I finally finished this quilt last week--just in time for it to make a cameo on the local news as part of the publicity for the Fiber Arts Fiesta! First time one of my quilts have been on the news!
ABQMQG (Albuquerque Modern Quilt Guild) quilted banner, measures about 86"x42". |
The Fiber Arts Fiesta was this past weekend, and the ABQMQG had a booth in combination with the Best of QuiltCon traveling quilts exhibit our president brought in. The ABQMQG banner hung behind the tables for all to see and it was really good to get tons of positive feedback on my quilting!
Sun and sky quilting detail |
When I got the quilt top (it was pieced and appliqued by other women in the guild), I immediately wanted to add a big sun since Albuquerque has abundant sunshine (310 days of sunshine every year!). I couldn't make all those pebbles and occasional swirls without adding a snail somewhere, so hidden in there is a sun snail--which started a whole snail theme for the quilt and I ended up adding 9 more!
Center of the sun quilting detail--inspired by my husband saying, "maybe you could do swirls to look like sun spots!" and Yvonne's sun quilting. |
And then I was like, this quilt needs hot air balloons! Albuquerque is home of the International Balloon Fiesta, the largest ballooning event on Earth with nearly 600 balloons. My husband suggested the variegated thread, which I so quickly adopted into my plans I forgot it was his idea! He gently reminded me ;-)
I freehand drew the balloons on the quilt using a water-erasable marker, and kept the same ratios of the basket and balloon for the three sizes. It was fairly time consuming, but so worth it.
I spent a total of 40 hours working on this quilt, 30 of which were on the quilting! The other 10 hours were spent basting, trimming, binding, washing, blocking and the hanging sleeve. When I was finally done and dropped it off I was so relieved! But I was also super burnt out on working on it and all quilting projects in general (I haven't done anything since!).
The mountain quilting was quite involved (who am I kidding, the whole thing was really involved!)--I quilted every color and block orientation differently. For example, all of the red half square triangles that point to the right have feathers, and all the red half square triangles pointing up have echo lines. There are 3-4 different shades of red, and I tried to quilt each shade differently. I spent a lot of time looking up inspiration for fillers and marking them on the quilt! I even included a vine patch and a watermelon in one HST, since sandia mean watermelon in Spanish (and I quilted a wee snail on top of the watermelon, but forgot to get a photo of it).
Another fun detail I wanted to add right away is the Sandia Peak Tramway (or as we call it, the Tram)--it is the longest tramway in North America and has the third longest span in the world.
Something I voted for on the ABQMQG logo was more mountain peaks--specifically South Peak, which is just above where I live and I see it every time I drive home. But it didn't make the cut, so I decided to add a quilted version (which I named Ghost Mountain):
The swirly air current quilting is one of my favorite sky patterns, but all the sketches I made didn't come out right. It wasn't until Yvonne from Quilting JetGirl showed me how she made the ones on her Out of the Woods quilt that it all clicked! I drew the swirls on the quilt to keep them going kind of straight, and to keep the flow of them consistent "behind" the letters and sun rays. This meant a lot of extra line breaks and threads to bury, but I really wanted the letters to be independent of the quilting designs and the wind quilting to feel continuous (yes it is often quite windy here!):
I was glad to have all the colors of Aurifil I needed for the quilt (I did order the variegated specifically for the balloons though), it made the quilting go a lot smoother since I didn't have to fiddle with the tension with every color change!
I used Aurifil #2024 in the bobbin to contrast with the red back--I really wanted all of my quilting to show up somewhere!
Whew, that's a lot of photos! I'll leave you with these before and after shots (you can see more of the progress photos here and here) that really illustrate the effect of my quilting:
Quilted hot air balloon detail, Aurifil #4654 |
Quilted hot air balloon detail, Aurifil #4647 |
I freehand drew the balloons on the quilt using a water-erasable marker, and kept the same ratios of the basket and balloon for the three sizes. It was fairly time consuming, but so worth it.
Quilted hot air balloon detail, piloted by a wee snail (on the basket), Aurifil #5817. |
Quilted hot air balloon detail, Aurifil #4657. |
I spent a total of 40 hours working on this quilt, 30 of which were on the quilting! The other 10 hours were spent basting, trimming, binding, washing, blocking and the hanging sleeve. When I was finally done and dropped it off I was so relieved! But I was also super burnt out on working on it and all quilting projects in general (I haven't done anything since!).
Mountain quilting detail. Note the tram lines and a snail in the grey pebbles. |
The mountain quilting was quite involved (who am I kidding, the whole thing was really involved!)--I quilted every color and block orientation differently. For example, all of the red half square triangles that point to the right have feathers, and all the red half square triangles pointing up have echo lines. There are 3-4 different shades of red, and I tried to quilt each shade differently. I spent a lot of time looking up inspiration for fillers and marking them on the quilt! I even included a vine patch and a watermelon in one HST, since sandia mean watermelon in Spanish (and I quilted a wee snail on top of the watermelon, but forgot to get a photo of it).
Mountain quilting detail, the orange-ish peak has a Zia quilted in it--the New Mexico state flag symbol. |
Another fun detail I wanted to add right away is the Sandia Peak Tramway (or as we call it, the Tram)--it is the longest tramway in North America and has the third longest span in the world.
Quilting detail of the Sandia Peak Tramway. |
Something I voted for on the ABQMQG logo was more mountain peaks--specifically South Peak, which is just above where I live and I see it every time I drive home. But it didn't make the cut, so I decided to add a quilted version (which I named Ghost Mountain):
Quilting detail of Ghost Mountain. There is a snail in the letter Q and in the ghost pebbles. |
The swirly air current quilting is one of my favorite sky patterns, but all the sketches I made didn't come out right. It wasn't until Yvonne from Quilting JetGirl showed me how she made the ones on her Out of the Woods quilt that it all clicked! I drew the swirls on the quilt to keep them going kind of straight, and to keep the flow of them consistent "behind" the letters and sun rays. This meant a lot of extra line breaks and threads to bury, but I really wanted the letters to be independent of the quilting designs and the wind quilting to feel continuous (yes it is often quite windy here!):
ABQMQG letters and air current quilting detail. |
The last thing I quilted was the green area around the word 'Albuquerque'--I quilted a 1/4" echo around each letter to help define them and then did FMQ matchstick quilting to contrast the rest of the quilt:
Match stick quilting detail. |
I used a ton of thread on this quilt! I really wanted the logo to be the first thing people noticed, so I chose matching threads or subtle colors for the quilt. The colors of Aurifil I used (from left to right in the photo below) are: front row-1148, 2887, 2130, 5009, 2310, 2021, 2600, 4241, 2692, back row-1147, 1103, 2420, 2360, 2311, 2024, 2605, 5004 (the cone), variegated threads- 4654, 5817, 4657, and 4647.
Aurifil threads used in the ABQMQG banner. |
I was glad to have all the colors of Aurifil I needed for the quilt (I did order the variegated specifically for the balloons though), it made the quilting go a lot smoother since I didn't have to fiddle with the tension with every color change!
ABQMQG banner back. |
I used Aurifil #2024 in the bobbin to contrast with the red back--I really wanted all of my quilting to show up somewhere!
The back of Ghost Mountain quilting detail. There is a snail in the pebbles and in the Q at the top of the photo. |
The back of the highest peak and tram quilting detail. There is a snail in the pebbles. |
More mountain quilting detail. You can just barely see the balloon pilot snail at the top of the photo. |
ABQMQG banner label and quilting detail. |
I left the sun points unquilted, which was totally inspired by Krista Wither's quilting on Sew Katie Did's Opposing Triangles quilt
Back of the sun quilting detail. There is a snail in the swirl right under the sun--I call it an air snail. |
Back of the Albuquerque match stick quilting detail. Another air snail can be seen on the far left, and there are snails in each of the Q's. |
Whew, that's a lot of photos! I'll leave you with these before and after shots (you can see more of the progress photos here and here) that really illustrate the effect of my quilting:
ABQMQG banner pre-quilting. |
ABQMQG banner after quilting (still pinned to my design wall for blocking). |