January Step Finished, and I'll tell you a story...

I've done it. I've finished my January step. It took three days, but they were worthwhile days. The green portions of this quilt have been quilted. After laying it on the floor, I suspect that I am going to have to stuff the green feathers. sigh. That wasn't the original plan, but it was lurking out there as a distinct possibility.

Here is a picture of the green triangle next to the unstuffed border...

It looks fine, until you see it next to the outer border when it is stuffed...

And then you have to take into consideration the rest of the trapunto involved in this quilt. I had a decent picture, but you'll have to tilt your head to see it. sigh. I've got shadow trapunto (done with red and green thread) in the white areas...

The inner gold border is also stuffed, and there is more shadow trapunto in the inner white border.


Here is the overall view of the quilt. I've trapunto'ed less than 1/8 of the outer border (upper left), so you can see how it might end up.

I put the binding on early, because the fabric was shredding. I definitely will be removing it and replacing it, because the quilting took its toll on the size of the quilt (quilting will shrink a quilt), and the binding is now too big. But you can also see the excess fabric in each border. I'm hoping the trapunto will suck it up. I've got my work cut out for me.

Now that you've seen the pictures, I thought I'd tell you the story of this quilt. Make yourself comfortable, it might take a while.

When we lived in Davis, back in the early 80's I became interested in quilting. I checked out both books on quilting from the UCD library. One absolutely captivated me. It was called The Standard Book of Quilt Making and Collecting by Marguerite Ickis, published in 1949. I've since obtained my own copy of this book.

Anyway, I traced a few of my favorite patterns from the book, one of them being Cock's Comb on page 72-73. I figured that one day I would have the skills to tackle a quilt from this pattern.

In the mid-90's we had a guild challenge, which involved some red fabric. I thought it was the perfect time to make this quilt. I started making hand-appliqued blocks. I finished 9. That's as far as I got. Unfortunately my hand applique skills were not as great as I'd hoped, and the resulting blocks were discouraging.

In the late 90's, I designed and finished piecing a quilt for my sister.

Carla's 30th Birthday quilt
Suzanne Kistler, 2004

I absolutely LOVED the setting that I came up with, especially when it was turned horizontal instead of on point, and wanted to use it again before I forgot it. I found the 9 blocks in my UFO box, and made the top. woohoo! But then, how to quilt it?

Because the hand-applique wasn't show quality, I couldn't see the point in hand quilting it. I decided that some shadow trapunto would add a spark, and that led to the other trapunto as well. I've been quilting and stuffing this quilt ever since.

A few years ago my daughter became engaged. I knew that she liked red and green quilts, and eventually asked her if they might like this quilt as their wedding quilt. She said yes. They were married in August. The quilt still isn't finished.

I think it is truly remarkable that a pattern I chose from a book while I was expecting her has become the quilt I will eventually gift them for their wedding...if I can finish it satisfactorily.

And that's the story of this quilt so far. As they say, every quilt tells a story...

And now, if I can just get my hands on some more trapunto yarn...