Pretty in Pink - front

Before the quilt went off today I look a lot of photographs of it. It has gone from something I didn't quite understand to something I am very proud of. I think it is the best longarm quilting I have done so far and I wanted to make sure I had a good record of it. Isn't it typical, I put a show quilt on the frame and mess it up, a child's quilt that will be used and loved I manage to do really well. Oh well these things happen. I did hope it might be that I suddenly had found the secret formula, but no. The next quilt used the same threads and a similar pattern, the thread broke the tension shifted and in general it was a bit of a nightmare.

Still back to this one, which is a far happier tale. The pattern for the center of the top is based on my 'Ginko Typography' quilt. I've been thinking about making a pattern from it but I like the more free form approach I currently use to make it. The design brief said pink and floral, so we decided to go for machine applique flowers. These should stand up to hard use and have a lovely puffy look. I wanted to keep quite a lively feel to this quilt so the flowers are places quite randomly but only on the most visible area of the quilt.

To take the pictures I laid the quilt on my bed, it is intended to fit a single with some overhang all the way round. One of the borders should fall neatly on the edge of the bed, different borders depending on width of the bed (I hope). It is very tricky fitting a bed other than your own, you can't just nip up and try the top. I thought the picture with the nude in was amusing. It shows the range of my work quite nicely and somehow the two quilts seem quite happy together.

The binding re-uses the fabrics from the inner two borders. I had planned on using a white piping but it seemed too harsh, the pale pink sits much better with the rest of the quilt.