Glad it is Done!

I have been working on a huge quilt for my friend this last week.  It was on my frame for over a week.

Measured 120 x 120!!  That is a beast; I can tell you I have never made a quilt that big.  Although I have a 12 foot frame, her backing measured 128" wide and it fit my poles from end to end!  Whew!!!!

She used the Primitive Gatherings line of fabric ... Floral Gatherings. I used my favorite Omni thread by Superior in the color Cream.  Although this quilt looks white, it is not a bright white and the cream thread was spectacular on it.

She requested a super tight stitch and  she really likes the loopy loop.  Because the stitch is small and so close together, I was hunched over the machine more than I normally do when I'm stitching.  For this reason I would limit my quilting time to 2 to 3 hours a day.  My back couldn't stand any more.

I usually don't love super close stitchimg, but the weight of this quilt and the texture the quilting gave it is so comforting.  I do not carry 120" wide batting because I rarely get a quilt bigger than 90" wide.  The only  thing they had at JoAnn's in a king size batting that was white, was Warm and White.  A little heavier than the Hobbs 80/20, but the weight feels nice I think .. So comfy.

She and her hubby are going to love snuggling under this beauty!

Some fun facts;

1. A 120" x 120" quilt uses over 9 1/2 yards of fabric ... And that is without counting everything we trim off after we cut our appropriate strips for the blocks.

2.  A 128" x 128" backing requires around 11 yards of fabric.  Let's not do the math on how much 21 1/2 yards of fabric costs!

3.  I used 24 large m size bobbins on this quilt.

4.  It took 14 hours to quilt.

5.  There are 17 pieces per block; there are 100 blocks in this quilt!!!! That means 1,700 pieces in the quilt!  Wow!!!

I will give you a hint here:  when buying fabric for backing, I never want to pay full price.  Even on sale, 11 yards of backing is a lot ... Say you find sale fabric for $6 a yard ... That is still $67 for backing.  You can usually do better finding a wide backing.  They wind up running a little less.  When looking for backing for this quilt, I helped my friend find a high quality quilters muslin that was extra wide ... Instead of spending around $121.00 (11 yards at full price), she paid about $38.00. I was a little worried about how the muslin would quilt up, but it worked great and I had no problems.  It looks really nice.