Swoon...Swoon...Swoon

It's hard to believe, for me, but I am actually finished my Swoon quilt. Yes, you read that right. Finished. It's done. And its FABULOUS! I know they say self praise is no praise, but, honestly, I am utterly in love with this quilt and so delighted with how it turned out. Cue lots of photos.

It seems an awful long time that I've been working on this quilt, and it is really. I started back in the back end of June with this bundle of fabric: 

 

I swapped around a few fabrics as I worked through it, and it began to take shape. One of the things I found with this as I made it was that pretty much every block became my "favourite" as I moved through them. I really love each of the colour combos and the fabrics - there is one block that I wasn't as keen on, but since finishing it, I've just fallen in love with that one too.

When it came to choose colour palette and fabrics, choices were dictated to a large extent by the fact that I was making it for my own bedroom, where the feature wallpaper is duck egg blue, and shades of aqua and teal feature in the curtains, lampshades etc to tie in with that colour. I used a number of different values and shades of aqua and teal - from the very light to very dark, and from a number of different fabric ranges such as Kate Spain's Fandango, Boho by Urban Chiks, Carina Gardner's Pinfeathers,  Joel Dewberry's Modern Meadow, Denyse Schmidt's Hope Valley and Bonnie And Camille's Happy Go Lucky.  To balance the aquas, I used navy and yellow prints. I did consider adding grey as well, but ultimately decided against it.

I was nervous about limiting the colour palette to 3 colours - its not something I've done a whole pile in the past, and I wondered how it would work out. My primary concern was that it would be a bit flat, at the end, but I kept faith, despite my misgivings at times, and love the vibrancy of the colours and how they work together. No flatness to this quilt!

Some of the fabrics I have been hoarding for a very long time, waiting for a special project - like my Saffron Craig navy Birds fabric, or the Amy Butler Arabesque or the Lotta Jansdotter Echo.

You know that moment when you cut into them and wonder if you're doing the right thing? Because they're so lovely you can hardly bear to cut them? Do it. Because they're even nicer put together in a quilt :-)

This quilt is a monster, size wise, 80" x 80". I table basted it a few weeks ago, and I quilted it on my Pfaff, at home, after deliberating sending it to a long arm quilter for a while. I expected the quilting to be torturous (honestly) but it wasn't. It flowed really well, and I did it block by block, and I got it done in 2 days, doing short enough sittings at various times. The biggest problem I had was manipulating the weight of it which took a while to get used to.

 

I didn't do anything fancy in the quilting - I stuck to my regular FMQ stipple (I thought this was a bit boring, but was under time pressure and didn't want to try something new on such a big and special quilt). I'm delighted with how it turned out though, all lovely and crinkly.

The backing is a print that I can't remember the name of, that I bought about 2 years ago in a sale from Julie, which worked out super, super cheap (about $3-4 per yard). It was the perfect colour and print type for this. I didn't bother doing a pieced back, because, honestly, after all those massive 24" blocks, I couldn't face it. And I knew I'd never get it matched up basting it without giving myself a heart attack from stress. 

The binding is a navy dotty popline which I got specifically for this and I love how it frames the quilt.

All in all, I can't quite believe its done, finished, and on our bed. I couldn't be happier!

Have you made a Swoon? If not, I'd highly recommend it. Yes, it's a lot of work, but the pattern is really well written, the blocks are insanely addictive, and it makes a wonderful quilt. And woohoo! I love mine :-)