My work in progress today is the Great Granny Squared quilt. Last Christmas, I picked up this pattern by Lori Holt. I liked the fun scrappy look that she put together with this quilt. I started gathering my fabrics in January. I decided to use Robert Kaufman’s Essex Linen for the background and a mix of modern fabrics with a few oldies thrown in from my stash.
It has taken me some time to get this quilt to the quilting stage, but I’m almost there. I ended up with 3 extra blocks from this quilt and I’m glad because it has given me a chance to “test” how I want to quilt this beast.
I really thought that I wanted wavy lines on this quilt. When I drew it out on paper I thought that would look great. Then I quilted it. It was not what I wanted. I also realized that I need more practice on my free motion quilting before I would try to do a quilt this large.
On to the next plan. I thought straight horizontal and vertical quilting would look good against the diagonals of the block. After quilting it, I didn’t like it because I felt like the quilting got lost and didn’t really compliment the quilt. Basically, it was just “ok”.
On my last block, I went with a crosshatch and I think that looks best. I will get some straight lines coming in through the sashing, like I did on the second block, and I think the crosshatch and straight lines will compliment each other. Plus, this quilting looked the best on the back.
I don’t normally have whole blocks to practice on like this but I’m happy that I did with this since it is so large. Next up, putting the back together. Then basting – which is probably not my favorite activity – 😬 – but necessary.
Storts Market 