A Peachy Finish

So I finally got Peachy Cameo quilt hand quilted and bound! Lots and lots of distractions this past month and unfortunately, hand quilting did not always make the priority list. It turned out to be such a pleasant quilt, almost restful looking! Turns out that I adore strong blues paired with orangey reds and peach. Who knew?

Peachy Cameo is finished!

The original intent was to use loads and loads of the peach solid fabric, but somehow it only ended up with one wide border. Not terribly unhappy with that outcome as the quilt ended up with a nice peachy glow regardless. Something to remember. A little bit can sometimes go a very long ways! The fabric behind the blue circle-ish blocks is a darker peachy brown colored fabric. It was something that had languished in the stash totes for at least 10 years and finally found a wonderful home in this experimental palette. I love how the darker shade grounds the quilt just a little bit more than the lighter shades would have.

 A look at the full quilt

Every time I finish up another medallion sort of quilt, it seems that I'm raring to go on yet another. I definitely don't want all of my quilts to read this way, but hey! Medallion quilts can be sort of addictive!

Centerpiece

I don't usually put eyes on the birds in my quilts, but this one insisted. This centerpiece is not especially intricate or fabulous, but I am super happy with the overall sweetness. And the background fabric for the centerpiece makes my heart go pitter patter. Too bad I only had a fat quarter of that particular fabric!

Looking across the quilt

I think it's safe to say that many of us who have quilted for years and years often get in our little 'ruts'. We have preferences and go-to background color choices and it's easy to stay in our safe little comfort zones with very little thought. With this quilt, I was determined to step away from the cream background look that I continually turn to. Then of course, I ended up working cream into the quilt anyway, first in the very center of the quilt and then later, at the outside border. Just can't seem to help myself! I felt like the quilt needed the lighter color at the outside especially, just to continue with the soft, open look that had been developing. There's something about the way the borders almost seem to 'flow' through one another that is very intriguing to me.

Border work

This entire quilt is my own design. Like usual, in the initial planning stages, I drew up a rough draft {quilt doodle}, just basic ideas for the borders and a general plan of attack. I love starting with a scribbled-on-paper feeling of what I think/want the quilt to look like. The details are not super important at that point. It's more about getting the intended vibe drawn out in picture form before being totally forgotten and swept away in the detritus of life. You have to remember that I often take several years from the very first seed of inspiration to final quilt completion. Not to mention, there are usually many other quilts in the works at the very same time!

Overall I think this quilt was successful in maintaining most of that original intended vibe. The only thing that I wish had turned out differently, would be the green vine applique. It should have been more rounded {or bowl shaped} on the bottoms of the vine. There were several factors involved in that decision, including having to increase the vertical width of the border or potentially losing the amount of tulips and berries that could be added in. Maybe even having to make the tulips smaller? Knowing that the side borders were going to be altogether different kept me more focused on 'proportion' than maybe I should have been.

Bottom corner details

As usual, I started this quilt with a stack of long-simmering fabrics. The colors used in the centerpiece were vitally important in setting the tone of the entire quilt. I've found that if you get that part wrong, there are certain colors in that gorgeous stack of fabric that will never, ever play nicely together. Always so disappointing to have to abandon perfectly lovely pieces of fabric that originally seem destined for good use together. But it does happen. And sometimes it even hurts.

With a medallion quilt, I make notes of which color combination to try and use in each proceeding border, trying to tie back into the centerpiece of course. This is something that I audition several times throughout the making of the quilt top. If I use a lot of blues in this border, then what works best moving forward to the next round? 

Sometimes you find that a coping border will be needed and then there's the challenge of finding a fabric that doesn't read too glaringly 'off' or ends up being distracting. It's important that coping borders fill a minor role and don't take away from more complex border work done before or after.  I hit the jackpot with this very light blue fabric. For whatever reason, that soft, simple fabric ended up emphasizing my centerpiece, which was an awesome result! 

For those of you who were wondering, the light blue coping border was needed in order to have the next pieced border fit together properly.  Though it doesn't usually bother me, I didn't want anything chopped off in this quilt. And well..., it has to be said. I rarely plan ahead for perfect measurements at the exact moment of starting a quilt! Maybe I should? Hmm...  Most of you know very well by now, that my preferred method is simply 'eyeballing' things. If something looks good to my eye {or appeals to my gut instinct}, then it's a go. Everything after just has to be made to adjust and fit in. It's the human touch look that I'm after. Absolute perfection is just sooo boring!

So even with the original scribbled quilt plan, I never truly know what my quilts will look like until they are 100% completed. The entire project becomes a huge make-do effort as one decision informs the next one. That's the way that my personal creativity works best. Meeting the challenge of getting a quilt top to 'work' at each particular phase, whether that includes color, fabric, measurement issues or perhaps even needing to add in a new design element. The best quilts keep me on my toes throughout, cause me to think outside the box for solutions and often end up with something that surprises.

In this quilt, the 'surprise' is the multi-colored fabric that was used for the scalloped border. Deliberately cutting that fabric in a specific direction gives it a subtle striped look that just makes me smile. I would have thought that fabric entirely too busy for use as a scalloped border, but no! Turns out it was the perfect choice {color-wise} for that particular border and then it was just a matter of figuring out how to use it best. How could I not use it when the colors were so very spot on? We all know how difficult it is to find these pieces of fabrics when the moment is at hand. 

Okay, enough babbling. Time to quit avoiding the to-do list around here! It's good to have another 2020 finish wrapped up and behind me.