Hat on Top, Coat Below
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Collaborative Effort
August 2, 2005
Like the heart quilt (which still isn’t finished, which is too bad because at the July guild meeting they did charity quilts at show and tell first, so I could have scooted up there and still made it to Nia on time, except I wouldn’t have been able to get the label and sew it on during the business meeting because I got there very late because we had houseguests), this quilt is web-ready thanks to someone else. In this case, it’s Mel who made it so. This is what we were working on when she came to visit in June–a group wedding gift for two online friends who just got back from their honeymoon trip and have now seen the quilt so we can go public with it.
Amandapage came up with the idea to make this quilt and it just seemed to make sense for Mel and me to work on it because the first one we made together turned out well. The three of us did the initial planning via e-mail and chat, then Amanda took charge of soliciting words of best wishes from a whole bunch of friends of the happy couple while Mel and I focused on the fabric. We’d decided to use the Ohio Star block because that’s where the recipients live (and also it’s a nice block for this sort of project) and split the blocks into segments–I’d do the outsides (points and corners) and Mel would do the centers as blocks within the block. After exchanging lots of links to swatches online, we decided on the black and tan batik for the sashing and another print in two colorways (ivory and brown) to complement it.
Then it was time to sew–I did points and corners here in Michigan and Mel did centers in Texas and we put it all together during her visit. Since it was a simpler pattern than the quilt we made last year (at least is was simpler other than Mel’s centers–she had some really little triangles in some of those blocks) it wasn’t even a problem that I didn’t quite finish all the corners before QuiltCon (my excuse was I wanted to consult with Mel about whether to fill those spaces with more of the love and marriage quotes she’d found when it looked like we weren’t going to get enough words from friends or do something else with them); we had plenty of time to finish the top and back and even make the quilt sandwich with fusible batting.
After Mel had to go home, I did quilting in the ditch along the major divisions and outlines of the stars, then shipped it to her to do the fancy quilting and finishing. And finish it she did, including whipping the binding down by hand, which not something I’d even contemplate on a quilt this size (the blocks are 15 inches so the whole quilt is something over 5 feet by 6 feet, I think).
If you’d like to see more, Mel has lots of pictures of the quilt up here, and I’ve got a few in-progess ones here.