Wednesday 25 August 2010

I Love My Monkey Mechanic!!

Have to say, this turned out to be one of my favourite quilts!!!

I left off in July at this stage:


Wondering what I could do in the in between fields to not take away from the swirly pattern.

Well, after humming and hahing, I just set it aside waiting for inspiration.

It struck.

In a moment of haziness, it seems, because my inspiration was PEBBLES!

Argh. Why??? It took *FOREVER* to pebble all the brown spaces. And it, of course, used a ton of thread, blah blah blah. I have never read a single post about pebble quilting that didn't comment about the amount of thread used ;) It does seem excessive for pebbles, I admit, especially since I go around 2 or 3 times for most pebbles. And in this quilt, in the pointy bits of the 4-armed swirl, I did very tiny, 1/4" pebbles at times. Suffice it to say, I'm all pebbled out now, but I LOVE it! The polyester batting worked really REALLY well for pebble quilting - I felt like I was doing trapunto quilting without actually having to shove more batting in between the layers! But have a look yourself (and don't hold back with the comments :) Doesn't it look awesome? I'm so excited!!!)


Don't you want to jump on the little pebbles and bounce???

And check out the pebbles from the back!


And, oh my goodness, I LOVE the back too!!!


But you probably would like to see the rest of the quilt front? :)


I just want to shrink and bounce on it, from pebble to pebble, and then run and hop along the swirls... I've never had a quilt make me feel like that before - it's a teensy bit scary :)


My puffy swirls are still all there and visible:


Sigh, I could have put another 10 photos of pebbles from all different angles here, but let's not overdo it ;)

I'll leave you with the complete top - I'm off to push my fingers into pebbles again and giggle at the puffiness :) (Better than that bubble-wrap!)


5 comments:

Katie B said...

WOW! This turned out fantastic! The quilting really makes this pattern shine. Excellent choice on the pebbles!

Leslie said...

oh WOW!!! this is awesome. the pebble quilting is so amazing. i am in love with how the back looks

Crispy said...

Oh Christine you have outdone yourself on this quilt!!!! It is my all time favorite of all the quilts you have made!!! I LOVE the texture!!! Well Done Girl Friend!!!!

Crispy

Rebekah said...

wow! Those pebbles are a ton of work. But they are totally worth it! This quilt is amazing and the pebbles really make the green stand out. Amazing!

Unknown said...

I love the texture of this quilt...you really have been working on excellence!
Lovely!