Chinese Whispers

[Susan B.]

Rita, what a beautiful quilt! It's so bright, cheery, and modern. I'm curious about how the variation in blue was accomplished in the block that is 2nd from the top on the right, a great swirl. Your niece will surely be thrilled.

[Lois B.]

I have finished my first big quilt this year. Boy am I glad that's done. I really like the mussel shell border design but it takes forever and uses a mountain of thread. I used 2 full bobbins on each border. Each block has a different design. All very 'organic' and not very perfect but I doubt my niece will be complaining. It's for her 21st birthday which is on the 28th of this month. I can't believe I got this done ahead of time. Now back to my reels quilt and the BOM. Happy quilting everybody.

What a beautiful happy quilt. The quilting is marvelous. Your niece will be very, very happy. It's a very special gift. The colors are wonderful.

[Lois B.]

Rita, I like it!

[Rita C.]

Susan do you mean the wonky log cabin block? It's just a batik fabric that came that way. There is one block that is going to have to have a bit more quilting I see from the photo - the white star shape - guess I will have to stipple it into submission.

Renata, I did do some marking but only as I went along and removed the marks as soon as the block was finished. I only marked in a couple of places. Most of it was done by eye (wonky eye really :lol: ). And Marilyn you are right it is very hard to quilt a large quilt on a DM. The finished size of this one is 72"x 72". I don't ever want to do one as big again. But you know pain has no memory so I probably will. :roll: :lol: Connie, the machine sure was smokin' afterwards. :lol: Thank you all for your kind comments.

[Rita C.]

Rita, excellent work on your niece's quilt. Great job. I am sure she will love it.

Margarita

[Nancy R.]

Wow, Rita, that's spectacular! I love the colors and the quilting is out of this world. Great job!

Nancy

[E.M. T.]

Rita..what thread did you use !? Care to share ?

[Rita C.]

Thanks for the compliments ladies. Marilyn, the threads were: Superior Rainbows 'Jester' on the coloured batiks in the blocks; in the white areas I used Hemmingworth 'Whisper Pink'; and in the blue sashing around the blocks I used Superior Rainbows 'Crown Jewels'; Superior Highlights 'Groovy Green' on the corner squares in the border and for the entire back of the quilt; And, Renata, they were all cones. I just have a very limited range of them.
Here's a photo of part of the back. I really thought the highlights green thread would stand out a lot more because it is almost neon green but it blended in beautifully. I dyed an aqua coloured sheet with yellow dye didn't like the colour so over-dyed with turquoise.

[Renata L.]

I'll take one of those sheets, Rita!

[wendy w.]

And me

Beautiful happy quilt, well done Rita

[E.M. T.]

Golly...Thanks for showing us the back ! Really helps to see the various designs !! I'm liking the" Rainbows"
line of thread, too. Now...about that sheet ! I've had terrible trouble with sheets in the past....
heavier sometimes, tighter weave/thread count, humm?? can you detail your choices some?
Perhaps what you have there is a bit different than I find . Anyone else out there have thoughts on
using commercial sheets for backing?? The dye job is beautiful..What Kind ?....Gosh ! I'm just full
of curiosity today ! :P

[Rita C.]

Marilyn I had to use a sheet because large quilt backing fabric here starts at €24.99 per yard!!!! I can buy a sheet for about €10. That particular sheet was a percale cotton sheet so the thread count would have been about 240 or something like that. I used to use sheets in the past when I did mostly hand quilting but found the tighter weave ones too difficult to stitch through. I reckoned that as I was going to machine quilt this one it didn't matter if it was a high thread count or not. As for the dyes, they were Procion MX dyes. I did the Craftsy class with Jane Dunnewold and it was great. And, not only that but it was free! It was one of the best classes I have done on Craftsy.

[Norma H.]

Rita, you are so good. Great quilt that will be loved.
I agree with you, that Jane's class at Craftsy is really good. There's a lot of inspiration in it. Is it your first time with the MX-Procion dyes?

[E.M. T.]

Thanks, Rita..perhaps I'll try a sheet again one of these days. Improvements in machine, needles and thread
might make a huge difference....Love procion dyes....Thanks again!

[Rita C.]

Norma that was not my first time with the Procion dyes but I have only started to use them recently. Up to then I was just using Dylon pre-mixed dyes. It's a whole different ball-game when you have to mix the colours yourself, as you know. But I do enjoy doing it.