Jen's Wedding Ring Quilt - Quilted 05/20, Bound 06/07/13

This quilt was commissioned by Jen Kwasniewski.
Terrie McCoy pieced it.

After piecing the backing & custom quilting, I will finish with hand binding.

Now that the quilting is finished and the quilt removed from the frame, it has a wonderful 3-D effect.

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That is a WHOLE LOT of QUILT !!! My table is 10'. There are 7 x 8 = 56 blocks that need the main block design & 127 melons that get the little curly design.

Mar 15: Quilt is on the way here for longarming. Jen will send backing to match the top. Played with a mini-layout to show Jen what we need to be thinking about. I have these patterns but there are lots of DWR sets available.
Mar 18: The quilt top is here. Unlike Terrie's photos, there is no border for quilting. Since the quilt is folded right side in, I am not going to unfold it now. Just folded back one corner...
Apr 25: Measured the quilt & shopped for backing. 
Apr 26: Ordered the backing.
Apr 27: Whole quilt top photos. Tweaked the design a bit & expanded to reality size.
May 01: The backing is here but it doesn't match the top.
May 06: The new backing arrived.
May 10: Piecing the backing. The backing is ready and draped over the frame ready to load. The batting is also ready.
May 11: The back is loaded. Now for preparing the top. This will be time consuming because the solid colors at the points where the circles meet ravel like crazy & they must NOT show through the white--the veins would look horrible. I will trim them as I press and then also be trimming them again as I go each time I roll the quilt. No doubt I will still miss a few but it won't be for lack of trying & lots of TLC. The top is now loaded too. Basting the top & sides is next.
May 12: Basted. Though I was ready to quilt but everything is sized wrong. Back to designing.
May 13: Sorry, just couldn't work.
May 14: Quilting has started. 3/4 of the first row of circles done. I suspect I will need to use transparent thread to stitch around the colored squares but will wait until everything else is done.
May 15: Made some progress but very little.
May 16: Finally starting to feel a bit better. I have documented through pictures the process I am doing. You can judge how close I am or am not coming to what I what. Got row 2 finished today. Any more photos will just be redundant as I forge ahead.
May 17: Only rolled the quilt basted the next row.
May 18: What a miserable week. Got row three done today - only took 4 hours!!!  Yikes! And now I am drained again. HA! Got another row done in only 3 hours. This means I am half way.
May 19: Row 5 done in 2.5 hrs! Row 6 now finished too.
May 20: Quilting is finished. Binding is ready to attach.

May 21: I went in to attach the binding & didn't like what I was seeing. It doesn't look right to me with no quilting outside the rings. Spent the day seeing what I could come up with. One option is black instead of white binding. Another is to trim the inch or so of white down to 1/2 inch. If I add quilting, I first have to add a thrown away border so I can reload the quilt. What to do? Think I will just leave this alone for awhile.
May 22: Have now seriously considered a scalloped border but I can't do one. Jen does like the idea of black binding so I bought some shiny black fabric today for that. I think I am going to reload and fill-in some quilting outside the rings & then bind it in black--a lot of work but this quilt is worth it. Wish me success! I have attached extensions to the top & bottom of the quilt & reloaded.
May 23: In the wee hours of the morning, I came up with a final plan for the edges. This one I like. I have it all worked out in my mind how I am going to do this. And I am going to try to attach the binding using the longarm so I don't have to wrestle with this very large and heavy quilt.
May 24: Started quilting the edging.
May 25: Finished the edging. Prepared and attached the binding. Ready to do the hand work.
May 29: No news means I am binding as I get a chance.
Jun 07: Binding is done.
Jun 15: Jen is coming today to pick up her quilt.