Cathy's Four Patch Quilt - Finished 08/15/2012

Wow, Cathy. This is gorgeous!
That is a whole lot of four patches, 11 * 11 = 121 to be exact. The accent fabric has dogwoods, daisies, humming birds, butterflies, chickadees and more.

Immediately Donna Kleinke's IQ patterns come to mind. Hmmm.

---

July 14: Quilt arrived.
July 18: Since this quilt came, Cathy and I have been exploring the possibility doing a custom layout. Lots of emailing going on. Late at night when all was quiet I did the EQ7 rendition & overlaid an initial drawing I did to show Cathy the general idea. I am thinking of using the center of her quilt like a "whole cloth" with some complex and beautiful block work to really dress this up. A border of two and we are done. Though custom work, this should not be all that time consuming or all that technical. Cathy was originally thinking of using the beautiful Butterfly Garden panto & it would work but I just feel this quilt is calling out for something more. We shall see where we end up!
July 19: Between intermittent phone and internet service today, Cathy & I finally managed to have a phone conversation & agreed on a tentative plan. Cathy loves the whole cloth sample I did for Joan what seems like ages ago but was just last year. I want to draw it up in IQ this evening and see how it looks on her quilt  (too intense).I still have other ideas cooking in the back of my mind too.
July 20: Oh the possibilities! I worked through the night and all day today devising a layout for this quilt. At day's end, we have a solid plan including thread.
July 21: Couldn't leave it alone. Had to do one more. All three are posted here but we are going with the last one. This design will take no more time to sew than an average pantograph but more time is needed for all the stops and starts and tying off the thread from one block to the next. It does take a lot more time to plan & program IQ but programming of any flavor is playtime for me. I love doing it especially when a quilt calls for it.
   I have to applaud Cathy. It is a tedious & intensive process (not my dictation) to get a good plan. The last customer I tried to do this with couldn't handle the process so after more than a week of working on it, we ended deciding to just return the quilt top. Not good but it happened. Cathy understands I do this for fun and the other dear woman just couldn't get past the time it was taking for she was so focused on the money aspect.Hear me! I am not hung up on making money but on making beautiful quilts! This was NOT Cathy's request but my idea which she has embraced. That's what makes it fun & worth the time and effort!! Now if I can just pull it off.
Aug 05: Ready to iron and load the backing. As I iron the top, I will double check the dimensions I programmed into IQ to be sure the pattern will fit within the corresponding quilt top areas. If I get this done today, I will be happy. We shall see.
Aug 06: The quilt is prepared and it is time to start pinning. The top is perfectly square with consistent measurements throughout. What I hope to do should work beautifully. Well, my programmed dimensions are too small so I am making adjustments. IQ pattern is ready now & I am loading...Didn't get far--only top of the backing. Went to get the batting out to cut what I needed. In the process I dropped the edge of the box of batting on my toe. Didn’t think any more about it except “oh well, another bruise” until I stretched out the batting along the rail and then went back to grab the tape measure to mark off 90”. I saw huge blood drops everywhere I had been walking (none on the roll of batting at my feet thank goodness). My toe nail was black & red. It felt loose to the touch so I disinfected it, wrapped it to stop the bleeding and called to see if I could get to the FastMed Urgent Care Walk-In Clinic in time. Just barely. The nail is still in place for now & no pain since the blood could (and did) get out from under it. Antibiotics and keep it clean and wait to see whether the whole nail falls off or reattaches. I feel fortunate … and silly that batting battled my toe and won! Not exactly. It was the box full of 40 yards of batting that did. I live to walk and quilt another day.
Aug 07: Everything is loaded. The consistent measurements I so carefully checked while preparing the top for loading are different now that the top is loaded. I worked with it awhile tonight as I hoped to do the top two borders. Decided this is a challenge for tomorrow!
Aug 08: Re-sized everything again. After quilting the hummingbird & flower border, I added a very simple border above it to take up the slack. (Stars would not look good here. LOL.) Tomorrow I tackle the quilt center with those beautiful blocks.
Aug 09: A day packed with threatening thunder storms, I nonetheless started on the center blocks. It is going to be a very tight fit when I start rolling the quilt. Since the loaded dimensions were larger than before, my plan is stretched to the max I can quilt in one roll of the quilt. Maybe for once I will get lucky but I am afraid I will have a nightmare on my hands by the time I reach the bottom rows of the center. Guess I could unload and load it upside down it spacing is too tight. HA! Where there is a will strong enough there is a way. And so I have finished the the first of 5 center rows. Yes!
Aug 10: Completed the center of the center of the quilt which is row 3 of 5. All the rest is repetition from here on. I will certainly be shipping this quilt Monday. (Knew I shouldn't have written this.)
Aug 11: Took the day off from quilting.
Aug 12: I really want to finish this today. We shall see. Gone quilting. Finished row 4 of the center. One more to go. I know now for certain that the pattern will fit. Will the thread hold out is the next concern. The center is completed.Bottom borders are done & I have unloaded the quilt. Next I will turn it 90 degrees and reload it to do the side borders. Shouldn't take long.
Aug 13: Reloaded and got the main left border done when I ran out of thread. I had already ordered an over night shipment early this morning. I have used a lot of King Tut since ordering a spool in every color I didn't already have. Only problem is that a spool is just not enough for large quilts. At this rate, I will soon have a cone of every spool I have used on a quilt. LOL. Such is longarming. Also explains why I don't charge for thread--it is just too hard to know how much is needed.
Aug 14: The thread came in on time & I finished all the side borders. When I checked the back, I simply was not satisfied with some of the tension. I am redoing that now.
Aug 15: Redid 5 of the side borders & it looks far better now. Not satisfied with the bed pictures so will try again in the morning light. Should be a bit better. Clearly this is not a double bed size quilt & that doesn't help. I'm tired.
Aug 16: I posted so many pictures because each one shows something different depending on the angle the lighting.