight) just made me feel happy. Slowly but surely I persevered...

As I finished the quilt top I was still unsure about how to quilt this monster. It was physically impossible to reach the centre using my 28 year old domestic Janome. Not wanting to give up at this point, I decided to hand quilt the middle panel using hundreds of little four point crosses, an invented stitch which acts similarly to discreet tie quilting. Using this quilting method I was able to avoid stitches on the coloured fabric pieces.

Stippling the large setting corners has provided good stability and a smooth finish.

I love the hand quilted border around the edge of the quilt, it gives a wonderful finish to the design.

As the time drew near when the backing fabric would be needed our local Lincraft ( fabric/craft chain) store had a fabric sale. They had a cherry fabric which looked just perfect. I bought all that was left on the bolt but I knew it was considerably short of the stated requirements. However as I had slightly modified the quilt top, I ended up being only a few inches short. After hunting through my fabric stash to supplement the cherry backing, my first choice was a green basket weave print which I later discovered just happened to be a quarter yard purchase from the original Sew Cherry range which I had bought (and forgotten about) nearly two years ago. A happy discovery indeed.

As we head into our winter "Down Under" in Australia, my Sunlit Treasure quilt is keeping us snuggly warm at night and brightening my days every time my eyes glance upon it.

Once more I can enjoy contemplating new fabrics and dreaming of beautiful quilts....I am relished re-entering the world of quilting blogs!

Quilt Stats:

Dimensions: 87" X 87" (Slightly modified/smaller than Sarah's original design)

Special Techniques: Centre panel and border hand quilted with mini four-pointed crosses.

Quilted By: Me! All geese blocks are hand quilted, the setting corners stippled using my Janome SL2022.

"By perseverance the snail reached the ark."

                                  Charles Spurgeon

PS If you are interested in further details, click on the Flying Geese Quilt tag in my tag cloud in the side bar or leave a question amongst the comments.

Sharing at the Blogger's Quilt Festival: Bed Quilts.