Saturday, March 9, 2013

Facets of Emerald: A Finished Quilt

Facets of Emerald is my first real experiment with the freeing (and sometimes stressful) process of  improv piecing, and it's my big March finish! I previously posted about this quilt here. 
*EDIT: These pictures are now pinnable - thanks for your patience while I figured out the issue!


The Pantone Color of the Year, emerald, had me thinking about jewels and how beautiful they are. Personally, I'm attached to amethysts, but emeralds amaze me. I also love jewel colors, and THEN, I got this slightly crazy idea in my head to make a jewel mini quilt. I Googled it up and found the outline of a jewel complete with facets - the planes of a jewel.


 I also simultaneously realized I had little to no green in my stash (or emerald), and decided it was time to buy some. So, hit up the sale section at Pink Castle Fabrics and bought a ton of fabric. Problem solved!


If you've been here before, you might know I'm obsessed with gray (and white) as neutral/background colors. I gathered all my grays with whites, and started to scheme.


I pieced the quilt together the old-fashioned, hard, pull-your-hair-out way - no paper piecing, because I just wanted the challenge (I also have not had much practice with paper-piecing yet... so I guess that also would have been a challenge). I did the green parts first, and made some bias cutting, but added the gray as I went along. Overall, I'd say I probably pieced in 6 different sections, and then put it all together. I didn't want it to be exact, which is why, for example, there is a strip of emerald at the top that doesn't line up with the rest of the jewel. It was relaxing to piece, most of the time!

 The infamous shoe picture :)

The quilt evolved over a couple of weeks. The husband will be the first to tell you that there were bits of green attached to his socks, and that we didn't have use of the kitchen table for at least 5 days. But it finally got done :)


 I love how you can see the difference in the thread colors, and thus, the outline of the emerald!

Luckily, right before my quilt top was finished, I bought my new Janome. I was able to free motion quilt to my heart's content. I only had a couple of tension problems - it was like a dream! I decided to use Connecting Threads - I used an emerald color, so that you could see some of the quilting on the jewel, and gray. I tried everything I could think of to fill in/compliment some of the spaces (I also used inspiration from Leah Day, and from Angela Walters' QuiltCon lecture on Craftsy - it's free! I highly recommend it if you are interested in machine quilting).

I had FUN. It was fabulous. Here were my favorite designs:

Tracing the leaves in the gray Simply Color fabrics, and tracing the Pearl Bracelets (I'm still convinced none of my quilts are complete without one of these prints :))
 

And they show up on the back, too =D
IMG_7169
 Before binding, the leaf imprint on the back. I'm seriously in love and just want to use all the Simply Color leaf prints in everything now. Just so I can trace them.



 I traced some of the Laurie Wisbrun chairs, and much of this picture is inspired by the designs of FMQ queen Leah Day.

On the back, I used muslin, some of the solid yardage I bought in greens from Pink Castle Fabrics, and a block that was originally planned for the front. I bound the whole thing in Kona Emerald for an extra pop.

 

The quilt was perfect for scraps, but of course, I just made more scraps! Lol. I can't win.

 
Is anyone interested in seeing a mini- tutorial? I'll be making another version for my parents... so let me know!



This quilt can no longer be considered a mini - it measures out to 30.5" x 40.5". But I wouldn't have it any other way, because it's going to be a big, beautiful addition to my dining room. Watch this space for more from Project Color My Apartment and some dining room pics to come!

 No finished quilt or mini would be complete without a photoshoot with my little sister! It was SO windy (but gorgeous and 60 degrees!!!) at the park!

You can see all the  pictures of this quilt in my Flickr set. While you're there, check out all of the other seriously gorgeous emerald quilts over in the Emerald Quilt Challenge Flickr group.

I'm linking up to:

2013 Emerald Quilt Challenge

A Lovely Year of Finishes


 







39 comments:

  1. Whoop whoop! Wow Jess I love your quilting! It turned out great!

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  2. I love this quilt! I'm so glad I found it over at Quilting Blogs. I love how you quilted each of the fabrics, because the back looks so cool! Thanks for sharing :)

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  3. Very cool quilt, Jess! Love the quilting, too - and how you can see it in all its glory on the back! Whoop whoop!!

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  4. Gorgeous finish! It looks amazing, especially the back with all the different quilting!

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  5. Love it! This is really beautiful!

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  7. I'd love to see a tutorial while your making another. I'm also loving grey backgrounds but they are really hard to get in australia so I guess that's just more online shopping.

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  8. That quilting looks like so much fun to do! Gorgeous jess!

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  9. Fantastic quilt, from the design to the binding, and all the wonderful quilting in between! When I saw the Pantone chose Emerald for their color of the year, I was excited, thinking of all the quilting fun that would be had. Your idea is so creative. I never really think about using a lot of green in my sewing, but I really love it in your quilt and want to start using it more often. I would love a tute, and would also love to see a pic when you get it up on your dining room wall. fun post! looks like you had fun with your sis!

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  10. I love this and your photos are enviably beautiful!

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  11. It turned out beautiful. Love it

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  12. So pretty! It really pops with the gray background. Thanks for linking up!

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  13. Great mini! The variety of the free motion designs give it so much movement and detail.

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  14. Love your emerald!! I would love a tutorial on making one for myself!! Great job :)

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  15. Looks like you had a lot of fun with the FMQ.

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  16. Jess, I know I already commented, but then I went and did the Monday Let's Get Acquainted link up - and saw that someone had put Harry Potter! It was you - I meant to, but read the directions wrong. Sunday Teacher Brain. Then I went through your blog some more, realized that you not only love harry potter, take up too much room in your apartment with craft supplies, are a teacher, and live in NJ! ME TOO! I'm even more excited now that I've found your blog. Thanks for stopping by mine - I look forward to reading your blog!

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  17. This is lovely. I would love to see a tutorial!

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  18. I clicked on your blog because it said Harry potter. Your quilting is amazing oh em gee!

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  19. Gorgeous quilt! I love the quilting.

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  20. love it--so neat all that different quilting. I am afraid to venture from straight lines yet :)

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  21. Great job. I would love to see a mini-tut for this. What fun quilting!

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  22. Very cool! I love the quilting too. I just finished my emerald challenge quilt as well--an interesting color to work with!

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  23. Hello, I wandered in from Quilt Story Tuesday and I am sew happy that I did. Your quilt is beautiful! Great idea, color and fabric placement and quilting. Best of luck in the Emerald challenge ... :) Pat

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  24. Love this quilt! I'm in awe of your quilting!

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  25. Lovely! Congrats on your win. Enjoyed your process post and inspired by your quilt - and quilting!

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  26. Wonderful! Love your fabric selections and your gorgeous quilting. It's a celebration of Emerald!

    Congrats on your win!

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  27. Congratulations on your win! Your "emerald" is perfect!

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  28. I love the emerald and your quilting is amazing. Congratulations on your win.

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  29. Just saw your win on the contest site -- congrats!!! This is absolutely incredible, Jessica!

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  30. Love all of the FMQ - congrats on the win.

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  31. Wow. I think it looks amazing - congrats on a successful experiment in improv piecing.

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  32. Love how the green pops out with the grey and white background. Your quilting is amazing too! Congrats on the win!

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  33. A beautiful quilt!!! The green and grey work so well together.

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  34. Thank you for linking up in March to Richard and Tanya Quilts on our Link a Finish Friday. We will have a new linkup available every Friday. So stop by and share what you have been working on and check out what others are doing.

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  35. I am in awe of your machine quilting! It adds so much to the quilt.

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