Little Monsters Quilt, Done and Delivered

I know it's been a long while since I posted here.   We had a death in the family, our son joined the U.S. Air Force only to be medically discharged 8 weeks later(much angst involved in that one!), our house sold, our Tin Can Cabin sold and we moved all our belongings to a rental home, my mom took a terrible fall and is still recovering months later from fractures and other issues............and those are just a few of the things we have lived through this last 6 months.  So, I apologize for such a lengthy space in between blogs.

Whew!   But, all is calm now and I'm baaaack.   Here are some pics of the previously much mentioned Monster Quilt, which I somehow got completed despite all our recent craziness.

 I just love the bright colors and all the details in the monsters, the triangle border pieces and the quilting.  The center panel has 12 monsters in amongst the hundreds of varying sized circles.   Surrounding the panel are four different borders and then the large outside border is made up of strips of fabrics sewn together and then cut out as triangles and sewn to a wide white border.   See the small triangles randomly placed around the quilt edges?   More on those in a minute.

 The monsters were so much fun to make.   Choosing fabrics from my stash was a blast as I tried to capture a different personality for each little guy.   Good thing I have lots of stash!

 They all got topstitched in matching threads and their smiles were made using a tight zigzag in black thread.

 Then after the quilt was "sandwiched" with backing and batting, I used "swirly" free motion quilting in between all the circles and monsters.

Here's a close up view of the multiple fabrics required to make up each triangle in the border.   They were blanket stitched down in dark blue thread and then I used white thread to free motion stitch tight swirls in the white relief areas behind the triangles.   Now THAT part took a really long time.  You can see one of the three dimensional triangles I mentioned earlier peeking out of the upper left hand of the photo.

 Jarrad and Dawn, our son and daugher-in-law were really excited to finally see the quilt in its completed state(it's their youngest son, Nate, who is the recipient of the quilt).   Good grief, I've only been talking about finishing this thing for almost a year now!

 This is one of the outer corners with layered circles stitched in spirals to hold the three layers of the quilt together.   A darker bright blue anchors the quilt as the binding around the edges.  And I couldn't believe my luck when I came across this circle fabric in my colors!!!!!    It became the perfect fabric for the back of the quilt.

 Nate likes to fondle soft fabrics to soothe himself as he falls asleep.  So, I used some hand painted silk pieces I had in my stash and created three dimensional triangles and inserted them strategically around the quilt edges.   They are so smooth and soft and he found them right away upon his first inspection of the quilt.  

 

Jarrad had to give the quilt a test run, making certain it was up to standard for Nate before taking it home.  Ha!     I think it passed the test.......

 

 All I can say is that I don't think I have enjoyed making a quilt more than I did this one.   Hats off to the designer, Kellie from Don't Look Now! in Melbourne, Australia for an awesome pattern.   She has quite an imagination, wouldn't you say?

Wait'll you see the quilt I'm going to be working on for myself over the next few months.   It's a real brain teaser.  Until then,
Debbie