February 2, 2013

Shades of Grey

I have been using Pinterest to collect photos of beds for awhile now. You can check out my "Sweet Dreams" Pintrest board here. When looking through my pins a few months ago I realized that many of my favorite beds were done in the grey and white color scheme. Must be a sign that I love this color-combo!! I started collecting grey and white fabrics from local quilt shops and online fabric stores. There are definitely some fabrics that I like more than others, but I am glad there is a variety in the shades of grey represented. 

I then cut all of the fabric into 6" squares. Here they are laid out on the futon. 


And, my Shades of Grey quit top is shown below after getting basted. This one sure was a beast to make a back and baste! It is a queen-size quilt - the largest I have ever made! But all the extra work is worth it since I will hopefully be using it every single day on my own bed. 

I drew a grid on top of the quilt with a water-soluble marker. Each of the squares now has four quadrants to guide the quilting.

Not only is this the largest quilt I have ever made, but it is also one of the most intricate quilt designs I have completed. I am doing orange peel quilting with my walking foot. I blended together a couple of different tutorials out there and came up with a method that is definitely not the easiest. Oops! I would definitely try this method with a free-motion foot in the future. I am doing a lot of quilt maneuvering which means this is a looooong process.  

But all the effort is totally worth it!! Look how cool the quilting looks! This is a shot of the quilt back. Each of the squares has four of the "peels" - one in each of the quadrants that I showed earlier. 

I am a little less than halfway finished with the quilting, but I know it will still take me at least a week to finish. The Shades of Grey quilt is my February quilt for A Lovely Year of Finishes. This month I will finish the quilting and add binding. I can't wait!!!

I will link this post up to A Lovely Year of Finishes

5 comments:

  1. I've been in love with that gray and white quilt too. And I love the name you have it. Whenever I get around to making mine I am going to have to steal it! :)

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  2. Beautiful quilt--the colors and the quilting!!

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  3. Love it! Your quilting looks very nice. I want to try the orange peel in the future.

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  4. I love this quilt! The color and the quilting. What a fun project.

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  5. Beautiful! I hosted a Shades of Grey fabric swap back in the summer and at first thought you had been part of the group. Making my gray quilt is on my to-do list. Seeing yours gets me excited about starting mine!

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