We went for a little drive on Sunday, trying to find an appropriate quilt for this full moon quilt. I had thought of the Windsor Astronomical Society observatory, but though MacGyver had mapped it, we were unable to find it. We also knew there wasn’t much chance of getting near it as it was closed and locked on a Sunday. I thought of the giant grey rocks at the Leamington Marina, so that is where the last photos were taken. We did stumble upon another pretty cool backdrop for a glamour shot.
There are a lot of greenhouses in the Leamington and Kingsville area. A LOT. Kingsville greenhouse-grown produce (tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, to name just three) are shipped around North America; in fact one of the greenhouse operations, Red Sun Farms, has locations in all three countries that make up the continent: Canada, US, and Mexico. They’re located just a few kilometres from my house. However, although we drove by some fantastic front entryway landscaping of several other greenhouse businesses (note to self to return with another quilt!), the photo below was taken in the front entryway of a metal fabrication business.
The moon, beneath a massive globe!
I’m just annoyed that the pristine quilt, up until this little roadtrip, where it had to be gently folded, has got that fold in it😫
As for the quilting, some of you may have seen the progress photo on Instagram.
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| Straight lines in the border as in Lyra, and two lines in the cornerstones complete the quilting, |
A couple of rather silly (I’m calling it boomer brain) glitches happened before the quilt to the point you see there.
The first one was with the sewn-on label. The quilt fits easily, with a little room to spare, on a width of fabric, so I put the label near the lower selvage edge. I am so glad I thought to check under the quilt frame when I did my final roll, because was I a little shocked to see that about 1/8” of the label would be lost when trimming the finished quilt.
Breathe.
I quilted as close to that area as I could, stabilizing as much as possible. Then I took the quilt off the frame, and spent some quality time with Jack the Ripper.
Reloaded the quilt, and finished quilting it. Label preserved!
The second glitch happened with the binding. When I finished the quilt, I pinned it into my design wall, and stepped back to admire it. LOVE! That binding (no clue what company) was perfection. Then I turned away, pushed my sewing chair in, picked up the machine cover which was resting on the back of the chair to put it back onto the machine, and…wtf
There were the strips of binding I’d cut when I was making the backing, perfect use (finally for this Cotton and Steel fabric bought several years ago.
Then it all came back. I needed a little more width because I only had one metre of the beautiful Jinny Beyer fabric I was using for the backing, bought way back when in my kaleidoscope quilt fabrics collecting days. I was hunting through the yardage of turquoises and came upon the teal with silver dots which you see below. It’s a Cotton and Steel Basic by Rashida Coleman Hale called Dottie.
The silver metallic stripes would be perfect for the binding! Was there enough? Yes! Even better, there was a bit left for the side of the quilt back! Well, not quite, I realized, so I cut the binding strips first to be sure to have enough of them, and then when I used the 3” of so that was left, and still needed a little more, I just added in some of the border fabric from the front.
I set the binding strips on the back of my sewing chair. I rarely cut binding before making a back and/or quilting a quilt. So yeah, you guessed it: I forgot that I’d cut the strips. When I pulled the quilt off after reloading and finishing it in order to trim it square, my brain coughed and sputtered, “Wait, is that strip all I had of that teal fabric?” and then promptly shrugged it off, “Guess I just had that narrow bit.”
Well, I could not believe I could be that absent-minded (new meaning for me right at this moment: the mind was absent!)
However, I actually really really like the fabric I did end up using for the binding, another .3 metre bought for kaleidoscope background or filler. It has firework bursts across it in various shades of turquoise and teal on black background. Very sky/space-ish.
I used four colours of thread, all Aurifil.
I did switch out the bobbin thread from grey to off-white when it came to the pebbling in the moon. You can see it on the back, though it’s not too glaring.
That one is another my husband took, which I cropped. Do you see a piece of my hair sticking up behind the quilt? Pretty windy. Again. Always. Sadly, the sun was in the south, and that’s east behind me, so not the greatest light on the quilt but it’s okay. I’ll use the one on my design wall for the pattern. It is part of the Lyra quilt pattern.
Here I am with Artemis:
She’s a ‘big girl’ dog now, wearing her Canada Pooch harness and so she can be safely buckled up in the back seat beside Rufus. That strap on her nose is a Halti leash, designed for pullers, and oh boy, is she a puller, though when she’s wearing this, she’s mostly a dream to walk. She doesn’t mind it, and puts her nose into it when I hold it in front of her! Good girl.
Quilt Stats:
Size: 40.5" square
Pattern: Lyra by me! SandraJaneQuilts
Fabric: turquoise-Butterfly Dance by Sally Kelly for Windham Fabrics, red-Nana’s Liquid Group for Balson Erlanger, grey-Lilacs in Bloom by Jackie Robinson for Benartex Fabrics, and cream-Coastal Patterns Scroll by Susan Winget for ??
Batting: 100% bamboo by Soft Loft
Backing: Paisley for Patchwork by Jinny Beyer for RJR Fashion Fabrics
Quilted: on Avril, 60 175 stitches
Threads: pieced on my Bernina with Gütermann; quilted with Aurifil 100% cotton; Bottom Line by Superior Threads in the bobbin.
The story behind the quilt, the colours, the design and the label, what a fantastic lasting tribute to the Artemis crew, and to you for this. Great photo shoots, the globe is a perfect backdrop so fitting.
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