VAST

Yes, the quilt I am about to show you is VAST - in size that is. Coming in at 110" x 115" this is for sure the biggest quilt that I have made.

The inspiration for this quilt was the fabric. I wanted to make a King Sized quilt (for my naked bed) that would be a showcase for some of my very favorite fabric. The cull continues. Leah Duncan Morning Walk made it finally to the cutting table. Mmmmm Art Gallery.

HSTs are one of my very favorite quilting blocks. In Jeni Bakers book The Half-Square Triangle she has a pattern for a Vast Quilt, which is basically large HSTs. Perfect! I cut my HSTs as large as my yardage would allow and I was off!

Because this quilt was so large, I chose to once again apply a Quilt As You Go method to my quilting. I have had lots of questions about how I approach QAYG so I documented my steps along the way....

My QAYG Process

Once I had my HST blocks made I determined that a manageable "chunk" for quilting was three rows. My quilt had nine rows in total, so that easily broke down into three QAYG sections.

Once I had the three sections pieced, I cut batting for each section, with the batting extending 1-2 inches beyond the top on all sides.

Now one of the benefits (to me anyway) of QAYG is the minimal amount you need to baste. Once I had those long sections layered with batting I wondered about the need to baste at all! Could I really get away with no basting?  So I experimented with one section. Laying a batting and quilt top section on the table and taking my time smoothing things out and rolling the section into a tube for transportation to the sewing machine.

It worked! There was minimal shifting that I could easily manage while I quilted.

I quilted straight lines, with my favorite mustard thread and ended up with sweet quilted sections.

Once all the sections were quilted, I trimmed away the excess batting and the joined them together using a 1/4 inch seam. I pressed these seams open to reduce any bulk.

Now I had a completely quilted top! Time to make a backing.

Now here is where you still need to baste! Baste using your preferred method - pins, spray basting etc.

I laid my top on my deck, right side down, gave it a good spray baste and applied my backing (sections at a time). My deck was just one foot too short to hold this whole beast. Note to build bigger deck next time!

Once your top and back are basted you do need to "tack" the back to the top. So basically you need to quilt it, but you just don't have so much to do. What I chose to do is at every third quilting line I added another one which quilted through all three layers. You really just need to use your judgement about how far apart you make your "tacking" quilt lines, but for this project, that spacing was enough to hold everything together well.

So I did have to get that big heavy thing through my machine, but only 10 or 15 times instead of 50! So I consider this a win!

Next step, trim your excess backing and bind!

I didn't have enough Leah Duncan for binding but this Heather Bailey True Colors number was perfect. You now have a giant quilt and your back  and shoulders are hopefully saved a little!

You can see in this picture the two types of different quilting lines, QAYG and tacking. And below the tacking lines from the back.

 ps I am so happy I had enough pieces and bits to make a backing from my stash!

Well there you have it. Another quilt using the fabrics I thought would disappear if I cut them up. The opposite happened, now I see them every day! Time to dig out those hoards and break out the scissors my quilty people!

Bye for now
Adrienne