Quilting and Stuff by Knitnoid

Category Archives: Black And Bright

Black and Bright

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This is Black & Bright. The blocks were from a May 2007 swap I participated in. The blocks then sat for several years waiting for inspiration. At one point I wanted to set the blocks with applique (yes, I know I say that’s a 4-letter word) flowers.

I went as far as taking an on-line class to learn applique and quickly decided that wasn’t going to work. So, I took the class blocks and made this wall hanging in 2010.

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I didn’t like the original border with the wall  hanging, so came up with this layout with the plan to use it on the quilt when I got that far.

The quilt top finally got finished in April 2013 at a quilt retreat. It then sat in my stash of quilt tops to be quilted. This summer it was on of the quilts that was picked to be quilted as a thank you for the help in the yard (Aiming for Accuracy, Orange Crush and Nifty Thrifty were the other 3 quilts).

I found a bright green fabric on clearance to use for the backing. I also used it as the body of the pillowcases.

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It was quilted on both the longarm and my DSM.  I had a plan for the black borders and quickly realized I wasn’t able to execute it well — especially in the bright variegated thread I was using (Superior’s So Fine #40/3 in Crickey!)  So came home and ripped out the top border and did a simple cable. It was either Wednesday night or Christmas Eve morning I realized that I wasn’t going to have enough thread — I was using Crickey! in the bobbin as well. So, I had a design opportunity.

The ‘inner’ black band between the pieced border and the blocks is narrower than the ‘outer’ black bands, so I did a simple diamond in those two borders and used black thread on the top. Finally in the turquoise of the pieced borders I did a simply s-curve and used turquoise thread.  I think I have less than 1/2 bobbin of Crikey! left.

I picked the green from the border to repeat in the binding. “Susie’s Magic Binding” is my go-to binding when I need to do a fast binding. There’s no pinning and the entire thing can be done on the machine.

I used Hobbs’ Heirloom 80/20 black batting in the quilt. It started out at 103″ square and after washing it measures 98″ square.

It was finished Christmas Day, just in time to leave for Christmas dinner.

It was part of my Crazy Challenge II and on the 4th Quarter Finish a Long list.