Hi Everyone! I am so happy to be able to finally reveal "Free Spirit" to you. This project has been a long, labor of love and I am so thrilled with the results of this quilt. The design is exactly how I envisioned. Well, maybe a tad bit better because I didn't realize the quilting potential when I first drew out my design.
Okay, so the blocks are big, but not too big. Putting together 9 blocks for a quilt top is really fun. I chose some of my favorite colors and opted for a grey background fabric instead of my "staple," white. It worked out pretty great if you ask me.
I can't get enough of this quilt, believe me, I had to narrow 40 pictures down to 10 for this post. It was hard to do. There are 4 colors in the quilt top, including the background, with 2 versions of the block. I love how the colors in the block really pop! The Free Spirit block was so fun to put together, so I know you will enjoy making your own.
I had a lot of fun quilting this one. There is plenty of play area for quilting on this quilt top. I really enjoyed making the blocks pop, and creating a secondary pattern on the quilt.
I used a 40wt White Glide thread, for the top and Magna Glide bobbins for the bottom of the quilt. I lost count of how many bobbins I went through. Let's just say it was a lot.
My new favorite thing to do is use solid fabric and a contrasting thread. It really shows off the quilting. It was so much fun to do the background fill in the navy fabric. The squares on point in the pink fabric worked perfectly in the design. The quilting took the block to a whole new level and gave it character. It was like drawing in all the designs on the fabric.
The simple cross-hatch in the green was perfect.
Super close up. Can you see why I love contrasting thread? Seriously. It was so much fun.
The back turned out amazing, oh, and I played with the binding. I used each of the main colors of the quilt top and made a 6 inch section binding, now that was fun. I did hand bind the binding this time, I plan on entering the quilt into a show or two.
Isn't that lovely? I always love the solid backs, shows off the quilting! I really hope you like my new design, Free Spirit, it was a lot of fun putting together. I made a second version of the quilt, for all of you who don't plan on quilting your quilt as densely as I have. You can purchase the paper pattern here, these will ship the first part of next week. Or, if you want to get started on your quilt top now, you can purchase the PDF version, here.
Oh, and you may notice that I have a new website. I needed a place to have my newer patterns, my teaching schedule, blog and all of the quilting supplies that I use and love in one place. This does not replace Green Fairy Quilts, but gives me a territory to talk more about quilting and my designs in one spot. I hope you take a moment to look around. I will be adding more things to the site and have some exciting things happening this year, so I will keep you updated on all of the fun happening. Thanks for all the love and support you have given me throughout the years, you really are the best!
13 comments:
Oh that is candy for the eyes! Stunning! As always your quilting absolutely makes it even more special - beautiful work!
Fantabulously scrummy! Love it all!
Beautiful!!
Wow! Those secondary designs just pop! Truly beautiful and amazing!
Your quilting is AMAZING! Thank you for sharing, Susan
Holy wowzers!! Your secondary designs that you see and create mystify and beyond impress me, Judi!!! I'd love to know how many hours went into this quilt. Have a great weekend.
Okay, so gorgeous design, first of all. I loved looking at the custom show quilting on this version and comparing that to the allover quilting design on the other blog post. That really shows what a powerful impact your custom quilting has on the success of the finished quilt! I love your new web site, BTW. Very professional and easy to navigate. It makes me happy to see good things happen for sweet people like you.
Also, I wanted to tell you that I have been following your blog for several years, and I have purchased all of your books. You are my absolute favorite longarm quilter, bar none. And your books and your blog have encouraged me to finally take the plunge. No more crawling around and trying to pin baste quilts so I can struggle trying to quilt them on a domestic machine. I was able to get a great deal on a dealer's demo APQS Millenium and she is set up in my studio, ready to go! I will be consulting those books regularly as I put her through the paces and get used to the machine, and once I have the basics down my next order of business is going to be finding your nearest in-person class and signing up. THANK YOU!
That is beautiful! You did an amazing job.
Beautiful! I can't even imagine how long that took to quilt 😉.
It`s absolutely fantastic!
Beautiful design and the quilting is spectacular. I also love the colors in the second version.
Beautiful quilt!!
What a wonderful fun block and the quilting (no surprise there!) is just amazing!
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