Remains Of The Day - The Meadowlark Collection Blog Hop

Back in May I teased you all with a post sharing a few close up pics of  my first project for Quilt Market but today I'm delighted to share with you, my Remains Of The Day quilt showcasing a new range of fabrics called 'Meadowlark' for Windham Fabrics by my fellow NYC Metro Mod Quilt Guild friend, Melanie Testa.  You can find out more about Melanie's process in my previous post.

Lots of you had questions about how I made a circular quilt, the quilting and especially the binding - here's my story:

What's In A Name?

So why is the quilt called Remains Of The Day?  Well, Melanie got together with lots of willing helpers at the quilt store where I work in Manhattan to make items for Quilt Market but I was busy working on the shop floor and by the time I nipped in to grab myself some fabric to make something with there was nothing left.  My friend, Emily Klainberg, came to the rescue and gave me her leftovers to work with hence the name Remains Of The Day because that's exactly what this quilt's made from.

Making The Quilt

Laying out the fabric remains on my dining table inspiration struck - I decided to piece them together exactly as they were - nothing trimmed or cut to size - even using raw edge applique to include some small squares and longer strips, again no trimming.

 I used the same technique to make the back

Once everything was pieced I taped the backing tightly to my table and created a quilt sandwich on top of it.

Quilting, Binding & Labelling

I marked one line vertically down the length of the quilt and quilted along it using a 3.2 stitch length.  I used a seam guide on my walking foot and added more quilting lines parallel to this about every 2" across the whole quilt to secure it.  Then I started filling in with straight'ish lines in between the ones I'd already quilted I didn't worry about being perfect and they're all about an 1/8" apart'ish!

I quilted from edge to edge knowing that such dense quilting would distort the circle so I worked larger than needed and was prepared to replot the circle once all the quilting was finished.

Once the quilting was complete I marked the circle out again and cut away the backing and batting to the circle's edge.  I left the quilt top about 1/2" larger so I could fold it over twice to the back and stitch it in place to create a rolled facing.

The finished quilt measures 53.5" diameter.

Quilt Market

So here's the pics I have from Melly's booth in the Windham section at Quilt Market.

In this pic my quilt's over the table on the left

And here it is again.

And this is my favourite pic of Melly holding my quilt :D

The Photoshoot

Obviously, all my quilts have to have my obligatory roof garden shot but this quilt looks so much better hanging against a wall so just the one this time.

 

The wind's picking up the bottom corner here - it is a perfect circle really.

And see the wind really did grab the quilt but for me, it's the best pic of all

I won't list which fabrics I've used from the collection, easier to give you this link to the full collection in Windham's Fabric Shop.

THE GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED

And now for the Meadowlark Blog Hop Giveaway:

The Meadowlark Blog Hop And Giveaway

Fancy winning a "fat stack" of 10" squares from each fabric in Melly's new Meadowlark line - and there are 26 fabrics in the collection?  Better still there's one fat stack available for each stop on the Blog Hop!

To enter leave a comment letting me know your favourite fabric in Melly's Meadowlark collection and let me know you've commented using the Rafflecopter below.  The closing time is 12:00 AM EST on Friday, 13 June 2014 and I'll notify the winner by email later that day.  If you're a no-reply blogger or using WordPress or Google+ please leave your email in your comment or your entry will be nullified.  All other terms and conditions are listed within the Rafflecopter.

Update at 11.35 am, Wednesday, 4 June 2014
If you haven't used Rafflecopter before you need to leave a comment as normal at the bottom of my blog post and then come back to the Rafflecopter and click the option saying "I've commented".  Please note 'Anonymous User' comments are disabled so if you don't have one of the accounts accepted by the blog platform 'Blogger', such as Google then, unfortunately, you won't be able to join in the giveaway.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Melly is also giving away three copies of her book Dreaming from the Journal Page - one copy on her own blog and the other winners will be chosen from the two blogs with the most comments at the end of the hop.  So get commenting, what's keeping you?!

GOOD LUCK EVERYONE

To see more fun Meadowlark projects and for extra chances to win visit the other blogs on the Blog Hop:

Melly Testa - 2 June

Vivien Zepf - 2 June

Chris Dodsley - 3 June (my turn!)

Sue Bleiweiss - 4 June

Leslie Tucker Jenison - 5 June

Jamie Fingal - 6 June

Lyric Kinard - 7 June

Jen Eskridge - 8 June

Jacqui Holmes Calhoun - 8 June (guest post)

Stephanie Forsyth - 9 June

Victoria Findlay Wolfe - 10 June

Teri Lucas - 11 June

Scott Hansen - 12 June

Helen Eckard - 12 June (guest post)