More Finishes.

Here's the bare bones of the situation: I made a Gone With The Wind quilt top (only .. not quilted yet) as a present.  I had thought that the recipient would love it, as she is simply in love with the whole genre.  I used the free pattern from Quilting Treasures for the center medallion but created my own pieced border.  The pictures came from Quilting Treasures' GWTW line of fabric issued to commemorate the 70th anniversary of GWTW.  I thought it came out rather nicely.

However, the reception was quite different than what I expected.  Graciously received but not liked.  After some discussion, we determined that it just wasn't liked (one specific reason and a couple of general ones).  Curiously, I was not unhappy eventhough I had thought it would be a real hit.  The one specific reason was the picture I had put in the center ... but even with it's removal, the top was still not liked.  (I've blanked out the center image in the above photo.)

Upon ruminating, I have decided that I *will* finish the top and put it up for sale.  I hope I will be able to connect with a buyer.

During the construction, I accumulated a LOT of half-square triangles, as all of the blocks with pictures are made snowball-style.  The half-square triangles were of a sufficiently decent size that there was now way I could toss them.  :-)   I was left with ANOTHER unintended project: use up the half-square triangles.

This entailed an internet search and ended in my good friend Marcia Hohn's "Quilters' Cache" website.  I swear, if her site doesn't have a block, it doesn't exist anywhere!  I found "Carpenter's Wheel" and was able to make THREE blocks from the surplus half-square triangles.  A quick trip to Joann's and I obtained some more of the necessary fabric for a fourth block ... luckily, both fabrics are a standard on the calico wall.

I used Electric Quilt to come up with a design to use the four Carpenter's Wheel blocks.  Eventhough the blocks are 24", that isn't enough to result in a quilt the size I wanted.  So, in went some sashings and some sawtooth borders.  This created a square top.  I don't care too much for square quilts so back to Electric Quilt for some top and bottom borders.  I discovered that Electric Quilt has applique designs!  Who knew??  :-)  I used their design as-is.  The top finished out at 61" x 90".  A little on the odd size but better too long than too short. :-)

All the applique was needle-turn.  Since I found a technique for needle-turn applique that I like (from Pacific Rim Quilt Company's two fabric quilt line of patterns), I no longer avoid applique. I am a happy camper when it comes to applique.  [You can see the first project I made from their pattern here.  The technique is AWESOME.] 

Eventually, the applique was finished and I pinned the first border to the center medallion of Carpenter's Wheel blocks.  Then I hung it up on my design wall to admire. 

And it looked weird ... but in a good way.  It was different from my EQ graphic  ... how? 

Oh silly me .. I had inadvertently pinned the border *upside down*!  The EQ version has the cluster of green diamonds next to the sawtooth border.  My pinned border has that cluster at the very top & bottom of the quilt.  I never realized that the EQ version bothered me in a subliminal way until I saw the actual quilt with the upside down border.

The problem with EQ version?  When the cluster of green diamonds is next to the sawtooth border, there is a lot of empty space between the sawtooth blocks and the swirly applique.  This simply did not register with me.

But look at the physical quilt above (yes, the quilt is too long for my design wall, so the bottom border is dragging on the floor).  You can see that the empty space is now at the outer edges of the borders, which is more visually pleasing ... at least to me.  Since it's my quilt, that is what matters. :-)

This Carpenter's Wheel top will now join its sibling tops in the pile of Quilts to be Quilted.  ::sigh::  There are quite a few of them.

I really gotta get back to Lizzie to restart quilting.  :-)