The Quilt of Which I’m Most Proud: Cosmic Spiral

I think it’s about time I show off a quilt on this blog of mine, especially considering my quilting is what got me really interested in writing a blog!

This is the quilt that makes me beam with pride:

I started this 27″ square quilt in a workshop with Barbara Olson at my local quilt guild so many years ago. I really don’t even know how many years ago. I keep meaning to e-mail the guild historian so she can give me an idea.

I didn’t get very far in the workshop because I was determined I didn’t have the exact right fabric I wanted for a spot in the yellow section — um, right where you start sewing!

My Mom also took the workshop, and she and I would periodically meet and spend F O R E V E R choosing each individual fabric, raiding each other’s stashes. And we would often find ourselves going backwards, “reverse sewing,” to take something out because we had found a new little snippet. Piecing was definitely the difficult part, but it was also the most fun! I loved the collaboration with my Mom.

Here’s a couple zingers I particularly like and enjoyed planning — the different color beams radiating from the center:

And even after the spiral was pieced, it sat F O R E V E R again for me to put on the borders – I “fussy cut” those batik star triangles out of a huge piece of fabric (the holes are quite terrifying!) – and then it sat F O R E V E R for me to get brave enough to quilt it.

The only thing that made me get off my butt and finish it was that I wanted to enter it into the Austin Area Quilt Guild Quilt Show in September 2008. With some encouragement and quilting design advice from my Mom, I finally set quilting needle to fabric and quilted a bunch of spirals in it (view from the back):

She actually calls this design more of her ‘knotty wood’ pattern, and it really is that but it also looks quite cosmic!  I put invisible thread on top and a beautiful variegated thread on bottom.

I finished the binding the night before entries were due, and then anxiously awaited the outcome of judging.

And LOOK! Honorable Mention!

SO proud! My only negative comment by the judge was that she thought I should quilt the black & white areas some more. They do stick out as not-quilted (I stitched in the ditch of the seams), but I can’t really imagine filling it up, so I’m satisfied with the comment.

I even like my label a LOT, printed for me by That Quilter (my name deleted).:

 OH, and you can see how I got around the not-knowing-when-I-started by just putting a ‘finished in’ date!

Anyway, this quilt has so much work in it as well as so many memories of quilting with my Mom. It also has batiks! I LOVE batiks and have 3 shelves FULL of them, but generally I am too scared to use them up and so they sit on the shelves. This quilt is a reminder to me to actually USE the fabric I love because I will no doubt love the results even more than a cluttered sewing room!