I am so excited to share quite a few finished quilts with you all. I had a slow year on the quilting front in 2019 as I had the same custom job on the frame for months longer than necessary, however when it was finished I gave myself some personal quilting time as a reward! First to show you is my Aviary Quatro quilt.
Now, fair honesty and all, I love to name and label my quilts and this one is coming up blank – so leave your suggestions in the comments. I like to reference the pattern and or the fabric in the name, usually a play on words, but I’ll listen to all suggestions!!
Now, if you are looking at this magnificent quilt and wondering, Cassie, where did it come from, I’ll be honest. I first started this quilt in 2016 – Design Wall Wednesday, March 2016. This pattern, Quatro by Keera Job of Live Love Sew, is just fantastic for feature fabrics, but requires a little bit of thought if you want to fussy cut – eg – have all the woodgrain running vertically or the quatrefoil design facing the same way. I took my time cutting each block, featuring the amazing prints from Aviary 2 by Joel Dewberry. I just love this line even years later.
Because I had plenty of background fabric and I really am sick of making odd sized or lap quilts, I changed up the pattern a little bit to make it wider and just overall more square. This included rearranging (and making extra blocks), and adding a top and bottom border. I’m really happy with how it turned out and it fits nicely over the top of our queen size bed.
This shot shows off the fussy cutting, fabulous birds and other prints in this collection. The dusky turquoise background was just the perfect colour to both complement and show off the fabrics and make the blocks pop. Plus, we live in a busy house with dogs (and now a bird!) and life’s too short for white quilts!!
The back is a patchwork puzzle all of it’s own – with yardage of the black birds, as well as some other leftover fabrics and scraps, plus 3 bonus blocks left over from the front. Backs with a little interest are fun!
The quilting was a simple, but slow to stitch out edge to edge design with branches of cherry blossoms with buds. I used a dark turquoise Superior So Fine thread (Grotto) across the top of the quilt, with a taupe colour Bottom Line bobbin on the backing. You can see a bit of the flowers on the back above. It gives the quilt a lovely texture and some interest to the solid fabric background without being too overpowering. Even though I’m a quilter by heart, I can still appreciate subtle quilting when the pattern calls for it!
This beauty is currently enjoying top rotation on our bed – the batting was a Hobbs 80/20 cotton poly mix (not recommended!) and so it’s perfect for those in-between Summer nights
So, now it begins, the start of catching up on all the quilts I’ve finished, and every other project I’ve made. I really hope you enjoy them as much as I did making them!
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Debra - Outback Crafter
Aviary Quatro sounds like a perfectly good name.
That turquoise is lovely.