Driftless in Isolation

Here is the finished quilt of the #friedascolourmix project  thatI have been running on my Instagram feed since the 7th April, based on a design I first used way back in 2005 on a quilt called Colour Mix. You last heard about the start of it way back on 6th April on this blog post and now you see how it all turned out! I've decided to call it Driftless in Isolation in honour of the fabric range I used (Driftless designed by Anna Graham for Robert Kaufman Fabrics) and the fact that it was made during the Covid 19 lockdown period here in the UK

I have been working a bit in advance of everyone following the Instagram feed because that would make it possible to share how I finished my quilt after all the 100 blocks were sewn together. I wanted my quilt to float on a wide background/border and to that end ordered  additional fabric, which then lingered in a Chicago sorting hub  for 3 months due to the postal issues related to the virus. But just as I  ordered more fabric from different suppliers and started to rethink my borders, it suddenly arrived. I ordered my original fat quarter bundle of fabric from the Fat Quarter Shop  and extra from Hawthorne Supply Co and The Modern Quilter. This meant I could continue adding a border that was cut 8.5” wide.  As I had so much fabric left I used it all on the back which worked well as my fabric is a linen/cotton mix so it was better to use that mix for the back too

I’m a big fan of hand quilting but in this case choose to machine quilt as my fabrics are so full of colour and pattern that any hand quilting would simply not make much of an impact so it seemed to be a waste of time. Instead I made the decision to machine quilt.I used decorative stitch no. 4 on a Bernina sewing machine. You can see the textural effect on the picture above. I have used this stitch on previous quilts where I wanted to give quilts texture but where I was happy to have the tread itself be almost unnoticeable in the background. My finished quilt is 55.1/2" or 141 cm square.

The whole project, also done as part of The100DayProject2020, has been a lot of fun and I can't wait to see everyone else's finished projects. The blocks will remain on my Instagram feed and if you're interested feel free to use them. I’m working on another much larger quilt myself.  I’ll share that quilt with you in due course. You can also scale up the blocks to 6”, 8 or even 12" square  to make a much larger piece. I would very much appreciate it if you can hashtag me (@friedaquilter, #friedaquilter and/or #friedascolourmix) in posts related to making these quilts and note that it is my design when entering your quilt into any shows or online, but for the rest you are free to do with this design as you like.

Keep safe and keep sewing!