The making of the Double Wedding Ring quilt.

From time to time I've had various enquiries about this quilt which is still not finished. I'm bored with quilting it and I'm sick of it to tell the truth. It's hung around too long I think. I had better get going on it this winter and be done with it. I'll put it away and then I'm sure I'll love it again.

I promised a few peopleI would do a post on it and tell how it came about and how I did the applique borders. Here goes.

A long time ago, I saw a photo in a Japanese quilt magazine of a colourwashed version of the DWR (bottom right in the photo below) and thought it pretty clever. That seed was sown was starting to sprout when I saw another one years later in a magazine done by Gerty Putter, a south African quilter. That's when I decided to make one. I researched the different piecing methods and finally decided to purchase the template set from Quilting From The Heartland.

I bought a nice P&B nuetral coloured background and the fabrics for the center of the rings, the rest was from old stash. Remember all the Hoffman florals? That's mostly what I had in the stash  so I cut and cut and cut the pieces and arranged them according to colour and value in pizza boxes.

I worked out the easiest piecing method for me and photocopied them in progress so I would remember how to do it in case it got left a long time (it did) See the two photos at the bottom below.

Then I got quilters block. I was bored with looking at it and convinced myself that it needed something extra, after all, I had put a lot of time in it. Applique is usually the first thing I think of adding and then this Quilters Newsletter magazine arrived.

Wow I thought, I need some applique like that around the borders. The quilt on the cover is by Kathy Nakajima.

When the center of the top was pieced, I appliqued the outer rings to some background fabric.

Meanwhile this book pictured below had arrived in the mail and thinking it had a pattern for the cover quilt, I thought I was set. Wrong! There is a pattern for a small wall quilt but not for the large one. Not to be beaten and loving a challenge, I set about drawing a design to fit my quilt borders. Ok that part was a lot of fun for me and very satisfying I might add. I used some of the flowers from the book and drew my own versions.

The funny thing is that after I had done all this, Quilters newsletter released the pattern. Did I buy it? You bet, maybe I'll even do the compass one day, ha! ;)

Here are some photos of the results so far. I did  french knots in silk thread around the flower centers. The fabrics I used are batiks, hand dyes and moda marbles. You can click on the photos for close ups.

I'm up to quilting the borders but it's going to take awhile, I stitch around all applique shapes and then I will echo quilt around them. The fabric is not cut from behind the applique so it's slow going quilting inside them.