Bee Inspired QuiltCon Text Group Quilt

My international Quilt Bee group – Bee Inspired – decided to get together and enter a quilt in the QuiltCon Charity Quilt event.  It has truly been a team effort – Velda (Freckled Fox Quiltery) suggested it and got us going, Susan (Sevenoaks Street Quilts) did the design, 10 of us made blocks and sent them to Velda who pieced the top, and I just completed the quilting.

The theme this year was text, and the palette was whites, greys, and blacks.  We decided to support a women’s cause so the theme of ‘You Got This’ emerged.  As we are indeed international, some block makers did their phrases in different languages – I think we have English, Spanish, Italian, German, French, and Greek.

Here is the top, as completed and photographed by Velda:

I spent the better part of a month doing the quilting.  That is a little deceiving as I had to travel a lot during that month, but I put a lot of time and work into this quilt.   I also had to change thread colors a lot to blend with the white, light grey, dark grey, and black.

Here are some in progress photos:

My goals with this quilt were to try and use the quilting to tie the blocks/panels together so it looked cohesive, and to also highlight the lettering by outlining and echoing all the letters.  I did feathers that ran across panels, swirls and circles/pearls that started in one panel and ended in another, and wavy lines across the bottom 2 panels of the quilt.  I also really wanted to try new designs and expand my library of techniques.

It took a lot of time, but I think it really came out well.

I’m really happy with this feather and these orange peel things:

I’m happy with my swirls and some little flowers I snuck in across the quilt:

This is my block.  It kind of looks like yelling (oops).  I snuck in another little flower:

Final Details:

  • Finished 64″x80″
  • Batting is Quilters Dream Wool to add loft
  • 4 colors of So Fine#50 used on the top (white #401, light grey #503, dark grey #408, and charcoal #410).  Bottom Line dark grey #622 used in the bobbin.
  • 388,194 total quilting stitches – my most ever – though that is a bit on the high side as I had to rip out and redo a section of black quilting that had a tension issue.

From me it goes on to Irene (Patchwork & Pastry) for finishing and binding…and then on to QuiltCon in Austin in February.  Can’t wait to see it hanging there!

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