Blogger's Quilt Festival: Prairie Petals Quilt in Birch Farm

Are you at Quilt Market? Me neither. I did have the opportunity to make a quilt to go to Market, and I'm excited to enter it in the Blogger's Quilt Festival. This quilt was designed by Joel Dewberry to highlight his new fabric line, Birch Farm. I'm pretty sure the fabric will be available in July. This is good news for Deer Valley fans--the antler damask print is back in new colors!

 I didn't get any photos of the finished quilt, as Joel's wife Laurie literally pulled into the driveway to pick up the quilt as I was cutting the last threads from the binding. My friend JaNean found a pic of it all finished on Instagram--you can see it here. (Thanks again, JaNean!) Luckily I did get some pictures the night before after finishing the quilting.

I used some drunkard's path templates to cut the curved edges without breaking up the large prints. It would have worked to applique them as well, but this was faster! The design reminds me a lot of dogwood blooms, although not exactly.

 The goal in quilting this was to not detract from the fabrics at all, so I did a simple echo inside the petals using a clear monofilament thread, and stitched in the ditch at the same time.

 The blocks have a 1" sashing, so I quilted a line straight down the middle and curving 1/2" around the edges to give the effect of white edges on the flower petals. I did teeny pebbles, swirls, and clamshells in the diamond shapes between the flowers. That space is less than 3" square. I did a similar design in the 2" wide border, but a little larger.

This picture shows the quilt in progress, still needing two sashings and borders, but shows most of the design better than other photos I got. I really like the flowers.

I fussy-cut each of the center circles in an attempt to optimize the fabrics. There are some FABULOUS geometrics in this line and those were especially fun to fussy-cut.

A little more detail, during the quilting.

The quilt finished up at 51" by 72", which technically makes this go in the large quilt category in the festival. I'd call it more of a medium, but that's okay.

It was such an honor to be asked to make this quilt. I especially loved being able to do the tiny detail quilting--I don't get that opportunity very often with my current client base, so it was nice to change things up a bit. I love how this turned out, and I hope that Birch Farm is wildly successful at Market and after. If you happen to see any more pictures of this quilt there, please let me know! I'd love to see them too!