Almost final "Contentment" quilt pictures...

At the risk of showing this "Contentment" quilt ad nauseum, I made a real effort to take some decent pictures yesterday...then I scheduled an appointment with a real photographer 75 miles away in Huntsville.

I was already making the trip for another appointment and I realized I really needed help.  I took these pictures with the quilt pinned against the outside of our log home in what I thought was PERFECT indirect, balanced, natural light.  The picture of the whole quilt view gets steadily darker as you get near the top...best made efforts...

The close ups of the blocks and borders look dull and a little dark, as well. I'll be watching and waiting for my new picture CD to come in the mail!

I have gotten used to the effect of the hand quilted stippling.  At first, I thought it was too severe, but I like how it makes the applique motifs "pop."

I quilted the larger applique motifs so there wouldn't be too much puffy "popping."

The quilt top started 59 x 59 inches.  The stippling caused it to shrink a half inch on all sides, so it is now 58 x 58 inches.  Thank God it shrank uniformly so that it lays nice and flat.

It turns out that the photographer that I chose had taken most of the pictures of the Gee's Bend quilts for publication.

So I have made my Sauder Village Quilt Show deadline, and yesterday afternoon I registered online for the juried Grand Rapids, Fall Paducah, and Des Moines AQS shows.

I told my husband that his quilt may be traveling for a while.  As usual, my quilts end up traveling more than me, sigh.  I intend to go to all the shows except Des Moines.

The quilt is more square than the next picture indicates...now you see why I need a professional!

This starts the progression of the border, in order, all around the quilt.  I started with the top, left-hand corner.  This top border is the last one I stitched and applied to the block portion of the quilt.

Here starts the right border, at the top, going down.

And the bottom border, starting on the right and going toward the left....it was stitched and applied first.

And finally the left border, starting at the bottom and working up. 

The two side borders were stitched and applied after the bottom border.  They are mirror images except I used different fabrics for the left one.

Have you figured out my trick with how I did my borders so they would APPEAR to go around corners??  It is a trick I saw on someone's posting of an Australian Quilt Show.

By applying the bottom border first, then the two sides, then finally the top, it allowed me to do each border by my applique method, then plunge each one into water to soak out the glues before trimming to size and applying (without having to dunk the whole quilt).

I find it difficult to get a quilt top back to square after dunking it when it is all stitched.  Even though I pre-wash my fabrics, I find the 100% cotton thread shrinks and can cause the seams to pucker. 

There are times I just do needle turn applique when I need to apply final motifs to corners.  I am not very good or fast at that method, but I can do it when there is a gun to my head, LOL!

It meant that I had to carefully execute the design and the process, but it worked.  I will be trying that trick again (you can easily start at the top).

Here is my label, and no...my printing is not this good.  I cheat.  I type out my label in Microsoft Word with everything perfectly center-justified on my computer.  Then I highlight all of it and go "shopping" through the font selections.

I then print it out on paper in the size that will work and trot off to my light table.  I press freezer paper to the back of my label fabric to make writing on it easier.  I tape the paper down to my lightbox, position my fabric, tape it down, then I trace the font with my Pigma pen.  The name of this font is "Kirsten ITC."

In stitches,
Teresa   :o)