Finished quilt: Philip's color block quilt

Quilt details

Name, Recipient, Size, Start/Finished date, Pattern and Fabrics used:

• Philip's color blocks quilt (sixth color block quilt out of twelve)
• For Philip Böckelman (Camilla Böckelman and Kalle Niemimaa's first child)
• 106 x 106 cm (length x height).
• timeline
• color blocks started in May of 2017
• quilt tops done by the end of November 2017
• this quilt was basted 21.11.2018, quilted between 30-31.12.2018 and bound on 31.12.2018. 
• label embroidered 9.3.2019.
• shipped 11.3.2019.
• Pattern was my own color block quilt pattern. 
• About the fabrics used for the quilt top
• The same as for the rest of the color block quilts, which means that each color block has 36 different fabrics in 5x5 cm pieces. 36 x 9 colors (+ 36 black and white that made blocks I ended up not using) means a total of 324 (+36) different fabric pieces.
• White Perla 100% cotton fabric for the sashings, borders and binding.
• You can read more about quilt top construction here.

Batting, backing and binding fabric:

• Batting used was 160 g thick 100 % polyester (from Eurokangas)
• Backing used was parts of an Ikea bed linen that I had saved, because I really liked the motif on it.
• Binding used was 5 cm wide white (A100) Perla fabric. The quilt was bound by machine.

Quilting pattern:

• The background has the "squares within squares" pattern that Angela Walters uses in her quilt Negative Space (see this YouTube video). The color blocks themselves I left un-quilted, just to get them to "pop up" from the background.

Top thread:

• For piecing the top: Gutermann Mara 120, 100% polyester, 1000m, color 800 (white).
• For free motion quilting: Gutermann Mara 120, 100% polyester, 1000m, color 800 (white).

Bobbin thread:

• For piecing the top: Gutermann Mara 120, 100% polyester, 1000m, color 800 (white)
• For free motion quilting: Gutermann Mara 120, 100% polyester, 1000m, color 800 (white).
• All in all, it took about 4 full bobbins to free motion quilt the quilt.

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I finished two out of the three basted color block quilts that I had had waiting on my quilting table on the 31st of December 2018. This was the first of those, and it got quilted together with Natalie's color block quilt (which was nr 7 out of 12).

This is the quilt top:

It took me about 4 spools of thread to finished it. What makes Philip's quilt different from Natalie's and Amadeus' quilts - which were both spray basted - is that his was pin basted. Yupp, I had to pin baste it, because I had run out of spray glue, and I also didn't have enough money to buy more at the time.

But, I had the option of either straight pin baste it, or to use quilting safety pins to baste it. Since I was a bit worried that the quilting safety pins would leave larger holes/marks in the white quilt top, and the straight quilting pins I had were thinner, I opted to use the latter.

One thing I did do different this time around - since it by then had been YEARS since I had pin basted a quilt - was use a trick I had learned from watching and reading Leah Day's blog about pinmoores. In short, they look a bit like cheap ear plugs that you put on the ends of the straight pins. They help keeping the pins in place, and protect your hands and arms from getting stung/scraped by the needles as you quilt.

But, since I didn't happened to have those available that time, I used..... parts of wine corks.

Yupp, I soaked some old wine corks (we have a vase filled with old wine corks as a decoration piece on a shelf in the living room, a relic from the days when we saved the corks from wines we thought were really great) in hot water and cut them into smaller parts with a sharp knife. As a cheap alternative, they worked really great, even if some of them started crumbling a bit after a while.

Here you can see them in use.

The quilting is just Angela Walter's "square in a square"-motif all around the outer border and between the color blocks. 

In between the color blocks in the quilt center, the motif is from the same Midnight Quilt Show episode (Negative Space quilt) and it makes those crisscrosses. I did the same in Amadeu's quilt (nr 8th in the series).

You can see the quilting a bit better on the quilt back:

Isn't that backing fabric so cool? Looks a bit like there's paint running on a surface.

One thing I wanted to try out on Philip's quilt, was to add these small loops on the back. They're meant to be used as holds for baby stroller hooks or clips, so that the quilt can be used as a sun screen on the inside of a car window or in the stroller. I made them out parts of an elastic ribbon.

And then, the part that I need to write even if I don't really want to: the reason why I like using spray glue for basting WAY more than pins.

The problems with folds and uneven areas on the quilt back...

With pins, I find it REALLY hard to get even tension on the backing fabric, even when I have tried my damnedest to stretch it while basting. That is one thing that you have less problems with when you use spray glue, even if it is more costly (one can of 250 ml is enough to spray baste nearly two of these color block quilts, and one can costs between 12-16 euros).

So, when you get folds and tucks and problem areas on the back like these:

What one should remember is that there ARE alternatives available.

If you happen to have money :P (Which sometimes isn't an option for some quilters-on-a-budget, like me).

Last, but not least, I embroidered Philip's name and birth date on the backing. I used this blue-light blue variegated thread that I had bought back in January from Folkhälsan's flea market.

I had borrowed the book Sublime stitching by Jenny Hart a while back (you just gotta love the fact that both Helsinki and Turku city libraries are available to borrow books from via the Libby app!) and I tried out two of the more common stitches (stem-stitch and back-stitch). And I used 'French knots' for all the dots.

I think I like sewing back-stitch better, because it was way easier to get the letters to look even with it. 

The blue thread contrasts nicely with the red and white backing, I think.

And that was the (long) story of how Philip's quilt was made. 

Happy quilting everybody! :)

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