A Cross Quilt for Dawn

Hello again! Lets talk about this quilt for a bit. Lots of pictures too! So this is a very arty quilt. My friend Dawn Blankartz made this top as a gift for a friend. If you want to tab below you can see the quilt that inspired the quilt. I have been calling it a Viking Cross quilt, but it is more of a Medieval Pictish cross. Anyway Dawn made quilt by utilizing piecing, raw edge appliqué and painting on the fabric. She used some lovely Peppered Cottons.

I quilted the heck out of this quilt for a couple reasons. First the appliqué was not going to stay on the quilt without a great deal of quilting. I knew it was going to be a baby quilt and with my baby quilts they went through the wash weekly if not daily. Baby quilts need to be strong. Second, when I got to the cross I had to quilt it dense to make the characters pop.

Dawn and I had discussed what to do in the borders ( a knot design and some celtic looking dragons) but the rest was up to me.  Swirls for the background ( did you know that swirls, or snail shells represent eternity in Welsh quilting?) worked well and quickly.

The cross was a different matter. I traced all the characters with sliver thread to blend in with the silver cross. I didn't want the characters to poof up too much after being washed, so I added narrow lines. Then I had to do something in the background so I went with a simple stipple. Stipple is never a background I reach for first, but for this is worked to look almost like embossing.

The grass was quilted to look like grass.

Here are some of the borders. Pearls in the cross, knot work in the plum and tumbling dragons in the green.

The fraying with the peppered cottons is going to be epic. But they will wash up so soft!

The back is a very soft green flannel. I love how the quilting shows itself here too!

It is inspired from the Dupplin Cross in Strathearn, Scotland. A very early Medieval Pictish Stone Cross.

This was another really fun quilt to quilt. I actually thought it was only going to take about 3 hours to do. Silly me. It took 3 days to quilt. Granted there were lots of other things going on at the same time. Kids, school and sport activities. As well as other projects that have popped up. I have a T-shirt quilt I am working on in the background as well...and patterns and classes!!!! So much wonderful things around here. 

Have a lovely day! I am trucking down to my studio to get some work done. Have a great day!

xo,

Tia Curtis