I have been working on this Quilt for months, which slowed down making anything else and also my video creation because this one I definitely had to keep a secret, under the MQGs orders! It was designed for the MQGs Quilt of the Month series, but unfortunately didn’t make it as it wasn’t deemed good enough for the showcase at Quiltcon because of the crinkliness. I still love it.

This is Arlecchino, named after the Italian name for a Harlequin. I was asked by the MQG to change the colours a little from my pitch, but it still lives up to the name. This quilt is made from 48 paper pieced blocks which is why it seemed to take forever- almost 3 months in fact.

It was a bit windy that day. I tried to hold it up for the camera but it just wrapped around my body, so the fence had to do!

I probably shouldn’t admit to this, but in the interest of honesty to show that people who have been Quilting a few years can still get it wrong, I will. I managed to tuck SO MUCH backing in when quilting that I spent over 2 hours sat on the bed listening to podcasts to get rid of it all. Basically 11 rows from top to centre on one side, and 7 rows even further than that starting at the bottom on the other side. I then SPRAY BASTED it to prevent that from happening again. It’s been a couple of years since I messed up that badly, but it was rescued.

I’ve also since these photos, detached the binding and doubled the amount of quilting lines (as well as hand repairing some points that weren’t matching very well) in an attempt to have it accepted by the MQG, so it look a little different than these photos, but I didn’t retake staged ones. I’m pretty sure you get the gist though!

STATS
Size – 46″ x 60″
Number of blocks – 48
Time to make – Maybe 60 hours? A long time!
Fabric – All solids, All Kona. Snow, Regal, Garnet, Mac N Cheese, Tangerine.
Binding Fabric – Kona Snow, machine bound for quickness.
Backing Fabric – A print from Simply Color by V & Co. It’s an older one and was in the half price bin.
Threads – Pieced with off-white Wonderfil Konfetti, quilted with variegated orange King Tut and Decobob on the back.
Batting – Hobbs 80/20
Quilting- Straight line walking foot quilting vertically in the ditch of the blocks and the block centre seams, plus either side equally from the centre seam. And then again between those lines of stitching!