Global Warming

If you've been reading along, I have been working on a quilt to use up some of my stash of Hoffman batiks using a pattern by Anthology Fabrics called Global Warming.. I finally finished and took it this morning for a photo shoot.  Shoot was a good word...

While I worked on this quilt, I was casting around in my mind for a good spot for the photography.  The massive wind mills on the Tantramar Marsh seemed an appropriate background, so hubby and I scoped it out earlier this week. 

The land is pretty flat, except for the dykes built by clever Acadians many, many years ago, so we decided to spread the quilt on a dyke, and shoot it with a windmill behind. Seemed simple enough...

It was anything but. The walls are deceptively steep, and it was not a good angle.

Also...there's a very good reason that a wind-farm was built on this marsh:  it's windy!!!

We did a lot of quilt-chasing.

Sadly, we did not get any good whole-quilt photos.

However, the light was just right to show off the quilting.

First, each of the 1600, 2" blocks was outlined in the ditch.  Then I did diagonal cross-hatching - with the walking foot - in the outside sections of the circle.

Inside the circle, continuous curves were worked free motion. The bottom triangle sections have solar flares, and the solid black border represents the ozone layer.  It features ozone molecules stitched in triads. This was the only marking I did, and I traced around an Aurifil thread base using a white Clover marker.

 I love how easy it is to remove the marks, even on a batik.  A shot of heat and they're gone.

I am pleased with the texture created by the quilting. Manipulating the fabric through the machine made the batiks butter soft, and the wool batting inside makes this a cuddly, puffy quilt.

It will have a male owner, and I have every confidence it will hold up well in the wash.

There is a lot of quilting on this piece, and I used a whack of thread, Aurifil all the way, of course. 50 weight was used for both for the piecing and the quilting.  I added a shadow around the outside of the centre "globe" with a 12 weight line of stitching in black.

This afternoon, I decided to lay the quilt in our backyard to get a shot of the whole, and of course that invited trouble. The dark blob in the upper left quadrant is not a shadow...it's a cat.  Polly. 

Amazing what a difference the light makes - this doesn't even look quilted!

I am pleased to have made this cleverly designed quilt which has been on my bucket list for several years.  I am sure if you Google "Global Warming" you can find some hits on how to make your own.