Alaskan Theme Batiks Quilt - Finished 07/09/2012

This beautiful on point quilt top was pieced by Nita Powers who is serving our country & living in Germany. I will complete it including the binding and then ship it to her daughter in California. Lucky daughter!
The batiks here have an Alaskan theme including, as best I can tell, whales, ravens & otter & other sea life. I have tried to capture that below. I find it fascinating that only the small one inch vertical squares give this quilt its "pop" & it works brilliantly. 

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June 09: Received the quilt & posted first images.
June 16: Selected threads this morning. You would think that with two wonderful machines, lots of thread and lots & lots of prewound bobbins, I would be all set. I found the perfect King Tut for the top. Deep purple will hide nicely on the back but it is only one of very few colors that does not come in prewounds. Neither machine (Janome nor APQS longarm) has a bobbin winder that works with the size bobbins I need. Wal-Mart and $25 to the rescue, my little Simplicity SideWinder does a great job unless I do it wrong. Yep, unforeseeable circumstance where a 2 minute task takes become much longer. And so it goes.
  Whether necessary or intentional, I just found a patch in the center of the backing from the same fabric as the sashing on the front. Very nice touch & a great way to fill-in the backing if the fabric runs a tad short.
  It has been a long day and I have spent it mostly preparing this beautiful quilt for loading. Don't ask me what took so long--I don't know. Large quilts take extra time. The thread is loaded, the seams lie flat, thick threads are trimmed, the batting is cut, the canvas leaders are extended to their max. Time to start pinning...in the morning.
June 17: Decided to start today by doing the EQ7/IQ overlay thing. I have programmed IQ and this pattern has excellent coverage yet stitches quickly because there is no looping back or over-stitching.  That is done now so time to start pinning. While basting I had no choice but to contend with a slightly friendly (wavy) border that was just a bit too friendly. Baste, steam, hair dryer, re-baste with pins only, steam, hair dryer, dry overnight...
June 18: Iron, baste with thread, steam, hair dryer, iron. Whew! Ready to quilt! When I commit to doing a quilt, I really do give it my all as if it was own. Again I say that this is not unusual. With the fabric Nita was working with, she has done an awesome job. Quilting at last! Quilted. Binding is next.
June 22: Squared the quilt to prepare it for binding.
July 06: Binding is attached. Hand sewing has begun.
July 09: Binding and thus the quilt is finished.