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Alaska quilt - part three


Time to start making some fabric choices.  When I show you the following pictures, it may seem like it was very easy - just follow the planogram from last week - but you'll have to trust me when I say it didn't work out quite that smoothly.  I had a lot of false starts and re-dos before I got it into the final form.  Even then, I needed to leave it alone for two days to be sure!


I chose a large dark blue print of tree silhouettes and the moon for the backing fabric.  This was an important choice, because my plan was to fold this fabric to the front and create a frame for the quilt instead of my usual frameless binding.  I laid down a large piece of the backing fabric and a piece of batting, and then used masking tape on top of the batting just as I had on the table to block out the size of the finished quilt.




The batting and backing fabric both needed to extend several inches beyond the masking tape border in order to create the frame at the end.  I carefully pinned all along the edge of the tape to keep the fabrics from slipping while I auditioned the quilt-top fabrics.




It took me quite awhile to get brave enough to just start ripping the fabrics into the right size (with a bit of extra for overlap), especially the fabrics that I only had a tiny bit of.  They are all going to stay raw-edged and just be quilted into place, not pieced together first.  My recent quilts are all completely hand sewn, and piecing is just a huge waste of time!  When I want a hard edge, I use a lightweight interfacing to back the fabric, but most of the time I love the raggedness of raw edges.




After living with this arrangement for a couple of days, I decided that it was right, but too bright.  It failed to capture the haziness of the Alaskan light.




That was easily solved by placing a large piece of netting over then entire piece.  Yes!  Exactly what I was looking for!  All the pieces got pinned into place through all four layers.  Time to begin figuring out how to do the quilting.  


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.

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Comments

Netting.. now that's a GREAT idea Cyndi, sorta like the fog settling over everything. I can't wait to see this one finished!
Cyndi L said…
Thank you June! That was exactly the look I wanted...damped down colors and softened lines.
Cherie Burbach said…
I love seeing your process, Cyndi. I learn so much from you. Like this project a lot - can't wait to see the final.
It may look easy to you, Cyndi, but it certainly doesn't to me! The netting is perfect. Genius.
Cyndi L said…
Thank you guys! No, Eileen, it wasn't as easy as I hoped it would be ;-)