By taking it slow and steady this week, I’m thrilled to say I was able to finish my 2018 Aurifil Designer of the Month quilt.
2018 Aurifil DOM – Center of Spiral Quilting Detail
My shoulders got tired of wrestling with the quilt as I began the spiral; it’s a lot of bulk to move around for those first several passes. I took frequent breaks and stretched a lot and overall I am really happy with how the spiral quilting looks.
2018 Aurifil DOM Quilt Finish
The weather here this week has been windy (greater than 20 miles per hour consistently for 5 days in a row). While higher winds are nothing new, it is really wearing on my nerves this week. So instead of an outdoor photography shoot, my husband helpfully held the quilt for me in our living room.
I’m actually wondering how many of you are looking at the quilt finish or trying to decipher all the odds and ends on the custom book shelf behind the quilt?
2018 Aurifil DOM Quilt Backing
I love how a solid quilt backing can really show off the quilting. The light purple Timeless Treasures solid worked really well, and I only had to unpick one quilting line toward the very final corner as I was finishing to adjust and smooth out a tuck on the backing. All in all, all the pin basting was worth it!
In case you were wondering where the “Jetgirl” part of Quilting Jetgirl comes from, I will pause here to point out a few features of the background. In the lower left is a custom turbojet engine that my husband (who earned the nickname Jetman as a teenager) designed and tested. We built a composite aircraft together and this is the engine he designed to power the carbon fiber plane. We never finished the project – the Federal Aviation Regulation that we were designing the airframe to was superseded by a different regulation that we could not meet – but it was a fun home project. It was thrilling the first time we spooled up the engine to test it.
The upper shelf of our bookcase is reserved for showcasing special items from our engineering careers. Most of the books on the bookshelf are engineering reference texts, but there are a few non-fiction fun reads (mostly in the SciFi genre) and I do have one shelf for my quilting books and books I have technical edited.
2018 Aurifil DOM – Binding
I opted to machine stitch the binding to both sides of the quilt for a faster finish. I used a fun geometric rainbow print I ordered from Bernie at Needle and Foot a few years ago.
The quilt measured 71 1/2″ square after quilting and binding (1.4% shrinkage from 72 1/2″) and 68″ square after its first wash and dry (6.2% shrinkage from 72 1/2″). I’ll be marking this off my 2020 Goals, which leaves me with only one other long term WIP to finish up this year!
Linking up with Michelle From Bolt to Beauty‘s Beauties Pageant 81.
I love spiral quilting. In fact I just started a quilt of my own with a spiral in the middle. I’m still trying to decide if I should do multiple spirals. Did you increase the width of your quilting lines as you made your way out to the edge?
a great finish! love your quilting.
Beautiful quilt and quilting Yvonne ! Your spiral quilting is spectacular!! Very difficult to do well and you did it so well.
Beautiful & well worth all the effort. I’m looking at the quilt, the bookshelf tour was fun too.
Well done. It turned out great! Love the bookshelves.
Again, slow and steady wins the race! Congrats on this finish! One more long term WIP left and then what?!! I’m pretty sure you have some great ideas brewing!
I like how this quilt turned out, Yvonne. The spiral quilting really added an extra bit of fun as well. I can imagine wrestling that as you quilted the spiral was a bit of a task. Okay, I’ll admit, I was peeking at the items on the shelves. Fun little tidbit about that engine. I’m curious about the tray(?) in the upper right with your name on it though!
It turned out beautifully, Yvonne! Really great job of pulling it all together!
Your spiral quilting is perfect for this quilt! It is lovely! Great job! The items on the shelf and the engine on the floor were piqueing my interest so thanks for explaining about them. We’ve had higher than normal winds around here lately, too, in N. Cali.
Wow! That’s a WAY cool quilt!
I wasn’t really wondering too much about the items on the shelves, but I WAS curious about that strange looking “beast” on the floor. I’ve always wondered about your Jet Girl moniker and how that related to quilting. Now it makes sense.
Geez, you two are geniuses – the only other person I know with your kind of smarts is my older brother. When in the Navy (years ago), he worked in nuclear physics. Scary stuff to me but he loved it.
Think I’ll stick to quilting.
The quilt is great, and I love the spiral quilting. I’ve only done that once, on a little quilt I made with my son. I can’t imaging tackling it on that scale.
I found the peek into your living room fascinating. I’m so impressed that you two not only design that stuff, but actually make it, too. Bringing something like that into reality must be incredibly rewarding.
Fantastic job on the quilting. I love the spiral!
The spiral quilting is perfect for getting your eye to move around the quilt and take in all the blocks. A great finish and an upper body workout to boot!
I really like the way it turned out and, yes, the purple backing gives a great view of the quilting. Also enjoyed seeing the collectibles on the shelves. Wind blowing in No. Nevada for past 5 days has been wearing. And much cooler temperatures, too. Also, awakened at 4AM by an earthquake!
Love finishing those long-term projects. Again, your layout added alot. Nicely done!
The layout reminds me of buildings around a town square, especially since the ‘town square’ is different from the fabric around the outer edges. I love how spiral quilting looks. I’ve never tried it, but I’m planning on doing it on my next quilt, which I’m hoping to start quilting this week 🙂
Lovely finish – the spiral quilting is really effective. And that purple backing! Love it…
So beautiful!! and funny – I was really looking at the quilt until you said something…. then I looked at everything else! Cool engine story!!
Such a fantastic job! I love spiral quilting and that is a pretty big quilt to undertake but you really did such fine work. I noticed that engine right away, but hadn’t made it to the top shelf! Fun to see all these great things.
Yvonne, I really like what you did with the design of this quilt. You did great….. My email address has changed. I tried to change it on your site but couldn’t make it work. Will you please fix it for me? my old email is wbamberg@suddenlink.net
My NEW email address is wbamberg@protonmail.com
Thanks a bunch. I don’t want to lose you and your posts. 🙂