Step Out Of The Box!

Auction Quilt now titled:

Step Out Of The Box!

This Friday is the night of the Recover Wyoming fund raiser to help addiction recovery. It's taken more than a month and steady hard work but the quilt for the live auction is complete! I am sooooo excited! This quilt was so named by friend Debbie Bacon; because just as this quilt and the quilting was totally out of my comfort zone, so we all must step out of our own little box to experience freedom from the addictions that may have us trapped.

This quilt was not planned; the material was purchased because I love the fabric by designer, Edyta Sitar of Laundry Basket Quilts, and it was a great time to use it in a local quilt along at Blakeman Vacuum & Sewing where I also teach free motion quilting and host a monthly quilt club.  Prior to this quilt the fabric had sat in my stash pile for over a year.  As you can tell by posts on my personal quilts, my fabric and quilting tastes are more classic and romantic with feathers and flowers and all the pretty stuff. This quilt is anything but and I never anticipated it would be completed almost exclusively with rulers and templates. 

You can read more about the process in my previous post but here are photos of each major section.  Special credit is given to my quilty friend, Debbie Bacon, who gave a whole lot of support, encouragement and design ideas along the way from long distance.  Thank you, Lord, for Facebook Messenger!

The inside of the stars:

Background quilting around the stars from the center medallion area:

The background was quilted in contrast around each star with either a purple, fuchsia, green or electric blue Floriani tri-lobal polyester thread.  Prior to stitching the background OR star, the entire block was stitched in the ditch with Superior Threads Bottom Line thread.

Here is the background in the outside star blocks:

The 2" squares in the Irish Square blocks were done with a template using the pumpkin seed stitch(aka orange peel).  Normally I would eyeball this design but for an auction I decided to be a little more accurate.

The inner border, which was the same background fabric, was the only part of this quilt done with free motion quilting.  The top portion was done using purple thread, which was then echoed with the electric blue thread.  The goal was to tie in the points from the background quilting and then pull the whole border together in the corners.

The outer border was done with the Arc C ruler from Handiquilter following a technique taught by Kimmy Brunner.  The straight lines at the top of each blue thread arc were added to create a texture.  This design was completed with Electric Blue and Fuchsia Floriani thread.  I made a pass around the quilt with the blue thread and then went inside each arc to creat another arc with the fuchsia thread.

This photo was taken at the center of the quilt so you can see how I tied the design together to make it work in the center.

Three sleeves were added to the top of the quilt because it seems this quilt may be used as a wall hanging more than for snuggling with all the design work that was done.  So although I have no idea how the owner may choose to have it hung, I figured adding sleeves might help the bids.

And finally, a label:

Quite honestly, as is often the case, the back of this quilt is almost as lovely as the front!

I am excited to see the amount of the high bid for this quilt.  I definitely stepped outside of my box but it is sooooo fun to push and refine all kinds of techniques.  Hope you step out of YOUR box this week!!

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