The Wedding Quilt

Ready for another #10 bus?

You’ve seen so many sneak peeks of this one, so here’s the reveal. Taaadaaa!!

Of the three queen-sized quilts I skited shared about finishing in July, this is the only one I also started the same month, a feat only possible because I stepped out of my comfort zone and made it entirely by machine.

I wanted this quilt to reflect the blending of two cultures, Korean and Australian. Most importantly, I also wanted to include in it something of Ben’s and Sunny’s daughter, our precious little Princess.

I chose oriental-themed fabrics from a collection I had been gathering for a few years, augmented with a handful of Australian fabrics from Leesa Chandler’s Under the Australian Sun 2 collection. Since most of the orientals, as well as the Australians, were embellished with gold stamping, they played together very happily indeed!

I love the way Leesa’s Australian native flowers – flannel flowers, tea tree, gum blossom, gum leaves, banksia and waratah – add plenty of colour to the quilt, along with the cherry blossom, chrysanthemums and ginkgo leaves from various other collections.

I used Julie Wallace’s Lanterns of Light triangle template to cut my equilateral triangles after first cutting 8 inch wide strips.  Because several pairs of eyes are always better when determining a layout, Di B, her mum Margaret and I spent a morning with all the pieces spread on the floor making sure there was a nice balance.

I know you can still see some clashes, but please don’t blame Di B and Margaret for this. I confused myself just a little when I was sewing the rows of triangles together .  Our church hall was the perfect place to sandwich and tack the quilt, and I machine quilted it on my Bernina 1230.

With the guide attached to the walking foot, I quilted 1 inch either side of all the seam lines, a simple process as I was just machining edge to edge across the quilt. Wrangling the quilt through the 6.5 inch harp (throat) was a little challenging at times, but not impossible.

My recently acquired perspex extension table helped enormously, as did applications of Neutrogena Norwegian Formula hand cream, which made my fingers so grippy I felt like Spiderman!!!

The Moda wide quiltback in rich scarlet was a lucky find at Patchwork Products, as was the black and white binding that I think nicely frames all those  ‘look at me!’ triangles.

 

Stats:

81 in x 75 in

Various ranges of oriental themed fabrics, teamed with Under the Australian Sun 2 by Leesa Chandler for Robert Kaufman.

Bamboo batting.

Pieced and quilted on a Bernina 1230.

Pieced with Aurifil 40 weight thread in white (2024)

Quilted with Aurifil 50 weight thread in red (lost its label!)

Di