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| Overall View |
This past winter while in Yuma, my mission was to do a Latte Quilt. Really didn't get the quilt completed but did manage to get the 16 blocks plus the center medallion completed. Pictures of its beginnings were posted in a previous blog. What is the Latte Quilt...well it's an machine embroidery quilt designed by Kerrie Hays from Australia.. It was quite popular several years ago. My first go at it was in 2005 or so.
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| First go around |
When arriving home this past April, the next step was to prepare the borders, sashings then put it all together and move on to the fun (or so I thought) phase...the quilting. Not really having a set plan as to what or how much was going to be done, initially only the borders, sashing and larger open spaces were quilted. Unfortunately the quilt still wasn't moving me "it wasn't talking to me", in reality it was screaming for more of something, just wasn't too sure what or how much. Quilters have this very strange affliction about looking at the backside of a quilt (wish they'd quit), they always turn it over, not sure where this comes from, unfortunately what it does do is make one to strive to make their work look as good on the back as it on the front.
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| just a "little" more please |
Darn, can't hide as many mistakes anymore!!! :-((
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| what it looks like from the back |
Just a little background regarding the Latte Quilt. I believe many of the core designs utilized are of Sue Box origin. The stitching in between the main designs is based on what your sewing machine has available in it's repertoire of stitches which is incorporated into the main design through the design software. Once the overall design is completed in the software, it's then divided into three sections making it small enough to fit into a large hoop to be stitched out.
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| Before |
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| After |
The center embroidery portion of the medallion requires about 10 hoopings. Just to give you an idea as to time, each hooping takes approximately 60 minutes to stitch out, so each block that is stitched takes about 180 minutes providing all goes well. Hence, it doesn't take long to chew up a lot of time. Something moi is very good at. LOL
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| Parasol Block Before |
Each block (16 in total), with the exception of the center medallion, is 14 inches square. The embroidery portion of the center medallion is 36 inches square, with the added triple stitched triangles, it works out to 46 inches square. It has been very interesting over the years to see many variations of the latte quilt and how people put their own personal touch to this lovely quilt.
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| Parasol Block Corner After |
For myself, this is the third go at the quilt, the other two were given away for extra special gifts. I had 'just' enough duchess bridal satin fabric left over from the last latte quilt (2007) to squeak this out with some modification along with another chunk of fabric that was sitting in my stash, just knew there was a reason it was waiting. So the previous two quilts were made by quilting the blocks as you go and then stitching in the ditch on to the backing all of which is done on a domestic machine, which was not a simple task given the size and bulk the quilt is about 90+ inches square.
The one thing missing from my earlier quilting accessories was a longarm quilt machine and a 10 foot frame. So given this was the third time around, I thought I'd try and do something special with the quilting end of things. Pretty much all of the quilting has been done free hand and rulers which for me is no simple task. In saying that, my feathers are starting to come together and the comfort level has grown considerably.
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| Border Corner Block |
To work around the embroidery designs it pretty much demands that you do it freehand. It totally taxed my brain to come up with creative ideas as to what to do, thank goodness for the internet to get ideas elementary enough for me to be able to do, it is not an easy task to fill blocks up with stitching and have it look like it means something afterwards. I have the greatest admiration for those wonderful talented people who can fill a quilt with block after block of beautiful quilting. A skill that requires a lot of creativity not to mention dedication to practice, practice and more practice.
Now all that is left is the label and binding!! Woohoo!! Until till next time....
