Starshine Stitches: Hydrangea Wholecloth Quilt Pattern

Truly, some fabrics are just to pretty to cut up. Holly's Hydrangea fabric is one of them. The clusters of blooms are wonderful. Using the fabric as it comes off the bolt is a bit tricky. In simple words, it has no central focal point. The focal point needs to found and centered. The small picture is the fabric as it comes off the bolt. There are 3 1/2 large blooms across the width. The quilt above centers one of the large blooms to create a pleasant grouping. The pattern includes twin and queen quilt sizes. Email me for pattern information and pricing (WC-01). Wouldn't this look great in a guest room, or an entry way?

I took the quilt to guild show and tell after market and was asked how long it took to make. Let me answer it here, 10 hours minus the hand finishing. Let's break that down. About an hour was devoted to finding the "sweet spot" on the yardage. 45 minutes to cut the panel (first time to do this takes time) and the booth requirements must be met! Borders usually take me 1/2 hour ( add 10 minutes for the stripe- gotta keep it straight). When the tops are finished I usually assemble the binding, 20 minutes. Marking the scallops was quick, less than 10 minutes. The remainder of the time was quilting.

Quilting was the bulk of time with this one. I wanted the quilt to have a trapunto effect but didn't have the time to do the real thing. So I layered a polyester batting on top of a cotton. The cotton will shrink just a bit after washing and the poly will not.

The flower blooms are "lightly" quilted and outlined. The filler around them had to be tight, to give the blooms lift. Holly hated my choice - oh well. I used it for 2 reasons. 1. it's quick. 2. it's easy to get around the stems. It's not the best choice but the market clock was ticking and it had to get finished.

I want to go back and try an idea on the inner border........ more on that later.

The outer border was quilted to look like a large scale stripe/floral print. Crosshatching is one of the hardest things to do on a longarm. Picture trying to fill an "Etch-a-Sketch" screen with crosshatching. The longarm works kind of the same way, horizontal and vertical movements that combine to make diagonals. There are no feed dogs to guide the stitches, you must use a ruler along the hopping foot to stitch a straight line.

I hope you enjoyed a peek at this project.

Back to the workroom, Cheryl