First Light Designs

When I finished piecing Where It’s @ last month, I looked at all the batiks used in the quilt and wondered what color I should choose for the binding. Green, orange or purple?

As you can see, green was the winner . . .

. . . and when you look at the back of the quilt, you’ll see why:

The back just had to be framed in green, right?

For a touch of whimsy I made a wonky Greek key block for the label and appliquéd it to the back:

Finished size: 57″ x 72″
Pattern: Rewind by Karla Alexander of Saginaw Street Quilts
Quilted by Karlee Sandell of sewinspired2day.com
Fabrics: batiks pulled from my stash

This quilt was started in July in a class with Karla at Quilter’s Affair, the week of classes in Sisters, Oregon that precedes the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show.

Last month when I finished piecing Where It’s @, my wonky Greek key quilt made using Karla Alexander‘s pattern Rewind, I was pretty pumped. Now that Where It’s @ is quilted, I’m even more excited. I think you’ll understand why when you see it:

Karlee Sandell, the same talented longarm quilter who did the custom quilting on Stella by Starlight (subject of my last post), quilted an edge-to-edge design on this one. The undulating curves are the perfect counterpoint to the sharp angles of the wonky Greek key blocks. Here’s a close-up of four blocks:

When selecting fabrics I started with a basic color scheme of green, orange, and purple, with values ranging from light to medium-dark to dark. My definition of purple stretched to include cornflower blue and a bright orange-red. I needed a thread for quilting that would look good on all of these colors. My first thought was a variegated thread but then I decided to go with one color that would work well across the surface of the quilt. Karlee and I auditioned khaki, straw, and light olive threads. Khaki was the clear winner.

I almost always piece a backing with elements borrowed from the front. Not this time. Out of my stash came a large-scale batik print I bought a few years ago while on a visit to Georgia. I had no idea at the time how I might use the fabric. It seemed to be perfect for the back of Where It’s @:

This close-up of the back shows how well the khaki thread works on the leafy print:

Since the back doesn’t include any design elements carried over from the front, I’m going to incorporate one for the label. That should be a fun addition.

I am so grateful to Karlee for getting Where It’s @ quilted in record time. She was able to squeeze it in ahead of a couple of custom quilts so that I can get it bound and labeled in short order. Why the hurry? So it can be displayed in the Pine Needle, the quilt shop where I teach. I’m going to teach this design in February 2017!