Finished - Ice Cream Soda Quilt

 

All pieced - waiting for borders to be attached

Meeka - my not very helpful assistant

My hand pieced Ice Cream Soda quilt started in May 2017, is actually finished. The pattern and templates were from Tales of Cloth.  Fabric for all the blossoms was from my stash.  It has been a long slow process for me, culminating in getting all the blossoms and joining pieces finished last May in our long lockdown.

After attaching the border pieces, I painstakingly removed all the papers (with help from Meeka, and a teen then telling me all the ones I had missed) and pressed hundreds of seams.  Then it sat, folded carefully away till I decided what I wanted to back it with and how to quilt.

After my holiday in February , I decided that I needed to get it finished and in a useable state. I sent it to  Leeanne of Quiltmekiwi for quilting, I also purchased the wideback backing fabric and batting from her.  I deliberated long and hard about not hand quilting it myself, and still feel as though I have cheated for not doing so, but I know that it would have sat there for unfinished for years.  This way I can use it and love it,  and I feel that the machine quilting probably reinforces my hand stitching a little more too.

A lot of emails and messages were toing and froing between Leeanne and myself, and eventually I decided on an e2e quilting specifying that I still wanted it to be wrapable and not too stiffly textured or heavily quilted, but something that would give interesting texture.  Gingersnap was the design I decided on in the end.  Quilting was not without drama either,  unfortunately even though we couldn't see it, my border was to big for the pieced top, which resulted in a terrible wavy look.  Leeanne unpicked, trimmed and reattached them before she could start quilting again.

Because I had quite a multipatterned and coloured backing, a patterned binding did not look right. When picking the blue background fabric, I always had in mind the idea of flowers floating in water, and after some consulation with Leeanne, I decided to match the binding to the border fabric to create this effect. 

I'm really proud of this quilt, it was a big commitment deciding to handpiece one, and too actually finish it.  Many times I thought about passing it on, I'm glad I persevered and I couldn't be more happy with it.