Love of Solids Wall Quilt, awesome!

Leanne from She Can Quilt is very talented, no doubt! Just check our her newest finish, Kaleidoscope Quilt, amazing!  I love looking through her posts or her flickr account, very inspiring.  And today's quilt...I love this quilt, it makes me want to go out of my comfort zone!

I have finished the wall quilt I am making for my secret partner in the Love of Solids [a modern swap]. It is 29.75" x 21.25". The fabric is an assortment of Kona solids, some are the organic solids, some are the regular. There are two different Essex linen or linen/cottons as well.

The spiral pattern was made using the Parfait Cafe tutorial here.

This quilt had several inspirations. I hope you might be reminded of the beach - logs, water, shells, sand, plant life, and also the movement at the beach.

 

I think you will see some of my inspiration in these beach pictures.

The pixelated squares, or sun-shattered views, or whatever you might see, are made of squares that finish at 1". The boards on the deck are 5"wide to give you a bit of scale.

I quilted it heavily. It has not been washed, and still you get a lot of quilty puffing. You might have a glimpse of sunbaked, ocean tossed distressed wood, sand, shells, and water.

Here is the back, which is a piece of Essex Linen or maybe their linen/cotton blend, I cannot remember. I used thread from 3 different spools of hand-dyed thread from Valdani Inc. - backyard honeycomb, subtle elegance and silver foam. This thread is a dream to work with and is made from a beautiful highly mercerized long staple cotton.

The quilting is by machine, echoing the patterns, somewhat randomly and not perfectly, much like the distressing nature causes.

The binding was interesting. I wanted the front to finish without any edges but I wanted the quilting to show on the back. I considered this tutorial by Lisa Call, combined with this tutorial by Kerry at Verykerryberry, to come up with this. The part you see on the back is about 3/4". If anyone wants a tutorial for what I did exactly, let me know. It hangs nicely with pins, I have to add some kind of hanger to the back, in case my partner is partial to using a dowel or a wire for hanging.

I just love it - it is going to be very hard to send it away, but I have plans for another one or maybe several more, similar but different, for me. Thanks to my friend Marianne at The Quilting Edge, for encouraging me on this project, I think I have managed to really stretch and I am very happy with where it has taken me.