Liberty « LoveBug Studios

Liberty French Quilt – Top Completed

December 31, 2010 4:20 pm by Ebony in Uncategorized

I’ve been on a quilting jag the last couple of weeks. Normally this happens when I’m supposed to be doing something entirely different, and I work on a completely unnecessary project. In this case, I really felt compelled to finish the top to my Liberty quilt, which is meant to be queen sized. It’s going to be my first queen sized quilt since the Queen Sized Monstrosity sucked the life out of my desire to work on large quilts. I managed to get all the blocks pieced, sashed, and stitched into rows, but in order to finish this quilt, I needed more fabric since I only had remnants of the Liberty prints. As usual, a trip to my LQS (Quilt Play) yielded several options. I spent probably an hour auditioning different fabrics, and finally came up with this selection: Most of the fabrics are from Moda’s line “French General” so it’s quite apropos, don’t you think? They also have some lovely ribbon trim to go along with it, that I’ll probably go back and purchase when I start working on the matching throw pillows & shams for this quilt. The bright red is used pretty sparingly in the quilt, but was absolutely necessary to assemble the rows because they serve as the corner stones: To bring this quilt up to size, I added 4 different borders. The first border was a piano key along the top and bottom, made from some of the Liberty scraps. I didn’t measure the piano keys at all – they were made from scraps of various widths, and too dear to trim & cut unless absolutely necessary. Then I added a plain creamy brown for the side borders: From this point forward, this quilt was unruly and quite vexing! The second border was just sides, pieced with a blue fabric plus the red again serving as cornerstones. I wasn’t able to draw it exactly in EQ7, so for the piecing I had to do some dry fits and some odd measurements like 12-7/8″ in order for the cornerstones to line up in with the centers of each block. There was a lot of frogging & recutting happening! Then I added another set of side borders from a different brown fabric, and then lastly, I added a large dark brown floral border all the way around: I’m actually not that crazy about the dark brown now that it’s on the quilt, but it is going to stay. I’ve never ripped out a queen sized border and I don’t intend to start now. It’s all squared & pressed & ready for Mr. Darcy when the backing fabric arrives. I found a cool tan paisley in a wide quilt backing, although I’ll very likely be adding some pieced elements from leftover fabric once it arrives. Stay tuned! Happy quilting!

Liberty French Quilt & Fabric Organization Continues

November 19, 2010 1:17 pm by Ebony in Stashbustin'

Liberty

I got some very disappointing news yesterday, and whenever you get news at 7pm, when offices are closed and there’s nothing you can do about it at that moment, I find the best thing to do is to distract yourself. I do that by doing some brainless quilting. When I went to Paris earlier this year, I picked up some Liberty prints (they are all the rage) and decided to make a throw. That throw turned into two twin quilts once I decided to turn my guest room into a French-inspired boudoir, but I’ve now backed away from that too and have decided to make a queen sized quilt instead. Since Mr. Darcy came into my life, I’m getting braver at working on gigantic quilts! Maybe I’m moving into a new phase. In any event, it’s not a very difficult pattern, just 6.5″ squares laid into a 2×6 block pattern with sashing & cornerstones. I got the first six blocks finished and sashed: I had originally planned for 3 borders to bring it up to queen size, but I have to rethink my plan since the fabric I really wanted is out of print. So I think I will just finish piecing the 16 blocks that will make up the center, sash them & stitch the rows, and then cart my top to every fabric shop in town to find the right border. Yes, I have tons of fabric in the stash, but I don’t have the 12 yards I would need for the large border and the backing. Speaking of the stash, I’m continuing my quest to finish organizing it. In this photo you can see the yardage that’s already been wrapped on boards (and a small portion of the mess that is left): I also got a good portion of the fat quarters done: Hopefully I’ll be able to distract myself for the rest of the day, it’s Friday, but it’s going to be a loooong day… Happy quilting!