Skip to main content

Lava quilt blocks from Spoonflower - part four

KÄ«lauea

I love the feeling that you get when you figure out that you are finally on the right track!  As soon as I found the arrangement that I wanted for my lava fabric blocks and had them loosely tacked to the raspberry-colored background fabric, I knew that this quilt was going to be about embroideryfloss quilting, not at all about beads.  I removed the beads that I had already stitched onto four of the blocks.  Better already! 

Here's how I finished up the quilt, which now has the name KÄ«lauea, since that was the site for almost all the lava photographs used in this piece.



1. Iron a piece of lightweight fusible interfacing (not shown) to the back of the background piece of fabric.  Make sure to cut the background about an inch larger than you expect your piece to end up.  Pin to a piece of batting and cut it out a bit larger than the background fabric.




2. Pin the blocks into position and stitch in place.  I used a blanket (or buttonhole) stitch.




3. When all the blocks are stitched down, even up the edges a bit, still leaving them a little larger than planned. 




4. Pin the piece to the backing fabric and cut it even with the top.




5. Quilt through all the layers, using embroidery floss (I used 2 strands).



6. I used more rows of quilting around blocks that had more space, with graduated colors similar to the lava blocks.




7. The quilting pattern included a diagonal line that ran from bottom left up through the top right in the middle of the quilt. 




8. With such a large amount of quilting, the piece is likely to shrink a bit, and may even shrink up a little irregularly.  Remeasure carefully before cutting to even up the sides again.  This is why you want to leave the background a bit bigger than the final plan would call for.  I used blanket stitch again all around the outside to finish it off.  I'm still a bit surprised that it didn't end up with any beads on it, but I am very happy with it!    



Part one
Part two
Part three
Part four

Copyright 2013 Cyndi Lavin. All rights reserved. Not to be reprinted, resold, or redistributed for profit. May be printed out for personal use or distributed electronically provided that entire file, including this notice, remains intact.

Technorati Tags:,,,,,,

Comments

Cindy... gotta tell ya, I wasn't sure how the quilt would turn out, I love the idea, but I just couldn't see the how the lava photos were going to work out. Now I see, the quilt is absolutely beautiful! I just love how it turned out... the colors are great, and the stitching just perfect, and that lava is uniquely wonderful... My first reaction when I saw it this morning was "WOW, that really is pretty!"
Wonderful! this has been more than worth all the work you have put into it! Thank you for sharing the process with us.
Cyndi L said…
June, thanks! I know...it was hard for me to describe what I was trying to do with the lava photos. I could sort of see it in my head, but I just couldn't seem to get it to work for awhile, and I certainly couldn't EXPLAIN it! :-)

Caroline, thank you! It ended up becoming a lot more work than I thought it would be since I had to take it all apart several times! But I also feel it was worth it now that it's done :-)
Robbie said…
The lava piece turned out great!!!! Love it!
Jean Bowler said…
Wow!

What a beautiful keepsake and work of art.

Love how the background color sets off the lava squares and that you allowed a larger border around the squares in the center stripe.

That must have been very hard to work out. I envision days of trying different arrangements that wouldn't throw everything off kilter.

It's gorgeous, Cyndi!
Cyndi L said…
Thank you so very very much! I really like the effect of the rainbow "rising" through the quilt...on the diagonal, of course!