Friday, September 3, 2010

Sew&Tell Friday - Thoroughly Modern Millie!!


Hi, all!

I hope you all have big plans for your Labor Day weekend - I've finished the quilt I was working on, so now I can play without feeling guilty!!  So let me introduce - - - - Thoroughly Modern Millie!!


We received a request through the quilt ministry for a quilt for a high school senior with medical issues and her favorite colors are grey, black, yellow and green..............  whew!!  An unusual color combination, and our fabric stash is notoriously low on greys!  So I went on a search and found four beautiful greys and grey/blacks at Joann's, of all places.  I bought a yard of each, not knowing how they would go into a quilt.....   Later on, at home, a picture of a quilt caught my eye and sparked my imagination - instead of traditional blocks, I drew out a large square within a square within a square pattern.   Adding yellow, green and white narrow borders between the grey pieces drew in all the colors requested.

After the top was pieced came the task of quilting.  I've been wanting to try straight line channel quilting for a while, but the thought of using it on a whole quilt was a little bit daunting - so I used it for the narrow borders!  I love the look - just wish it didn't take so long!  For the inner darker border, I used a "beadboard" pattern - channel quilting with an inch between pairs.


The center, with its nifty circles, called for something different - so I used free motion quilting around each circle - sort of a pebbling, but not quite.  I like the way it came out!





The medium grey border was printed with circles too, so I did a little more free motion quilting to balance out the center circles.









I wanted the back of the quilt to be simple, yet have some punch, so I went to see what I could find in the fabric stash.  Four great black and white prints later, and this is the result....


I love the boldness of it, and take a look at how cool the quilting looks on the back:



All in all, I'm very happy with my finish this Friday - and now I have to give it away!  But hopefully its new owner will love it as much as I do....

I'm linking up to Amy's Sew & Tell Friday and Andrea's Lush Friday - be sure to check out everyone's wonderful finishes for the week!!

Later!

Sarah

17 comments:

  1. Truely beautiful,I love the way you used the greys,very striking.Thanks for linking to lush friday.Andrea x

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  2. WOW! If you had told me those colors would go together before I saw the picture, I would have shaken my head and said that can't work but this looks fabulous! Congratulations and may it be a really special blessing to this young woman.

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  3. Fantastic, the colours together look great! Well done!

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  4. Very pretty, and such a great idea with the circles and the square together. I'm sure she'll love it.

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  5. this is so beautiful. it is amazing how fast you can get something like this together. the colors really turned out well together.

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  6. I love this quilt! I really love the big square-in-square design instead of traditional quilt blocks. Very cool, and great job on the quilting too!

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  7. You sure have made a terrific quilt. Your quilting accentuates the fabric designs wonderfully.

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  8. Wow! What a terrific way to put those colors together! I bet she loves it. :o) Stopping by from LushStuff. Thanks for sharing. Happy Sewing! :o)

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  9. I like it! I think the channel quilting was perfect for this one. The back is terrific too.

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  10. I'm sure the new owner will be thrilled. You've captured the "modern" quilt and in the specified favorite colors beautifully. Love the channel quilting. Now, I've got another quilting motif (?) to try.

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  11. This is so cool! I'm sure it will be happy in its new home.

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  12. It IS thoroughly modern! So bold but still calm enough. A lovely design

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  13. Great Job, I love how the quilting looks on the back, how it falls with the checked back. Good job with the color scheme, I'm sure she will be tickled...gray? Well tickled anyway. ;]

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  14. Very nice job of incorporating all the colors! It's bold and contemporary and she'll love it!

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  15. I'm with the others. I never would have put this together in my mind, but all together it is really stunning. I am in awe of the quilting. It looks fantastic!

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  16. So pretty! I love simple designs like this.

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