My first entry into this spring’s Bloggers’ Quilt Festival is “The Disintegration of the Persistence of Artichokes.”
Those of you that follow me have seen a lot of this quilt, but I thought I’d share some photos from the making of it. More closeups of the finished quilt are at the end. The quilt started with the “Insane Artichoke” quilt block that I designed:
The Insane Red Artichoke
A few of my friends told me I really should design a larger quilt using this block, but medallion quilts aren’t really my thing. At that point the idea of having two artichokes disintegrating was born. Piecing the centers was the easy part, but then I had to get into large-scale improv piecing. I cut the triangles to size, then pieced them into strips that I added to the center one by one:
I did the two blocks individually, then joining them was the real challenge.
There was a lot of laying stuff out on the floor. The final joins were super awkward and ended up being some sort of weird piecing-appliqué hybrid:
The finished top was an awkward shape, but allowed me room to trim it to size after quilting, which makes for a perfectly square quilt.
A lot of people have asked me about how much of the quilting was marked, so here a couple of pictures showing that. I went through at least an entire one of my blue water-soluble markers. All the circles and all the feathers/teardrops were marked ahead of time; only the background swirls and stippling was done without marking. This was mostly to keep the circles round, which I have a hard time with otherwise, and to keep the feather sizes consistent.
This was a picture taken while burying threads in the artichoke centers. There were a lot to bury.
This quilt is featured in the current issue of Machine Quilting Unlimited!
Thanks for reading this far—as promised, here are detail photos. There are also more in my original post on the (then almost) finished quilt. Then head over to the Bloggers’ Quilt Festival and check out all the other amazing quilts!
Amazing that you did not miss any spots while filling in the unmarked spaces! I would have. Congratulations on a beautiful quilt. 🙂
Amazing quilting!fabulous!
This really is a fab quilt (and a fab name for a quilt!), I love the design and the quilting is exquisite!
Both the piecing and the quilting are so impressive. This turned out so well.
Intense…beautiful quilting. thanks for sharing the process. Always find that interesting to read.
this is a great quilt – I was just enjoying looking at in the magazine last night. Very happy to see more pictures and details!
Beautiful quilt and awesome quilting.
Oh my goodness! I think I have seen this on Flickr? It is so amazing to see all the piecing and quilting detail! Super quilt!
Wow! Great ideas!
Such a wonderful quilt!
Holy WOW!! Amazing quilt and fabulous quilting!! Totally enjoyed reading about the process you went through to make this quilt. I have been known to mark circles too – it’s the only way I can keep them consistent! 🙂
Such a neat idea! Love the result, it’s so fun to look at. And the feathers that are coming apart are a great detail in there.
What a great idea for a beautiful modern quilting quilt!!! I love your design, nice fabrics and the most I love: your GREAT quilting!!! 🙂
Greetings from Poland
Kamila
LOVE everything about this quilt. The quilting the color and the story!
Great quilt! your quilting is lovely, but I am even more attracted to the piecing design!
So, so, so awesome!
I love everything about this quilt, especially the ingenious piecing. Well done!
I love what you did with this design! The original artichoke was a great start and you have made it into a stunning finish. The quilting is fantastic, too!
It is gorgeous.
Wow! That is really beautiful!
everything about this quilt is amazing – starting with the name and ending with the quilting! You definitely got my vote!!
Outstanding! I love seeing the process of putting complicated ideas together. Congratulations on a gorgeous quilt!
This is so great – I love the sensibility, the colors, the quilting. So well done – it’s a fabulous minimalist work of art. (Although I know minimalist doesn’t mean minimal work!!!)
This is so unique – worth every effort for the effect. I like the red artichoke too! Congratulations on being published – the quilting is superb!
It is such a beautiful quilt!!! Thank you for showing how you created this stunning quilt!
I would like to buy the pattern for “the-disintegration-of-the-persistence-of-artichokes’
quilt.
What do I need to do?
Your help would be very much appreciated.