trial and error

Last month was a busy month, holidays and all.  I had the pleasure to quilt a most wonderful Civil War memorial quilt by a very well respected(and rightfully so) quilter.  The blocks, color choices, fabrics, applique... all exquisite.  As is her custom, my client reduced the block sizes to 6", making a very interesting quilt top.  My challenge was to marry the front thread(paper bag color) with the back(barn red), making an acceptable tension stitch on both sides.  For the most part, I thought it went well, but there was a great deal of tension manipulation involved.  I totally underestimated the labor intensive stitch in ditch, which was an integral part of this quilt, allowing highlighting of each specific block.  I did some research and found that gridwork was very popular during this era, so I added a large amount of half inch gridding in many of the blocks.  I think the overall effect was splendid and I believe that CR really enjoyed the results.  Have a peek.  Note that the last picture is indicative of the quantity of threads that needed to be knotted and buried. A great learning piece... keeping track of each quilting element's time. A pleasure to do, labor intensive and all.