Another Experiment With Both Machine and Hand Quilting

So here it is, my Happy Geese quilt! It's been through a lot of changes since I first started it almost ten years ago, blocks completely un-stitched and reset etc.. I was also experimenting with a wonky placement of geese, but wasn't quite as successful as it could have been. I'd do a lot better these days that's for sure!

Happy Geese

The applique is all my own idea, dreamed up from somewhere inside my crazy brain and influenced by my {leftover} applique bits and pieces tote. This quilt has a sewn together, chopped off style {something not everyone appreciates}, but it warms my heart once in a great while. I like to call that my Gwen Marston influence.

All quilted and bound

I machine quilted around all the geese, along the edges of the borders and around those quarter triangle patched squares. Then I left the pointy rectangles alone. Which makes for a sort of puffiness in the quilt after I washed it. In fact all the plaid area in the quilt ended up looking puffy. Hmm.. I guess I could go back and hand quilt those areas, but why? This quilt is going to get sooo much use from my kids. I can already see the hand writing on the wall.

The top dogs (er.. birds)

It just has that sort of informal I'm-begging-you-to abuse-and-misuse-me look doesn't it? Like mom won't notice or care if this one has Cheeto stains on it.... My daughter do love to make sure all their friends have a quilt to sleep with whenever they have a sleepover and some quilts are just more fun than others.

Big stitching around all the applique with Perle Cotton. And wowsers did that go fast! But it adds just a little bit 'more' to the quilt. Glad I took the time. There's just something about that Perle Cotton that gives instant texture. Instant yummy texture I might add.*wink

A primitive look....

One of my daughters told me she loves everything about the quilt except for the plaid fabric which she said was hideous to her. And no, she wasn't being snotty, just honest because I put her on the spot and asked her to critique my quilt. Personally I adore the plaid element as it was one of those fabrics that was given to me years ago instead of being dropped off at the Goodwill. In fact, all the background fabric in this quilt were those sorts of fabrics. Gotta love that thrifty little thrill we get from using them up, challenging ourselves to make something good with them! And too, I think the quilt would be boring without the sparky plaid. Isn't it funny how we all have our very different opinions?

Want to see the stitching on the back side?

Here's a picture of the back of the quilt. You can see where I wrestled the quilt around to machine quilt around the geese. First one half of the triangles in a long row, and then the other half. If the quilt would have been any larger I'd have given up after the first try. I hurt my elbow earlier in the year and it was complaining instantly from all that back and forth stuff. You can see the plaid border where there isn't any stitching. Good thing it's not going into a show where the judges would complain about uneven quilting throughout the quilt. lol  It's all good. I used some leftover dark brown binding and found the same fabric to add the length I needed to finish this quilt. It's done, it's done, it's done!!! And I wanna snuggle with it already.....