San Marco BOM

Happy Monday Quilters!!!   If any of you know Lynn Schmitt from a different box of crayons, then you know she does the most fabulous BOMs every year.  They are saturated with color, with texture with all sorts of materials from quilting cotton, to silks to home dec fabrics.  And this is Kim Rogers version of San Marco.  If you know Kim, you know there's going to be a beachy vibe and this one did not dissappoint. She changed up the center medallion, the bird and the border and made this her own.  Wow, the silks shimmer and shine don't they?  Ok so lets see if we can talk about the quilting of this beast a little.

San Marco BOM from A Different Box of Crayons

I'm not gonna lie, it was tough!!  Usually you have a theme that you can pull through a quilt so that once you get the first block or two done, then it's a breeze and just execution.  With this quilt there were multiple areas that needed design  which was different from other areas so it felt a little like design, quilt, design, quilt, repeat.  So here's how I tackled it.

First it's a custom job so I loaded sideways.   There is is some extra stuffing in the buds (can you say puffy sleeves) and I don't float quilts that are larger than a baby quilt, so the buds and the vines went first.   The first border with the black and white sqaure in square block was easy. They are very graphic simple design but the quilting won't so up  well so just a continous curve along the outside and the middles did the trick.  Of course we need feathers, it's a bird quilt after all!  so simple feathers in the colored triangle. So far so good!

Next we move to the vine areas.  We have the paper pieced triangles which only get continous curve and straightlines in the background easy peasy yet very effective.  The background of the vines I always new was going to be a feathery, leafy swirly background fill.  The buds, well nothing needed there!  The quilting on the leaves I talked about last week.  The leaves on the vine were a unique shape, I didn't have any rulers for those curves so I just marked the vein free hand, making sure they were all similar and I think they look nice, leafy just like they should be! Then the last of the easy things...the dark blue border which I really wanted to enhance the frame and have that linear break from  free flowing vines.   Three lines 1/8 inch apart, then 1/2 space did the trick.  And then things start to get a little tougher...more design elements, more quilting designs needed. 

And then things start to get a little tougher...more design elements, more quilting designs needed.  I started with the Medallion.  I really get a 3D vibe when I see the medallion.  I wanted the quilting to bring out some of that as well.  I chose lines 1/4 in  then 1/2 in at the same angle as the seam.  The thread just sank into that wool!! I didn't want too much quilting on any of the silks so they didn't loose that shine.  

Then we go on to the blocks surrounding the medallion.   I wanted those quilted densely to help with the 3D illusion of the medallion.  I just carried through the background fill from the vines but also leaving a few of the silk triangle unquilted.  They just shimmer in the light!!  On the blue postage stamp areas (and the rust in the next set of blocks,) I filled the blocks that weren't silk with match stick quilting and left the silk unquilted.  That rust color silk, it just looks like copper on that quilt doesn't it?

Next we have the last set of colored blocks.  These I thought were a bit easier to design, it just needed the arrows and  a little fill for texture.  I kept the same arrows in both the gold and the rust color blocks.  In the setting triangles, just keeping it simple with a little crosshatch and some feathers, similar to the colored triangles on the first border.  Pulling the designs through.  

The hardest part for me to stitch was the bird!!!  This is a beautifully collaged peacock with a layer of tulle over it to keep the pieces all in place (Susan Carlson has some great tutorials and suggestions on this).  But I dunno about you, but I can't remember the last time I've done a custom quilts and not taken out stitches.  Not only that but you can't take stitches out of tulle, seam rippers and tulle are not the best of friends! You have to do that from the back and I had no idea how that would work or what would happen.  So, I just knew that whatever stitches went in were staying and there were no redos.  I wanted less quilting on the bird as he is a similar color to the border, so I wanted, puffy and cruve to differentiate between the linear and dense.  This is what we got.  It took a lot of staring before those first stitches were sewn!

I love Kim's embroidery on the Peacock

The final border was more of the same, a vine with the same leafy, feathery feel from the vines.  I do wish I would have made the fine 1/2 in thick rather than a single thread.   But by the time I go to that I just wanted to be done!!  I added a small bud in the corner, but no puffy sleeves!!  

I used mostly 60wt glide thread.  I did switch to a smoke colored invisible thread for the bird. Two layers of batting, Quilters Dream Blend with Wool on top.  It's very difficult to see the thin thread on the home dec and wool fabrics.  I think I may go with a 40 wt thread when I do mine.  Yep I have one too, mine is a little different from Kims. We both made ours our own.    I can't wait for the next one!

I'd love to hear about your quilting adventures how you decide to do certain things.  Leave  your name and a link to your post and I'll be sure to check it out.

Take a look at  linky parties on the side bar, so much inspiration out there.