A wee bit of FMQ {Suzy Q Panel for BERNINA Australia}

Back in March, BERNINA Australia contacted me to ask if I'd be interested in quilting a small panel to be part of a display in their booth at the Australasian Quilt Convention (AQC) this year. Of course I said yes (I mean, what an honour!), and had a LOT of fun quilting it. A group of textile artists and quilters from around Australia have been busy working their magic on these panels, and I really wish I could make it to AQC this year to see them all hanging together - it will be a fabulous display, and it will be so interesting to see how people approach it. If any of my readers are going to AQC this year, I would be forever in your debt if you could snap a few pictures of the display for me, so I can see what they all look like together!

It took me a few weeks to decide how I wanted to approach the quilting on this. The panel measures about 45cm x 75cm, and features a girl's face with flowers in her hair and a really cool geometric hexagon-type design. I knew I wanted to play around with geometric quilting in and around the hexagon, but I was a bit stumped as to what to do around the face. In the end, I decided to roughly outline quilt the flowers and leaves and facial features, and then surround the face with swirls. I haven't done any FMQ since November last year, so it was really lovely to spend a few hours quilting this up last week.

I used Aurifil 40wt (2021) for the swirls and outline quilting. It blends amazingly well into the background fabric, and even for the outline quilting. I probably could have used a darker thread for the facial features, but I love that the white thread has given her face definition without distracting from the printing on the panel. It also meant I could be a bit more 'sketchy' with my quilting (and it wouldn't be too obvious if I didn't quite quilt right on the printed lines), whereas using a darker (ie charcoal) thread would have required far more precision and would risk looking pretty dodgy if I missed those lines!

The geometric quilting is all free motion quilted using Aurifil 40wt in a variegated orange/yellow (4658). I love using variegated threads, and I particularly love how this one plays with the soft, warm colours in the panel. I love doing this kind of random geometric straight line FMQ - it's fast and so much fun to do! Plus it gives such a great texture, and looks pretty fabulous alongside curvy quilting such as swirls or pebbles. 

 If you're lucky enough to be going to AQC over the next four days, please go say hi to my little quilt - and check out what is sure to be a fabulous display from talented quilters all over Australia! If you are on Instagram and manage to get a photo, please tag me (@ElvenGardenQuilts) so I can check it out :o).

xx Jess

Flow {A Finished Quilt}

Wow, it's been a long, long time since I've shared a quilt finish in this space! It's nice to be back - and I have several quilts and quilt tops I finished toward the end of last year that I'm hoping to share over the next few weeks. The first two I'll be showing you were made essentially in secret - that is, I resisted my usual tendency to completely overshare what I'm working on. The main reason for this was that both of these were made specifically for the challenge categories for QuiltCon 2016, so I wanted them to be a bit of a surprise *if* they were juried into the show. Neither of them got accepted, so I'm kind of excited to be able to share them at last!

The quilt I'm sharing today was made for the Michael Miller Luxe challenge - she's called Flow and she was a really fun quilt top put together. This is a fairly long post, as I'll be showing a bit of my process as well as a few pictures of the final quilt, so please bear with me! I would normally split this much information across a few blog posts - but I'm making up for my recent lack of blog posts by giving you a single enormous post ;o).

Mid last year, the Modern Quilt Guild offered members the opportunity to sign up for the Michael Miller Luxe challenge, one of the special categories that would be part of the QuiltCon 2017 show. Everyone who signed up for the Luxe challenge was sent two half yard pieces of fabric, in one of the colour stories below. Participants were then allowed to add ONE cotton couture solid to these, and to use any of the Luxe range of fabrics in their quilt. The fabrics I received were the middle two, and I then added a deep teal cotton couture to these, as well as solid white and grey Luxe fabrics.

I have to admit, these fabrics sat in a pile on my cutting table for a good few months before I started getting some ideas about what to do with them. These fabrics are sheeting fabric rather than quilting cotton, and as such have a slightly different sheen (they are quite shiny) and have a wee bit more stretch than regular quilting cotton. I was a little bit nervous about working with them, but eventually I decided improv curves were the way to go, and I started making a few blocks, without any real plan as to what I'd do with them. Apologies for the poor lighting in the next few photos - my design wall has overhead fluorescent lights, which make it really hard to get good pictures of the whole wall. 

Initially, I made a few blocks, thinking I would position them so that there was a continuous improv curve from top to bottom down the quilt. 

But as I kept making blocks, I decided to lay them out more randomly, with more negative space between and around the blocks. At this point I hadn't ordered any solids for the background, and my initial thought was to surround them all with white, and to create continuous curved lines through the quilt with quilting.

But, when I sat down to order the solids, I decided at the last minute to get some grey as well as white, and use this to create some more movement in the negative space. I think this is what I love most about improv quilts - it's such a playful process, figuring out layout and design on the fly. Working with an idea, testing things out and discarding ideas that don't quite work.

I had a love-hate relationship with this quilt the entire time I was piecing it. Thankfully, I have a really awesome quilty friend (kat) who was happy for me to bombard her with photos and questions as I was working on it. I think I've grown so used to oversharing my projects on social media as I'm working on them, that working on something in secret made me feel like I was in a black hole in some ways. I needed the opportunity to get constructive criticism when I was making this, or I honestly think I would have abandoned it. 

In the end, this quilt was a weird combination of improv curves, and some pretty intense precision piecing to get those curves to form a continuous line through the quilt top. It was a really fun challenge, so despite those times I didn't like it, I still enjoyed the process. And seriously, this quilt was SO much fun to add texture to. Quilting is a super important part of quilt making for me - and the whole time I was piecing it I was thinking about how I would quilt it, to add to the sense of movement in the quilt top, and add loads of texture without detracting from the design. I forgot to take a photo of the top before I quilted it, so this is it in full. After I'd finished piecing, I decided to orientate the curves across the quilt, rather than top to bottom, and I much prefer it this way around :o).

As always, I did all the quilting on my little domestic Bernina (440QE), but because it's a reasonably small quilt (around 60" square) it was a really enjoyable quilt to quilt. I decided to use batting with a bit of loft to make all the quilting stand out, so I chose a Wool/Polyester batting - it's become one of my favorites to use. The batting, combined with the fact that it's made from sheeting, has resulted in the softest quilt I've ever made, despite all that dense free motion quilting.

All the quilting on this one is done in Aurifil 50wt - white, dove and a few different blues to blend in with the fabrics. Although I've recently used a few other weights of Aurifil for quilting (40wt and 28wt), for this quilt I decided 50wt was the way to go, as I wanted the quilting to blend into the fabric as much as possible, just leaving all that texture.

I don't often piece backs for my quilts - but I had a few bits of the Luxe grey and white left over, as well as a bunch of half-metre pieces of various blues, aqua and teal cotton couture that I pieced together for this one. Solids are the BEST for showing up quilting :o).

Thanks for making it this far in a pretty epic blog post! As I said, I have a few more quilts to share, which I hope to do over the next few weeks. I've made a few fairly major life changes this year (all good ones) which will mean I have more time and energy to blog more regularly. I'd forgotten how much I enjoy talking about and sharing my projects here, so you'll have to put up with my rambling a bit more frequently from now on...

xx Jess

Improv quilt quilting progress

So, somehow it's been almost a month since I posted here (although I'm sure most of you are used to my erratic-blogging ways by now!) April was a bit of a blur, with 10 days in Melbourne for AQC - but since we got back I have been sewing up a storm. Over the last few weeks, I finished piecing my improv quilt top and started quilting it last week. I didn't manage to get a good photo of the quilt top before I basted it, so you'll have to wait for the big reveal when it's finished for that!

The entire time I have been piecing this quilt, I've been bustingly excited about quilting it. Not that I didn't enjoy the piecing part - it's been the most fun I've had making a quilt ever, quite seriously. I didn't have all that much of a plan when I started quilting - I just knew I wanted lots of organic straight lines (free motion quilted of course!) with a few pockets of curvy designs. I started out in the yellow/ochre block of colour, slowly getting a feel for what I wanted to do. I've used two different yellow variegated 40wt Aurifil threads in this section - a darker thread in this area (until I finished the spool),

and then a lighter (orangey yellow) variegated thread for the rest of the yellow block and out into the low volume. Once I got into the low volume area, I hit my stride with the quilting, very much inspired by the grey Carolyn Friedlander print in the photo below.

You can see here how much that fabric inspired this quilting - and the texture is just amazing. Because many of the low volume fabrics I've used have a grid-type design in them, I have actually done virtually zero marking on this quilt - I've used the fabrics as a guide instead.

 Earlier this week, I managed to start quilting the orange section. I'm using a variegated coral coloured Aurifil 40wt for the orange section - and I'm really surprised how well it blends into these fabrics. There is a big variation in tone and value through this section, and although I initially questioned this choice of thread, it works amazingly well.

You can definitely see it on the lighter fabrics, but it's proven to be a real chameleon thread across the others. I felt this thread was a bit dark to use on the low volume areas though, so I switched to a variegated grey 40wt for the low volume section near the oranges.

Considering I only got this quilt basted last Wednesday, and I haven't really spent all that much time quilting it (about 15 hours I think?), I can't really believe it's almost half quilted. This quilt has stolen my heart, completely and utterly. It's my absolute favorite, and I see many more improv adventures for me this year!

You can see a few areas I've left unquilted - some of these I will go back and free motion quilt, but others I will add a bit of hand-quilting too. And some of them will be left alone, happily puffy among all that textured, tactile quilty goodness.

 xx Jess

Aviatrix Medallion {Finished at last!!}

A few days ago, I finally finished sewing the binding down on my Aviatrix Medallion, so this epically epic quilt is finally (almost!) finished! Aviatrix has been roughly a year in the making, so I hope you're not sick of seeing it quite yet (I know I've been sharing it quite frequently over the course of piecing and quilting it!). I still have a lot of thread burying to do, but it is essentially finished - so this is the last time you'll have to see it ;o). 

I made this quilt as a class sample for the class I taught at Frangipani Fabrics last year (and will be teaching again this year), and all the fabrics in the quilt are from Frangipani. The Aviatrix Medallion pattern is designed by Elizabeth Hartman, and I stuck pretty closely to her original palette, but I've used print fabrics rather than solids as in the pattern. I really do prefer working with prints, especially prints that have a dominant colour, and I think they work perfectly in this quilt. It gives the blocks a bit more sparkle than with solids, I think.

This is a pretty time consuming quilt to piece - although the centre is the only really difficult part to put together. Having said that, the way I chose to quilt it made it a truly epic quilt to make. I haven't timed it at all, but I reckon I spent close to 150 hours quilting this one. And I am really proud of what I achieved with it. I tried really hard to be original in my quilting choices, and to add lots of texture without taking away from the piecing design too much. I think I've achieved my aims - I know this much detailed quilting isn't to everyone's taste, but I adore how it's finished up!

I used a wool/poly batting for the first time on this quilt - and I'm hooked. It gives the quilting a bit more puff than 100% wool batting, and it has a lovely drape despite all that quilting. I figure if I am going to spend all that time quilting, it might as well be noticeable ;o). 

Having looked through these photos, I've decided I will go back and add some more quilting to the log cabins that haven't been quilted in the coloured sections. In the photo below, you can see I've quilted a cross hatch pattern in the yellow log cabin - I'm going to go back and add bits of quilting like that at some stage soon.

 The back of this quilt is simply pieced, with a Cotton and Steel voile down the centre and a dark pink solid on either side. The voile held up amazingly well with all the quilting on this quilt - and having such a light weight fabric on the back means it drapes amazingly well. Not only that, it feels delightful!

As always, I matched my bobbin thread to the top thread, so the quilting on the solid pink is really visible, especially where I've quilted over the same place a few times. I somehow managed to keep the back straight relative to the front too - not something that always happens when I piece backs! The binding is partly pieced using the left overs from the top, and partly neutral fabric that blends in with the final border.

All the quilting was done with Aurifil threads - Dove grey 50wt for all the background and grey areas, and the four colours you can see below for the coloured sections. I love that you can see the quilting on some of the coloured sections, but blends into others. Changing thread colours wasn't something I originally planned for this quilt, but I'm glad I did. Although it means a lot of threads to bury, I think with this much quilting it needs to blend fairly well, or it would completely dominate the piecing.

This quilt was on my Finish Along Quarter One list, so I'm especially pleased to get one finish in this quarter. I've had so many lovely comments during the making of this quilt, thank you so much for your encouragement! I'm incredibly happy with how it's turned out, although I'm looking forward to making a couple of simple quilts before launching into my next epic quilt ;o)

xx Jess

Molecular (a finished quilt)

Somehow it's been nearly two months since I blogged?!? Admittedly I haven't been sewing at my normal frenetic levels (work, life, kids etc), but I do have a few recent finishes I'd like to share. As many of you would be aware, entries were due last Monday for the QuiltCon 2016 show. The week leading up to the deadline saw me finishing my Michael Miller fabric challenge entry and starting and finishing my EZ Quilting Triangle challenge - nothing like a deadline to kick me into gear ;o)

So this is my Michael Miller Glitz fabric challenge quilt. I really, really struggled to come up with an idea of what do to with these fabrics (bling on fabric is not my usual thing. At all.) I knew I wanted to include circles and to make it entirely black and white but beyond that I didn't have a clue. Eventually I came up with the idea of creating a stylised molecule against a simple strip pieced background.

I have no idea if this is a modern quilt or not - but I had a LOT of fun making it. The design itself is quite simple, but I gave myself a ton of room to play with the quilting. In a way this quilt is a statement about the lack of complex FMQ I saw in the quilt show at QuiltCon this year. As much as I love the look of dense straight lines, I think modern quilting can be more than that - and I firmly believe that FMQ can be decidedly modern. So I've attempted that on this quilt.

I even tried a bit of trapunto on this quilt - the circles have an extra layer of batting behind them, and have been needle turn appliqued onto the quilt top. You can see in the photo below, they are quite puffy, and make it just a little bit three dimensional. I decided to use blending thread for all the quilting - Aurifil 50wt in black and soft white - and I'm glad I did. Although there is a LOT of quilting on this quilt, because it blends I think it complements the quilt rather than dominating it, and gives it interest.

It is really difficult to capture in photographs, but the designs in the white are all continued through on the black sections. I used two layers of wool batting, so the texture is pretty awesome - plus these fabrics have a gorgeous feel. Very much like sewing with Cotton Couture.

It's so nice to be back to blogging - I'm hoping to share some of my other recent work over the next week or two. I promise it won't be another two months between posts ;o)

xx Jess

Epic adventures in FMQ

A few weeks ago, I started quilting my Aviatrix Medallion and then everything came to a stand still when I got sick. I started feeling much better this week though, and I've gotten back into quilting with a vengeance - and I have progress to share!! It's nice to have energy again - this quilt weighs a tonne with all the seams and due to the sheer size of it (80" square), so the last thing I felt like doing last week was wrestling with this ;o)

I actually started quilting this a few weeks ago - I started out by ditch stitching around all the tiny diamonds in the centre block, and then matchstick quilted some of the white diamonds to make the birds pop. It's impossible to capture the texture in photographs, but this block feels amazing when you run your fingers across it. I didn't want to complicate the centre too much, so I free motion quilted straight lines radiating out, using the seams as a guide.

The half square triangle border is pretty simply quilted too - ditch stitched, and then straight lines through the lighter value HSTs. Up to this point, I thought I'd use Aurifil 50wt in Dove grey (my go-to quilting colour most of the time) for the whole thing. It blends beautifully into the soft grey Cotton and Steel crosses and contrasts just slightly with the white background.

Once I'd ditch stitched the next border however, I decided I wanted to start using coloured thread on the coloured sections. I'm being pretty careful about ditch stitching to keep this quilt square as I move out through the borders, not an easy feat on a quilt this size. Totally worth it though, as I'm removing most of the basting pins during the ditch stitching, which is freeing me up to go a little nuts with the more complex quilting. The other handy thing about having ditch stitched around each block is that I can quilt each of the colours (ie blue then pink then red etc) and only change threads between each colour, rather than between each block.

Once I'd finished quilting the strip border, I sat down and did a bit of sketching to figure out how to quilt the x plus blocks. One of my favorite parts of the border above are the quilted geese in the lowest border, so I decided to continue that theme by quilting geese into the 'x' parts of these blocks. I quilted out all of the 'background' first using dove grey thread, creating gems between the blocks. And now I'm going back to each block and quilting them with a coordinating colour. I've matched my thread colour to the middle value in each colour group - so it blends quite well into some of the colours, but contrasts with the lightest and darkest fabrics. A little bit scary (and requires a LOT of concentration), but totally worth it. I'm delighted with how this border is progressing. I'm not doing any marking for this either - I did for the first block and then realised I could do it by eye reasonably easily :o) 

I'm not going to lie - this quilting is taking a looong time (around 30 minutes for each block), but I put so much time and effort into the piecing, I figure it's worth time and effort with the quilting. Quite a few people have commented about how much patience I must have - I guess I do, but I enjoy this kind of quilting so much and the result is absolutely worth it, I think! I will go back and quilt the skinny border before the x plus blocks too - I just haven't decided what to do yet.

I did want to clear up a few things in this post too - I've had a few no-reply commenters recently who assume I quilt on a long arm. I don't. All of this is done on my domestic Bernina. Yes it is hard on the shoulders, but I stretch a lot and take regular breaks. I'm a firm believer that it is possible to do pretty much anything on a domestic that you can on a long arm (except perhaps really large scale quilting where you just can't manipulate the quilt effectively or see where you need to go next). I'd still love a long arm one day, but I'm content with what I've got and I'm happy to work within the limits of a domestic machine.

Apologies for the epic and slightly preachy post, I hope you're all having a fabulous week!

xx Jess

PS Linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday!!

House of the Rising Sun

Over the last week or so, I've been working on a class sample for a free motion quilting class I'll be teaching in November. It has been such a lot of fun to work on this quilt - and it's pretty much done! I have used Karlee Porter's Graffiti Quilting book as a jumping point for this quilt - it's a great ideas book. As I became more confident with this style of quilting, I tried to bring in my own elements more, but it's definitely inspired by Karlee's phenomenal work. All my students will be purchasing a copy of the book too - it's a great resource.

I am still unpicking that dark red bit in the middle, and I will fix that bit very soon - but apart from that it's finished. I definitely like some parts better than others - but it will be good to show students what works and doesn't work ;o)

It's really hard to capture the thread colours in photos, but I've used a rainbow of Aurifil threads (some 40wt, some 50wt) starting with red in the centre. Most of the thread colours I used were on the light side - I did start quilting with navy thread, but I decided pretty quickly that it was a bit dark, and changed to a softer variegated blue. I especially liked quilting with 40wt variegated thread on this quilt; once I got used to using contrasting thread it made it interesting to see the subtle change in colour starting to appear.

I used two layers of wool/cotton batting on this one (it's only about 40" square so it wasn't too heavy) - and it's given the quilting a gorgeous texture. It is a pretty stiff quilt with all that quilting though - which made it tricky to move it around toward the end!

It needs to be washed and blocked once it's completely done - it is pretty wavy around the edges, but I'm hoping it will flatten out when I block it.

I started quilting my Aviatrix today too - so I'm hoping I'll have more quilting progress to share soon :o)

xx Jess

Fractal Quilt {AGF Stitched}

I've been sewing up a storm over the last few weeks, working on several projects at the same time (my favorite way to work, flitting between different quilts). The quilt I'm sharing with you today is one of these projects - it came together incredibly fast and has been a really fun quilt to make. This is my Fractal Quilt, which I've made as part of AGF Stitched - a joint project between Art Gallery Fabrics and the Fat Quarter Shop.

When I say this came together fast, I mean really fast. I started cutting this last Sunday night, and by Wednesday I'd finished piecing the quilt top. I think that's a record for me - it took around 12 hours to cut and piece, and that's even taking into account the fact that it uses y-seams to make the blocks. I've not done many y-seams in the past, and I was pleasantly surprised with how simple they were to do. This quilt uses the kite template by Creative Grids, which makes cutting really straight forward. I've used Creative Grids rulers for a few projects now, and I'm a big fan - they are non-slip rulers so even when you're cutting complex shapes like these kites they stay put on your fabric and make it easy to cut accurately. The template also has holes that enable you to mark the pivot point for sewing the y-seams, a large part of why I found them so easy to sew, I think! I really struggled to photograph this quilt as the weather has conspired against me, but this is the quilt top, stuck to our kitchen wall over the top of my kids' art work ;o) I'm actually thinking I'll keep it this shape rather than square off the edges...

I chose to use a mix of various Art Gallery collections for this quilt - but my fabric choices were very much driven by the colours in Frances Newcombe's Utopia collection, several of which I chose to use in this quilt. The neutrals are all from other Art Gallery collections, but apart from the aqua fabric all the coloured prints are from Utopia. The print I chose for the backing is one of my current favorites, Dreamlandia Illuminated (you can see a peek of it at the bottom of the photo below). 

I'm making this quilt for my new(ish) niece, and I think the colours I've used are great for a baby girl - plus it's sophisticated enough that hopefully she will love it as she gets older. It's pretty big for a baby quilt (around 56" x 60"), so I'm hoping it will get used for years to come. As you know, one of my favorite parts of making quilts is the quilting, and I'm really happy with how the quilting is going so far on this one. I started quilting the low volume sections last night using Aurifil 40wt (#2021), adding lots and lots of texture with dense straight line FMQ. I didn't have much of a plan when I started, but there are so many interesting angles in the design that I think I'll keep it pretty simple and use the angles in the blocks to mostly do straight line FMQ over the rest of the quilt. I'll smash down some areas with dense straight lines, and let some of the other areas pop with less dense quilting. Not the greatest photos I'm afraid (one of the perils of last minute night time quilting!!), but I'm delighted with the texture :o)

I started a bit of the coloured areas tonight - and I think this is what I'll do across the rest of the quilt top - I adore the texture of organic straight line FMQ and I think it will create some interesting effects over the quilt top. This picture is horribly over-exposed - but it gives you an idea of the texture so far! 

Fractal is a free pattern, and there is even a video tutorial available to help you with the cutting and y-seams. You can also find kits for this quilt at the Fat Quarter Shop. There are lots of great bloggers who are participating in this blog hop, I'm looking forward to seeing their versions of the Fractal pattern :o)

Katarina Roccella

Christina Lane of Sometimes Crafter

Natalia Bonner of Piece N Quilt

Erica Jackman of Kitchen Table Quilting

Riane Menardi of Vessel Quilts

Afton Warrick of Quilting Mod

M-R Charbonneau of Quilt Matters

Caroline Hulse of Sew Caroline

Rachel McKeeman of The Floral Suitcase

I'll be back later this week to introduce my Checker block (that I designed for Alyce's Bee Hive series) - the tutorial is up on Alyce's blog if you'd like to go take a look. I've been busy making blocks and I'm hoping to share my progress in the next few days :o)

xx Jess

Beneath the Waves (a finished quilt!)

Back in December last year, I hosted a giveaway for a roll up of blue Cotton Couture fabric from my wonderful sponsors Polka Dot Tea fabrics and Danielle and Jeanette generously sent me a roll up as well. It's no secret that I'm a massive fan of cotton couture - I first used it last year when I made Galaxy and it was love at first touch. Needless to say, I was pretty excited to work with the roll up! Around the same time, I bought Karlee Porter's self published Grafitti Quilting book (which is excellent), and instantly wanted to give grafitti quilting a try - and what better way to feature quilting than working on an all-solids quilt? This idea percolated away for a while, and then when I came back from QuiltCon I came up with a solid plan for how I wanted to approach it.

I started by sorting the strips by value (using the black and white function on my camera), attempting to have a smooth transition from dark to light across the quilt top. I nearly managed it, but I think I accidentally switched a few strips around while I was piecing it so there are a couple that don't quite transition smoothly - but it's close enough for the effect I wanted ;o)

Once it was pieced and basted I dived straight into the quilting. I was lucky enough to attend a class with Krista Withers (one of my quilty heroes) at QuiltCon, and I came home full of ideas I wanted to try. One of the best things I came away from Krista's class with was ideas for how to approach breaking up negative space with quilting, and I wanted to incorporate some of that into the quilting on this quilt. So I decided to use a combination of grafitti quilting and Krista's ideas and hope for the best. I decided to use this as a learning experience, and just go with it - no ripping stitches, no self-criticism but just have fun and play. As a result it was one of the most enjoyable quilts to quilt - and I'm delighted with how it turned out. It was a brilliant learning quilt - finding some new (to me) shapes and combinations of designs, and getting LOTS of ideas for future quilts.

I made this quilt for my baby nephew, who lives in a house with polished boards, so I used a double layer of wool batting on this quilt thinking it would be a lovely quilt for wriggle time (and to play on as he gets older). The resulting texture is pretty incredible - I think it will be a really great sensory quilt as he gets older and starts to explore things more. I'm using a double layer of batting more and more on smaller quilts - I just can't get enough of the texture it gives. I don't think I'd do it on anything much bigger than this (it's about 40" x 60") due to the added weight, but as I'm becoming more confident with my quilting, I'm really loving the added puff two layers gives.

The quilting is all Aurifil 50wt thread - a variegated blue in the darker area of the quilt, and then a light variegated grey in the lighter area. Overall the thread has blended beautifully and has just left all the glorious texture. The combination of cotton couture, double layer batting and all that quilting makes for a pretty luxurious quilt - it's silky soft to touch and it is very comfy to lie on (as this little cutie can attest!)

I can't promise I'll have two posts in such quick succession again by the way - but these wintery nights are much better suited to sitting on the couch with my laptop than braving my freezing cold sewing room, and I have lots of things I need to share, so I might actually become a regular blogger again ;o)

xx Jess