Kimono Quilt

My kimono quilt is finished! Man was it hard. Free motion quilting this whole thing on my little sewing machine was quite a challenge. And freehand too. Next time I'm definitely using the washable pen to draw out my quilting patterns first. And I need to get one of those tables that the sewing machine sinks into so I won't be dealing with the added stress of the quilt hanging off the machine. I don't know how I'm going to get that huge napping quilt done in that tiny bernina.

Some details for the quilters out there... I ended up not using high loft batting like I had originally envisioned and went with your standard cotton batting. I used thread colors that blended into the fabrics instead of contrasting. I wasn't sure about this at first but now that I see it across the room hanging on the wall I'm glad I did because it is very striking. I used a pillowcase binding because I didn't want a frame around the design. I was happy that I wasn't going to have to deal with binding on this one but the pillowcase deal was still tricky - trying to get it to lay flat and not have the backing show over the edges. I came up with different quilting designs for each of the sections. I used a big swirly floral pattern for the Nani Iro fabric sections. I made the design more loosey goosey on the top section and tighter on the bottom. The gray I did a wavy lily pad sort of thing, the red an abacus bead design and just stripes on the top and bottom sections. Which of course was the hardest part! I should have taped them out like they showed us in class. Shoulda woulda coulda... this quilting takes a lot of practice!

Here's a picture before it went through the washer.