Orangerie

Date: 
29 July 2017 to 9 March 2018
This is the project code-named 'Orangerie.' Since orange and purple were Robert and Aidan's wedding colors, I chose orange and purple shot cottons for the rings. I had to tone the grey down a couple of notches, and use a Kona solid ('pewter') to let both the orange and the purple rings have room to talk. Since Robert and Aidan are Australian, the backing is an orange-pink-purple Aboriginal print. I had to be unusually careful about accuracy on these rings, because shot cottons do love to stretch and wobble, and those black-and-white ring intersections were absolutely unforgiving. Any inaccuracy showed. But hey, that's what pins are for. Quilting by the always-lovely Nancy of Just Quilting PDX.Orangerie: front
 by domesticat.
Photoset: 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/domesticat/sets/72157687227521876

Recipient: 
Robert and Aidan
Pattern: 
Double wedding ring
Level of completion: 
Completed and given away

It's been a pretty fallow time in the Quilt Factory, what with The Large One and I deciding to get married, and spending time together. The sewing room hasn't had my focus, and I've known it.

This quilt was born out of twin desires: to work with the not-quite-solids that are shot cottons, and to create a quilt that echoed Robert and Aidan's wedding colors. I had originally envisioned the quilt would use nothing but shot cottons, and picked these three (grape, steel, and bittersweet) for my plan:

I thought these three shot cottons would work well, given the requested palette, so I got a shot of them in sunlight, over the hood of my car, just to be sure.Sunlight sampling
 by domesticat.

I took them to Group Sew night, and Sam helpfully saved me from myself by telling me that my grey was totally wrong. Sure enough, when the three fabrics were photographed in greyscale, it was obvious that the purple and grey would just blend together, leaving the orange to stand alone. I went back to the store and sought a lighter grey; Kona Pewter was the answer I sought:

Sam was right. The darker shot-cotton grey didn't work. The orange just faded away when placed against it. She recommended using a grey a couple of shades lighter, and as soon as I laid the orange and purple pieces atop it, it was right.Second choice grey
 by domesticat.

Assembly was straightforward but slow; a lack of straight seams will do that for you. The backing was an Aboriginal Australian print, in honor of Robert and Aidan both being Australian.

Since I had a coworker coming to visit from the UK who could hand-carry the quilt back to Robert and Aidan, I had to hustle to meet my deadline. Nancy, bless her, turned the longarming chore around in record time, giving me something that I literally finished within 36 hours of the quilt needing to go on the flight back to Europe:

Happy and uncomplicated. Just what I wanted.Closeup, quilting
 by domesticat.

On the day I handed it over for John T. to carry it back home, the quilt hadn't even fully dried from its time in the machine dryer, so it had to be spread out across office chairs at work to ensure it was fully dry. 

all tags: 
quilts