First Bunk Quilt Finished

Reviving the post for Tuesday archives (March 15, 2016)–link in sidebar. While the lines are wide apart, it is cross hatch.

Once upon a time, a long time ago (October 2013 to be exact), I started a bunk quilt. My local traditional quilt guild has several projects, one being to make quilts for each participant at an AIDS/HIV summer camp. I’ve always intended to make one, but somehow it gets set aside until it is too late for “this year.”

In 2013 I made up a kit to take to a retreat. It was straightforward piecing, so I could sew and gab too. I got the top finished.
That pile that shows to the left is a pile of unquilted tops. This one took its place in the queue, and all of them got set aside for me to practice a bit first.

This year at the January meeting they mentioned being short, and the article in the newsletter said they needed 45, had 12, and had given out kits for 10.  Something about knowing numbers is more energizing than a mere announcement of an upcoming project. So I got the top out.

Plan A was to quilt with yellow for most but to match the bright colors. I didn’t have all the colors on hand. (I need a stash of thread as large as my stash of fabric.) But I did have a variegated thread, primary colors. Close enough. Well, in hindsight, I’d rather have had the yellow on yellow. It was my first time using  other than 50 weight thread; this is Sulky cotton, 30 weight. It worked except for a few skipped stitches, but no gaps greater than the size of hand stitching distance.

Because I knew the quilting would show up,  I didn’t yet trust my FMQ, so used the walking foot and planned diagonal straight line quilting. It was good to know when pinning how I wanted to quilt it.

I knew I was going to start with the bright squares so pinned in the yellow. I use PinMoors and it helped to know which way I would be rolling the quilt, so I could align them. I managed to quilt the whole first direction without removing a pin.  Taking them all out at the end was more convenient than pin by pin while stitching.

Now Plan A had been to quilt only at each corner of the 8-inch blocks; however, once that was finished that was too far apart, so I went back and did the lines between. (The batting I used had lost its wrap; it did’t feel as firm as that which can take 10 inches between stitches.) And it didn’t look good, so far apart.

The thread just looks dark unless you are up close. I’d have liked longer bits of each color and more yellow. You can’t always tell what you are getting when you see it on the spool. I also sewed the binding in the variegated thread.

You can see one of the skipped stitches. And here is the back.

Luckily I had enough of the striped fabric to add the piece and play with direction of stripes.

Most likely I’ll not have finished anything else this week, so will be linking with the various Friday finishes (TGIFF, LAFF, and Finish it up Friday).

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