Friday, February 17, 2023

Ringo Lake, Finished at Last!

 Today's post was originally supposed to go out in the summer of 2021, when my Ringo Lake quilt top was finished and ready to go out for quilting.   However, I was busy accepting the Procrastinator of the Year award.


This photo was taken at the last meeting of our quilt group before Covid-19 hit the New York area and everything shut down.  When I returned home from an extended Covid-related stay in Florida (lucky me!), I just didn't have the heart to get back to finishing the quilt.  Finally, in the summer of 2021, the borders were added.  It required four borders to make it fit our bed, which has a very high mattress and box spring. z The quilt was finished by an excellent local long-arm quilter,  Joyce Austin. 

The outer border wasa a puzzle -- nothing I auditioned seemed to do the trick.  Then the owner of my LQS pulled what you see here, and I thought it was perfect.


This doesn't show the binding. I think I was auditioning the coral for the binding.  Instead I picked a gray-ish herringbone, not a color anywhere in the quilt, but it fits well with the outer border and makes a nice finish to the quilt.


The outer border is not something I'd ever hve thought of, but it is perfect for bringing the quilt together.



The backing is two fabrics that I got at a local quilt store that was going out of business.  😢  The coral and teal are from the same fabric line.  I bought all that the store had left, but I had to add a print from my stash to fill it out. 

The quilt is now on my bed, replacing the Civil War-themed quilt, whose colors I found increasingly depressing.  That quilt had a polyester batting, while the batting in this one is 100% cotton.  Interestingly, this quilt is much heavier, probably due mainly to the amount of fabric in the seams, but perhaps due to the cotton batting, too.  The quilt has a tendency to slde off to one side (a pain when it comes to making the bed, but a good upper body workout). Heresy alert:  I actually think I prefer the polyester for my bed quilt.