Mrs Tiggy-winkle goes to town – Finished Quilt!
A long time ago in a blogiverse far far away…… I joined in a quilt-along for a quilt named Hazel Hedgehog. I had a lot of fun making four hedgehogs out of Tula Pink’s Moonshine fabric range, in the dark colours. I called this quilt “Mrs. Tiggy-winkle goes to town” – if you are a big fan of Beatrix Potter you’ll understand the reference. The post I’m referencing goes back to February 2015, so this quilt has been a WIP for a very LONG time!!
Moving on to March of 2015, I basted the quilt and started to machine quilt the background using my domestic machine. This is one of the last large quilts I quilted on that machine before I moved to using a longarm. You can get progress shots of the quilting in this blog post – Down the quilting rabbit hole. I densely “McTavished” the entire background, and the texture is just incredible. I got it into my head that I would finish off the quilting on my longarm frame, despite how challenging it is to resume quilting on a basted and partially quilted quilt. You may remember that she made a guest appearance in my studio reveal photographs of October 2015.
Sadly, I couldn’t come up with a way to quilt the spines that I liked and didn’t vanish into the print fabrics. I thought I needed to put fancy quilting on them, and when that didn’t work, I folded the quilt up and put it away in a cupboard for a rainy day. Obviously, it took a long time for inspiration to rain down.
I am so excited to show you the finished, quilted, washed and bound quilt!! I put a hanging sleeve on this one because I can’t bear the thought of actually using it with all that incredible dense quilting. DS2 has asked pretty please and it will be hanging over his bed as soon as I can get up a ladder for the hooks!
Working on the theory that done is better than perfect, I used straight line quilting on the dark aqua legs, a loose stipple over the ombre green face, and a loose vertical wiggle up and down the print fabric to simulate spines. After having finally finished it, I just can’t believe the fuss I made and how much better it feels to finally pull this one out and call it done!!
You can get a better idea of the different quilting designs on the back here, folded up. It also shows the binding that I had chosen, bought, and stashed back when I started quilting this beauty! I suppose good things come to those who wait, and wait this quilt certainly did!
So now Mrs Tiggy-winkle is all dressed up in her sunday best to go off to town, or at least to a bedroom wall! What’s the oldest WIP you have tucked away, and what’s holding you up from finishing it?
