Quilted not Bound

I finished quilting the Storm at Sea quilt yesterday. I still don’t know why it took so long, I put it on the frame May 31st and then 28 days passed. I really didn’t like quilting this quilt. I used waves and circles to follow the movement created by the pattern. A lot of stops and starts that could quell anyones enthusiasm. Last week I came up with the idea to add some bubbles to the waves, I think it helped create some interest and texture. That being said, this quilt has a lot going on. I’m going to bind it today.

I loaded up the pillow tops I made to go with this quilt. They are a Bargello pattern using the batik fabrics left over from the first S@S quilt. I used a panto called Seashells and Pearls, it took about four hours to stitch out the two 22″ x 24″ tops. Computerized pantograph quilting looks great, but it can take a long time.

I was productive while the machine was stitching though. I started the next shawl of The Shawl Society III, it’s called Over the Ivy Door. The pattern calls for brown and green and is very pretty as that. I had enough green in my stash, but no brown that would work. I did have four skeins of Knit Picks Hawthorne that were part of a kit. I’m going to knit the gray for the brown, fade into the gray-blue and then into the turquoise- gray-purple. The finished size is about 21 x 85 a nice size rectangle to wrap up in.